Child Neglect

There is a lot of talk about child abuse. There is a month set aside for child abuse awareness, laws and legislation, and a lot more talk about child abuse. While we need attention to child abuse, we also need attention shined on child neglect.

Child neglect makes up 78% of maltreatment cases, yet it is talked about the least. Child neglect is associated with a broader range of damage than active abuse. Science tells us that young children who experience significantly limited caregiver responsiveness may sustain a range of adverse physical and mental health consequences that produce more widespread developmental impairments than overt physical abuse. These can include cognitive delays, stunting of physical growth, impaired executive function and self-regulation skills, and disruptions of the body’s stress response.

Chronic child neglect is an ongoing, severe pattern of deprivation of a child’s basic physical, developmental, and/or emotional needs for healthy growth and development. Child neglect is more prevalent and difficult to resolve than other forms of child abuse. There are four types of neglect: physical, medical, emotional, and educational.

Physical neglect is the failure to provide necessary food, clothing, and shelter; inappropriate or lack of supervision. Physical neglect includes basic physical needs like food, clothing, and shelter but also stretches to include a safe environment in which to live, free of violence and avoidable harm. Additionally, physical neglect can refer to child abandonment, inadequate adult supervision of a child, and rejecting a child in such a way that they are expelled from the home.

Common signs that a child is not getting proper care could include:

• Inappropriate clothing for the weather (examples could include a child who never has a coat in the cold or who is wearing summer shoes in the snow).
• Poor hygiene (examples could include a regularly unwashed child, smells bad, or has uncombed hair).
• Ongoing poor health (examples could include a child that is often tired, ailing or sick).
• Delayed development (examples could include a child that struggles to meet their speech or motor skills development milestone during the appropriate time period).
• Underweight or overweight (examples could include a child who is severely underweight because of not receiving enough nourishment).

Medical neglect occurs when children are harmed or placed at significant risk of harm by gaps in their medical care. Medical neglect is most likely to occur and to be recognized when families lack resources, commonly due to poverty, and when medical demands are high, such as with complex, severe, and chronic illness. Some examples of medical negligence can include refusing or denying the child access to medical care in an emergency, refusing to support the child’s medical expenses for an acute illness, without good reason ignoring medical recommendations by a physician with regards to a treatable condition, and/or failing to administer medicine to the child as prescribed by a doctor.

Emotional neglect can be defined as a relationship pattern in which an individual’s affectional needs are consistently disregarded, ignored, invalidated, or unappreciated by a significant other. Parents may have trouble understanding their children’s needs for love, affection, closeness, and support, or they may feel too overwhelmed or powerless to meet these needs on a consistent basis.

For children, affectional neglect may have devastating consequences, including failure to thrive, developmental delays, hyperactivity, aggression, depression, low self-esteem, running away from home, substance abuse, and a host of other emotional disorders. These children feel unloved and unwanted. They may strive to please others, or they may misbehave to receive the attention they crave.

Educational neglect is a concept found in family law. It can be defined as the failure of a parent (or legal guardian) to provide for their child’s basic educational needs. For instance, when a child reaches a certain age (usually mandated by the laws of their state), that child must be either enrolled in school, home-schooled, or given necessary special education training.

It is entirely up to the child’s parents or guardian on which method to use, so long as the child is learning by the requisite age. Although this rule typically applies to younger children, it may also include any minors that are still dependent on their parents and are under the age of majority in their state (typically around 18 years old).

Arkansas state law declares the following actions to be neglect (this list does not include all punishable actions; for more info, call 501-682-8541):

• Failure to prevent abuse if the caretaker has reason to believe the child is being abused
• Failure or refusal to provide food, clothing, shelter, and education for the child
• Failure to provide necessary medical treatment, unless the responsible person is financially unable to do so
• Failure to protect the child from abandonment, abuse, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, neglect, or even another parent or guardian

Some guardians or caregivers may be unaware that they are neglecting their children. We can all do our part by trying to help children overcome neglect. If you notice a child that falls under any of these categories or suspects child abuse, please call the Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 1-800-482-5964.

If you or someone you know is neglecting or abusing their children and would like to talk or get parenting help, please call the Child Advocate at The Safe Place at 501-354-1884. The Safe Place hotline is 1-888-554-2501 or Perryville’s office at 501-889-2030.