How to Help Victims of Child Physical Abuse

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Learn about the emotional and behavioral consequences that physical abuse can have on children and how to treat them.

Intervening when physical abuse is identified not only involves working with the perpetrators of the abuse but also includes treating the wide-ranging emotional and behavioral consequences that physical abuse can have for children. For example, it is common for children to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of physical abuse. Providing these children with anxiety management techniques and psycho-education about family violence can be a useful intervention for these symptoms. Play therapy can also be helpful in providing children with an opportunity to express and work through the painful emotions that may be contributing to anxiety, depression, or behavioral difficulties.

Often, those children who have been physically abused need help expressing their anger in appropriate ways. For these physically abused children, interventions include:

• teaching them relaxation techniques
• engaging them in role-playing exercises
• providing them with supervised group interactions and feedback

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  helping them identify the signs of anger early in order to prevent inappropriate outbursts

Children who exhibit difficulties in their relationships with peers and adults as a result of their abuse can benefit from social skills training that teaches them how to have positive interactions with other children and come up with solutions to problems and ways of handling negative social situations. Another useful intervention with children who have poor peer relationship skills pairs them with children who have been identified as having strong social skills. These children then engage in positive play activities together with the expectation that the less socially-adept children will begin to behave in more appropriate ways towards their peers.

While mental health professionals deliver the majority of these interventions, school personnel can also be brought in to help with both the academic deficits and behavioral problems that can result from a history of abuse.

Sources:

• Administration for Children and Families
• National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information
• National Institutes of Health
• National Library of Medicine
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect

next: What Types of People Physically Abuse a Child?