Domestic Abuse

You know the newly engaged couple that moved in next door? Or the sweet, kind family of three kids, a stay-at-home mom, and a hard-working dad? Does anything seem to be out of ordinary when reading these descriptions? You probably think, “Oh, I don’t see anything wrong with that..?” True. But let’s look at this closely.  

Domestic abuse is the emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse of a person in a relationship with another human being. This does not always have to be a husband and wife or a boyfriend and girlfriend. It can be between fathers and daughters or sons, mothers and their children, or a relative and another relative. Domestic abuse is common in intimate relationships, not technically physically, for example, a father and daughter. 

The to-be-married couple next door is the perfect example of love. Smiles on both their faces when you see them outside, holding hands when they are walking to the corner store, or even hearing an “I love you” across the driveway before the guy leaves for work. Zoom in and fast forward towards night time. The woman is alone in her bed waiting for her fiance to come home from work. You see tears, feel the sorrow, and hear her screaming thoughts. She’s been abused. By her own fiance. It may sound shocking to you reading this, but it’s happened. 

What about the family of three kids, a wonderful house-mom and a diligent working father? Sounds too good to be true right? It could be. In fact, it just might be. Two of the kids playing outside with the bouncy ball don’t seem to notice their brother sulking in the corner of the lawn, screaming inside. They don’t notice the bruises on his arms or the black and blue of his eye. Yet, we see the mother. Hanging the laundry on the clothesline outside blatantly ignoring her son in the corner. Does she know? Possibly. Does she do something about it? Who knows. Meanwhile, the boy is tearing his brains out thinking, “Why does this have to happen to me? Out of all the people in the house, it happens to me?” Don’t you feel sympathetic towards him? I know I would. The father pulls in the driveway and kisses his wife hello, his two children with the ball with a piece of candy, and nothing to his son. Does anybody care? No, not really. 

What I’m trying to say is that even though from the outside things may LOOK perfect, what if they’re not? You wouldn’t be able to really know because you’re not in the privacy of the homes. But what if you did know? Ask yourself that question. What would I do to prevent this from happening? I’m not saying all households are like this. But there are cases of domestic abuse in a home where no one has seem to detect it from the outside. 

A group of friends of mine started a stance against domestic abuse in their school, Queen of Peace High School. They made goodie bags with candy and “Break the Domestic Abuse Silence” bands to pass out to the students of the school. It was inspirational and it showed how people can actually do something to make people more aware. 

What would you do? 

-Erika

Child Abuse & Child Help

Child abuse is a major topic because it can endanger or impair a child’s physical or emotional development. Every year there are 3 million reports made in the United States, but it is estimated that the actual number of incidents are 3 times larger than the reported amount (www.childhelp.org). We all know that being a kid should not be stressful; it should be fun and carefree. Unfortunately there are many kids that live in fear, neglect, and pain. Not only do they live like this but grow up feeling scared, helpless, or resentful. An important question as to why child abuse occurs is sometimes overlooked because we become more concerned about what has happened to the child. Now, it is effortless to say that child abuse is disgusting and immoral. However, in order to properly interpret and analyze what it is and why it takes place, we need to cast aside personal opinions because it has been discovered that many people who inflict these acts were victims of child abuse themselves or other types of maltreatment. An interesting statistic I found said that one third of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own kids and continue the awful cycle (www.childhelp.org).

It is obvious what types of effects child abuse has on a person. This type of abuse takes a big toll on a person mentally, emotionally, and physically. Many kids get bruises and scratches that can scar them forever; many lose their self-esteem because they are constantly being thrown around or looked down upon. Those abused as kids sometimes develop to be bad or aggressive adults. They can develop psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Others can develop problems such as alcohol or drug abuse or commit crimes. 36.7% of all women in prison and 14.4% of all men in prison in the U.S. were abused as children.
Child abuse is truly sad and affects so many people. Every year many kids die because of abuse but there can be a way to prevent it. Raising awareness is very important because it can educate people of how abused children can turn out to be. There are also several signs of child abuse that if seen, can be put to an end. Don’t wait around until something bad happens. Every kid deserves a chance to have a happy and normal lifestyle.

