1.5: How Have Practices Changed?

How Have Practices Changed?

We have already learned in this chapter that much of the treatment of children in the past has been what we would now consider abusive or neglectful. How did society change? How have we progressed to view this treatment as inappropriate, and changed to stop it? No one incident can be cited, but we will discuss a few. As more adults became aware of how children were being treated, they realized that this was not fair or proper for the children. Childhood should be a time of learning and play, not slave labor and being used and disposed of by adults.

Author Charles Dickens spoke up for the protection of children. His family was unable to care for him as a young child, and he was sent to live in a workhouse at the age of 12. Much of his writing as an author was largely about child neglect and abuse in England in the 1800s. Much of it was autobiographical. His writings and speeches were published and distributed not only in England, but also in the United States. This broadened people's understanding of how children were being miss-used.

As some caring adults learned of the situations children worked in during child labor times, they, too, realized that this was inappropriate for children. This awareness led to action which resulted eventually in child labor laws. We will learn more about that throughout this text.

McCormack-MaryEllen 1874 Public Domain https://en.m.Wikipedia.org/wiki/File:McCormack-MaryEllen_001a.jpg

As has been previously discussed, historically, children were seen as property belonging to their parents. Animals, however, had laws to protect them. The society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA) was begun in New York City in the 1800s. There were laws to protect animals, but not children. In 1874, in New York City, a little girl named Mary Ellen lived with her father's wife and the wife’s new husband. The child was not properly cared for, and often left shivering outside in the winter. She was also beaten with a leather strap. There were no laws against cruelty to children, but this eight-year-old was eventually rescued citing laws prohibiting cruelty to animals. This was the first child abuse case prosecuted in the United States. This case led to shelters for women and children, family rehabilitation and reunification efforts. At first, these were provided by well-meaning citizens and social or religious groups. In 1912 the federal government established a children’s bureau to oversee the welfare of children. It was a global philosophy-based act, rather than looking out for individual cases of maltreatment. Later this evolved into what we now know as Child Protective Services. Originally, it was thought that abuse only happened to older children. In the 1940s - 1950s, physicians realized that this was not the case; in 1962 the term "battered child syndrome" became used; this helped publicize the problem. Identifying and defining this led to widespread acknowledgment by society.

"Little girl holding puppy, Nueva" by U.S. Agency for International Development is marked with CC0 1.0.

Once society recognized the problem of children being battered, it had to do something about it! Physicians may have been unaware of their legal obligations or unable to recognize parental abuse in prior times, but the 1970s led to increased training and education of physicians to be aware of their responsibility to children and families. In 1974 the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act was passed, mandating the reporting of child maltreatment by those who work with children. One Hundred years after the Mary Ellen case, the United States officially recognized the need to provide protection for children who were abused and neglected. As often happens, these laws have been added to and changed as time went on. They are continuing to change as we learn more.

Although the 1960s led society to be more aware of child abuse, sexual abuse was not widely studied until the late 1970s. Further studies and publications in medical journals helped educate professionals and society to a point that, by the 1980s and 90s, most people were aware that sexual abuse happens and what it is. This led to the realization that it was important to have schools involved in the prevention of child abuse. In the early 1980s the National Education Association commissioned a book entitled “Child Abuse and Neglect: An educator’s guide to recognition, reporting, and classroom management" (Tower, 1984) This led to schools becoming significantly more involved in helping to protect children from maltreatment, and in the reporting of suspected abuse and neglect. Enhanced training and expectations of reporting such circumstances now include medical, psychiatric, educational, criminal justice and legal professionals. Community organizations, churches and civic groups also now train and screen anyone who works with children. Awareness and communication is thought to be how we can mitigate child abuse and neglect in our society.