In this article, I ask about the roles other people can play in the lives of children who have experienced abuse and neglect. The smallest kindness helps.

1. Two Points to Ponder Regarding Child Abuse & Neglect:
The Smallest Kindness Helps
By Jane Gilgun
Summary
In this article, I ask about the roles other people can play in the lives of children who have
experienced abuse and neglect. This is an important question because few abused children
and their families receive professional services, either through voluntary participation in
family education and treatment programs or from child protection agencies. Far right
legislators have reduced budgets for services to families and children, which puts abused and
neglected children and youth at increased risk. The smallest kindness helps.
When Children Do Well
illions of children are abused and neglected each year in the United States. Most of
these children not only do not go on to perpetrate abuse and neglect themselves
but a large percentage appear to do as well and sometimes better than children
who were not abused and neglected. This suggests naturally occurring processes that help
some children do well despite adversities. They have shown resilience, or capacities to
cope with, adapt to, and overcome the effects of abuse and neglect.
M
Research and theory suggest that children who do well under difficult
circumstances have at least one parent who is emotionally available to the children and
provides the safety and security that children require to show resilience. Typically these
parents not only have capacities for secure attachments, but they also have supportive
relationships with other people, have good judgment, good capacities for keeping
themselves on an even keel emotionally, and have good coping skills. One of many studies

2. that support these ideas show that children exposed to domestic violence found that
children who showed resilience as compared to children who did not had fewer worries
and fears and mothers with better mental health and parenting skills (Graham-Burnam et
al, 2009, cited in Graham-Burnam & Howell, 2011).
These ideas do not mean abused and neglected children require no response from
other people. On the contrary, at least half or more children who are abused and neglected
have difficulty in a variety of areas, such as school work, forming friendships with other
children, and in developing their own interests and talents. This not only affects the quality
of their lives but it affects the quality of their contributions to the quality of life of others.
Since these children rarely receive any professional services, other people have roles to
play in the promotion of children’s resilience when they have experienced abuse and
neglect. In short, teachers, youth workers, child care professionals, friends, and neighbors
have roles to play.
What do you think these others can do?
Legal Definitions & Harmful Parental Behaviors
Another point to ponder is the differences between legal definitions of abuse and
neglect and children’s experiences of harmful parental behaviors. An example of this is the
legal definition of medical neglect, where the issue is framed as one of parental obligation
alone. When parents fail to provide needed medical treatment, they are liable to charges of
medical neglect (Dubowitz, 2011).
Dubowitz (2011) cited a case of a six year-old girl who had four hospitalizations for
severe asthma attacks. A week after discharge from her latest hospitalization, the child
appeared to be doing well at planned medical check-up. However, her mother had not
bought the prescribed medication for the child’s condition. The mother explained that she
was waiting for her next paycheck as she had no medical insurance. Her husband and the
child’s father had left the family three years before and paid no child support.
Who is responsible for the mother’s failure to provide her daughter with
medication?
Discussion
Well-functioning societies have high investments in children. The cutbacks in
services to children have placed far more children at risk than has been true in the past.
These cutbacks raise to the foreground something that has also been a fact of life. It takes a
village to raise a children. Not matter the state of funding for social services, families,
friends, neighbors, teachers, child care professionals, youth workers, police and people
from all walks of life can make positive contributions to families and children. The smallest
kindnesses help.

3. References
Dubowitz, Howard (2011). Neglect of children’s health care. In John E. B. Myers, John E. B.
(Ed.). The APSAC Handbook on Child maltreatment (3rd
ed.) (pp. 145-165). Sage:
Thousand Oaks, CA.
Gilgun, Jane F. (2010). Child sexual abuse: From harsh realities to hope. Amazon Kindle,
iBooks, Nook, and others.
Gilgun, Jane F. (2011). The NEATS: A child and family assessment. Amazon Kindle, iBooks,
Nook, and others.
Graham-Burnam, Sandra & Kathryn H. Howell (2011). Child maltreatment in the contest of
intimate partner violence. In John E. B. Myers, John E. B. (Ed.). The APSAC Handbook
on Child maltreatment (3rd
ed.) (pp. 167-180). Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA.
Myers, John E. B. (2001). (Ed.). The APSAC Handbook on Child maltreatment (3rd
ed.). Sage:
Thousand Oaks, CA.
Kidd, Sue Monk (2002). The secret life of bees. New York: Penguin.