What Types of People Physically Abuse a Child?

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Children of single parents are at highest risk of being physically abused. Difficult children and caregivers with mental health problems also increase the risk of child physical abuse.

In the majority of cases of child physical abuse, a birth parent is found to be the perpetrator. Overall, physical abuse constitutes 22% of all child maltreatment in the United States.

The phenomenon of physical abuse is not limited to any specific subset of the population. Families from all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds engage in physical abuse, and children can be subjected to physical abuse regardless of their sex or age. However, certain social and demographic factors are correlated with higher levels of reported physical abuse. According to the Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, or NIS-3 (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996), children of single parents were 77 percent more likely to be harmed by physical abuse. This increased level of risk can be understood as a likely result of the stress and pressure of single parenthood.

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Single parents often find themselves socially isolated from sources of support that could help decrease the burdens of parenting, and they can also lack adequate models to help them make disciplinary choices that are less likely to lead to physical abuse. Additionally, compared to children from families earning more than $30,000 a year, children from families making less than $15,000 annually were almost sixteen times more likely under the harm standard and nearly twelve times more likely under the endangerment standard to experience physical abuse. Again, this finding is understandable given the association of low income with stressors that may lead parents to engage in discipline methods that are likely to become physically abusive.

In other studies examining risk for physical abuse of a child, it is clear than any conditions that increase distress for the family, parent or disrupt interaction between parent and child will increase risk for physical abuse. Such conditions include:

• children with complex medical problems or developmental delays
• children who are unwanted
• difficult" children who are hyperactive
• children whose caregivers are under significant life stressors
• caregivers who have mental health problems like major depression, addictions or schizophrenia
• caregivers that have unrealistic developmental expectations of children

Sources:

• Administration for Children and Families
• National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information
• Bakan, David (1971). Slaughter of the Innocents: A Study of the Battered Child Phenomenon. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
• Janko, Susan (1994). Vulnerable Children, Vulnerable Families. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

next: How to Help Perpetrators of Child Physical Abuse