Final Reflection-What help can we give a parent who seems at risk to become an abuser?

Researching the topic of child abuse was a very crazy experience. I've learned so many different things about this topic that I never would have guessed. I really became interested in the topic of child abuse after reading the newspaper everday. Every week, I would see an article about a parent or guardian of a child abuse them. While watching the news or talk shows, there are topics of child abuse or child pedophilles. Seeing this, I noticed that this was becoming a big issue and I wanted to know why parents did these things to their children and I wanted to know what help could we give to someone who may feel that they might become a possible abuser.
I learned about how many children in the U.S that have been abused is a higher number than most people think. For example, I learned that it is 3 times more likely for children to be physically abused by the father and is 15 times more likely to occur when spousal abuse is present in the home. Each year, between 1,000 to 2,000 children that die from child abuse. 80% of these children are under 5 years of age and more than 40% are under 1 year old. when I read these stats, I couldn't believe how frequently this happens and how quiet of a subject this is.
While looking up the answers to my questions, I learned that there are signs that an abusive parent shows that most everyday people overlook. For example, the parent may not trust anyone with the child, seem to show no concern for the childs wellfare, over or under-reacts to the childs need or when questioned and expects or demands for the child to act older than their age. Looking up the signs of abusive parent was actually a hard topic to find. I had to change my question in the search engine to find the list that i found.
Looking for what causes the abuse wasnt that difficult to find. I ccouldnt find exactly the causes of child of abuse but at " A Childs Voice.com" I found several different causes of child abuse. Some of the causes that were listed were frustration, parental inexperience, and difficult behavior. Frustration is the number one cause of child abuse in infants five months and younger. the parents may not be able to handle dealing with the infants crying for example. Parental inexperience goes along with frustration and is found mostly in teenage parents. They are children themselves who are stressed over the dramtic changes in their lives. With difficult behavior, these children are more likely to be abused because their parents tend to be more high tempered.
I also looked to find what exactly parents get out of abuse. Finding a answer to that question was unseccesssful. I went to many sites on the internet and couldnt find an exact answer to that question. All I could find was causes of abuse.
While doing research for this project, I came across a couple of episodes of "The Tyra Show". She did an episode about new moms who felt that they may want to abuse their child. I also seen an episode on child pedophilles. On the episode showing the could be abusive moms, I learned that these moms begin to feel abusive due to post parton depression. They feel overwhelmed and stressed because of having to deal with the new responsibilty of being a mom. Child pedophilles prey on children because they (most of the time) have been abused themselves as a child. They also prey on children because of control issues. They probably dont have control over a lot of situations in their lives. With children, rather if the are taking pictures of them, or sexually abusing them, they have full control over the situation.
In conclusion, I found the answer to the question "What help can we give a parent who is at risk to becoming an abuser?" We could talk to the parent first to see if there is anything we could do to help. For example, maybe babysit for them while they go out or rest. The person could also talk to the child(ren) to see why they may be being disruptive. It could be a problem going on with the child. But if the child is physically or sexually being abused, the person needs to go to the proper authorities.
Doing this assingment really opened my eyes to see how much of a problem in society that child abuse is. This happens more than people think it does. People may read the newspaper or watch the news and see chidren being abused. But no one thinks of the children who are being abused everyday that have not been found out about yet. There are more and more children being abused everyday meaning more and more and more are dying every year. I plan to use this information later on in life while furthering my schooling. I want to be a child psychiatrist to help these children and parents so this epidemic can be stopped.