English for Social Workers: Abuse and bullying

Abuse and bullying – Study material

Abuse is the improper usage or treatment for a bad purpose, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit, physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, sexual assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; offense; crime, or otherwise verbal aggression. Abuse can come in many forms.

Violence is the expression of physical or verbal force against one or more people.

Child abuse is the physical, sexual or emotional mistreatment of children; any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver. Most child abuse occurs in a child’s home, with a smaller amount occurring in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with.

There are four major categories of child abuse: neglect, physical abuse, psychological/emotional abuse, and child sexual abuse.

Child neglect is where the responsible adult fails to provide adequately for various needs, including physical (failure to provide adequate food, clothing, or hygiene), emotional (failure to provide nurturing or affection), educational (failure to enroll a child in school), or medical (failure to medicate the child or take him or her to the doctor).
Physical abuse is physical aggression directed at a child by an adult. It can involve striking, kicking, shoving, slapping, burning, bruising, pulling ears or hair, choking or shaking a child. Shaking a child can cause shaken baby syndrome, which can lead to intracranial pressure, swelling of the brain; which leads to vomiting, lethargy, seizures, bulging, altered breathing, and dilated pupils. The transmission of toxins to a child through its mother (such as with foetal alcohol syndrome) can also be considered physical abuse in some jurisdictions.
Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent abuses a child for sexual stimulation.Forms of CSA include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities (regardless of the outcome), exposure of the genitals to a child, displaying pornography to a child, sexual contact against a child, physical contact with the child’s genitals, or using a child to produce child pornography.
The effects of child sexual abuse include depression,post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and physical injury to the child. Sexual abuse by a family member is a form of incest, and can result in more serious and long-term psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest. Child sexual abuse is also strongly connected to the development of addictive behaviour, complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.
Out of all the possible forms of abuse, emotional abuse is the hardest to define. It could include name-calling, ridicule, degradation, destruction of personal belongings, torture or destruction of a pet, excessive criticism.

Victims of emotional abuse may react by distancing themselves from the abuser, internalizing the abusive words, or fighting back by insulting the abuser.

Bullying, in general, is intentionally aggressive behaviour involving an imbalance of power or strength, usually repeated over time.

Traditional bullying can involve: