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What is it?

The Children Act 1989 states that abuse should be considered to have happened when someone's actions have caused a child to suffer significant harm to their health or development.

Examples of significant harm are:

• punishing a child too much
• hitting or shaking a child
• constantly criticising, threatening, or rejecting a child
• sexually interfering with or assaulting a child
• not looking after a child - not giving them enough to eat, ignoring them, not playing or talking with them, or not making sure that they are safe

Other information

Children are usually abused by someone in the immediate family circle - it is very rare for a stranger to be involved,

What are the signs?

The are three main types of abuse - physical, sexual and emotional.

Physically abused children

• Being watchful, cautious, wary of adults
• Being unable to play and be spontaneous
• Being aggressive or abusive
• Bullying other children, or being bullied
• Being unable to concentrate, underachieving at school and avoiding activities which involve removal of clothers, e.g. PE
• Having temper tantrums and behaving thoughtlessly
• Lying, stealing, truanting from school and getting into trouble with the police
• Finding it difficult to trust other people and make friends

Sexually abused children

• Suddenly behaving differently when the abuse strts
• Thinking badly of themselves
• Not looking after themselves
• Using sexual talk or ideas in their play that you would usually only see in a much older child
• Withdrawing into themselves or being secretive
• Undersachieving at school
• Starting wetting or soiling themselves
• Being unable to sleep
• Behaving in an inappropriately seductive or flirtatious way
• Being fearful, frightened of physical contact
• Becoming depressed and taking an overdose or harming themselves
• Running away, becoming promiscuous or taking to prostitution
• Drinking too much or starting using drugs
• Developing an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia

Emotionally abused or neglected children

• Learning to walk and talk slowly
• Being very passive and unable to be spontaneous
• Having feeding problems and growing slowly
• Finding it hard to develop close relationships
• Being over-friendly with strangers
• Getting on badly with other children of the same age
• Being unable to play imaginatively
• Thinking badly of themselves
• Being easily distracted and doing badly at school

What can being abused lead to?

• Biploar disorder
• Depression
• Dissociative identity disorder
• Eating disorders such as anorexia
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Schizophrenia

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Although we have attempted to gather the information provided here from reputable sources, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the content. In particular please note that the information is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice. If any of the content of this site causes you concerns please seek further advice.