I get several emails a week from readers who are concerned about children in their family who are being abused and neglected. I always encourage these people to contact the child welfare department in their state. I know it is agonizing to look at a friend or family member and realize that they are not caring for their children properly. When you are close to the situation you question whether you are objective. This article is my plea for readers to get involved. If a family member is under a specific stress that is affecting their ability to parent, look for ways to help with the stress. If drugs or alcohol addictions are involved then try to convince the person to seek the professional help they need. If that doesn’t work then you are obligated to do what you must to ensure the physical and emotional safety of the children.
Friends, family and an involved community are the first line of defense against child abuse. We all know families under stress, single parents with financial problems, families struggling with alcoholism or any other addiction or young parents who lack maturity. Too often, we refuse to get involved because we are afraid. We are afraid that we will offend, that our help will be refused or that there really isn’t anything that we can do.
We can make a difference though. We just have to be willing to reach out and make time in our own busy lives to help someone else. I believe that most parents truly desire to provide safe, loving homes for their children. For some, though, it is a difficult path. The factors that lead to abuse are varied. The parents were abused themselves and are perpetrating a cycle. Poverty and lack of education can hamper a persons ability to parent and so can addictions and overwhelming stress.
There are no easy answers and this article is not meant to suggest that there are. This is just a plea for each one of us to step outside our own lives and families and reach out to someone else. We can prevent child abuse. We are each obligated to do everything that we can. Every child is our responsibility and it is time that we start taking that seriously.
I would like to encourage anyone who has any ideas over ways to prevent abuse and intervene on the behalf of children to contact me via email or post your suggestions here. This should be a forum for ways to make a difference and my hope is that it reaches someone somewhere and makes a difference for one child.
