Reasons Why

Reflecting on the TedTalk and this weeks readings, it's no surprise that resilience is so hard to achieve for maltreated children.  First, if the maltreatment occurs during a crucial period of development, and persists for a long time, the child will likely suffer lifelong effects.  We know how important our attachment style is and if the abuse occurs in the home by the very people who are supposed to love and protect that child, this creates an insecure attachment which then will trickle through their life in all of their relationships if not healed with the help of professionals.  Moreover, many children who experience maltreatment also experience a multitude of contextual factors as well such as low SES, parents who abuse drugs, lack of social support and more.  The cumulative effect of the circumstances coupled with the abuse make the chances of being resilient in all domains near impossible for most children.  Abuse is also linked to adverse health outcomes in adults who have been maltreated as well.  According to one study, sufferers from CSA were almost 4 times as likely to be obese, diabetic, or have coronary heart disease and over 4 times as likely to have depression, anxiety or other mental illness diagnosis. This illustrates the magnitude in which the abuse touches the lives of those maltreated.  Not only is it emotionally, mentally, and physically, it changes the very composition of their bodies.    

 The best way to help these children on the road to resilience is to address the situation from a systems perspective, including the child, their family, and societal factors such as the school as well.  The children who show the most resilience often are helped from a multitude of areas, slowly changing the structure of their environment.  To help these children there must be a deep level of empathy, resourcefulness and compassion.  I believe prevention and intervention is key in changing the lives of these children before they reach adulthood.  According to another study about the accuracy of the adverse childhood experience assessment,"results suggesting that each additional adverse experience a child experiences increases the risk of becoming a serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offender by 35"(Hahn Fox et al.).  If we know that children who experience these adverse events such as child abuse may eventually become criminal offenders, and the more adverse events they experience the higher the odds become, it's reasonable to suggest immediate intervention is necessary in order to help these children become resilient and to live a more normal life.      
Sources:
https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezp.twu.edu/science/article/pii/S0145213419300894

 Hahn Fox, B., Perez, N., Case, E., Baglivio, M. T., & Epps, N. (2015, February 19). Trauma changes everything: Examining the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and serious, violent and chronic juvenile offenders. Retrieved January 14, 2015, from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezp.twu.edu/science/article/pii/S0145213415000356?via=ihub


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