-Physical Signs of Child Abuse
1. Unexplained burns, cuts, bruises, or welts in the shape of an object
2. Bite marks
3. Anti-social behavior
4. Problems in school
5. Fear of adults
-Emotional Signs of Child Abuse
1. Apathy
2. Depression
3. Hostility or stress
4. Lack of concentration
5. Eating disorders
-Sexual Signs of Child Abuse
1. Inappropriate interest or knowledge of sexual acts
2. Nightmares and bed wetting
3. Drastic changes in appetite
4. Overcompliance or excessive aggression
5. Fear of a particular person or family member
-Signs of Neglect
1. Unsuitable clothing for weather
2. Dirty or unbathed
3. Extreme hunger
4. Apparent lack of supervision

- clare parilla

Learning about Emotional Abuse

Out of all the types of the abuse that exist, emotional abuse is the most commonly known and the most commonly overlooked. Emotional abuse is hard to detect because unlike the other abuses, this kind is suddle, not easily seen. A person can only detect that someone is being emotionally abused by listening or noticing any symptoms that arised from this abuse. Emotional abuse is used to make the targeted victim feel powerless. The bully is emotionally abusing the target simply to gain power and control. What people are not aware of is that there are up to four kinds of emotional abuse that exist: rejecting, degrading, terrorizing, and isolating.
The first emotional abuse, rejecting, consist of the neglect of someones feelings. The abuser does not acknowledge the victim's presence, feelings, or value. By rejecting the victim, the victim feels inferior from others. Their thoughts and what they feel seem to become useless and devalued to themselves. The next kind of emotional abuse is degrading, which is the typical case of bullying. The victim is constantly ridiculed, insulted, harassed, taunted, and mocked. These actions affect the target by making him or her feel worthless. The target loses all diginity that they once possessed. Another form of emotional abuse is terrorizing. Terrorizing helps the abuser gain complete control over the victim by keeping their victim in complete fear of them. The bully often uses verbal threats to keep their victim in fear of them and tend to come off as intimidating to the victim. The last kind of emotional abuse is isolating which is commonly seen in relationships between a couple. The alpha of an emotional abuse relationship that keeps his or her partner isolated often cuts off any contact that his or her partner may have with any outsiders. They are limited with their freedom and are confined to a certain space. Emotional abuse comes in many forms and can easily be detected if learned about. It should be taken seriously and never be overlooked by anyone.

-Kelsey

Environmental Abuse

Environmental abuse is often the most overlooked type of abuse. There are over 6 billion people in the world and alot of the time ourselves along with everyone else think it is okay to drop our garbage in the street, in the park, or out of the car window. Or that it is okay to put pesticides on our lawn to kill the most insignificant insects. Little do we know that the earth that we are polluting is the same earth that we are living. The air that factories pump dirty air into is the air that we will eventually breathe. And the pesticides that we put on our lawn will run off into our water supply that we will ultimately drink. 

These are just examples of things that represent environmental abuse. Some other examples of problems would be: (in addition to pesticides)dumping dirt or mulch in the street, dumping chemicals such as anti-freeze or oil in the street or down the gutters, and not picking up wastes from pets. All these are just a few of many environmental issues of which are taken lightly everyday.

Even though global warming (which is the overall increase of the earth's air and ocean temperatures) is well under way and will continue, there are numerous, and surprisingly easy ways in which we can help "go green".

- support local farms and buy food from them, that way we can cut down on gas emissions from 

nationally shipped produce.

- bring your own reusable tote bags when grocery shopping to save plastic and paper bags.

- invest in a water efficient shower head which is built to cut down on water usage.

- keep plants in your house, on your porch and in your backyard

- recycle your old cell phone (it is illegal to throw it away in New Jersey anyway).

- use compact flourescent lightbulbs (the squiggly ones), you will lower your electric bill and they will last longer.

- when hosting a party, have people write their name on plastic cups so they'll only use one.

- try using organic soap

- avoid drive-through windows so you don't have to keep your car running.

- turn off the light, open the blinds and use the sun to lighten the room.

Just doing a few of these things in your everyday life can help cut down the use of energy and remember to recycle and put your personal trash in the garbage. Conceivably i hope these tips helped. Thank you for reading and keep checking back to learn more about the different types of abuse.

- caitlin morris

Let Us Introduce Ourselves.

First and foremost, welcome to our blog. We are five students from Paramus Catholic High School, and we are here writing a blog assignment for our senior religion class. Our name? Four girls and one guy, since our group is made up of myself and three other girls, and one boy. Our Topic: Abuse.

Hopefully, we can work together to share with you our knowledge of abuse, the research we found, and learn from eachother on the difficult subject. There are so many different forms of abuse out there and just within our group while brainstorming we came up with atleast eleven or so kinds. But since each of us had to pick one it was difficult to choose because they are all important and problematic and everyone should be aware. As of now, each of us will take turns posting a blog about a class of abuse. We all hope to raise as much awareness as possible and we hope that by reading this you learn a thing or two.