Baby Research Project
Child abandonment occurs when a parent, guardian, or person in
charge of a child either deserts a child without any regard for the child’s
physical health or safety or welfare and with the intention of wholly
abandoning the child, or in some instances, fails to provide necessary care for
a child living under their roof. While child
abandonment typically involves physical abandonment such as leaving a child at
a stranger's doorstep when no one is home it may also include extreme cases of
emotional abandonment such as when a "work-a-holic" parent offers
little or no physical contact or emotional support over long periods of time.
Unfortunately, abandoned children who do not get their needs met often grow up
with low self-esteem, emotional dependency, helplessness, and other issues. A
person charged with child abandonment may face a felony or misdemeanor
penalties and other consequences. There is also a syndrome called Abandoned Child Syndrome which is a behavioral or
psychological condition that results primarily from the loss of one or both parents,
or sexual abuse. Abandonment may be physical (the parent is not present in the
child's life) or emotional. Parents who leave their children, whether with or without good reason, can
cause psychological damage to the child. This damage is reversible, but only
with appropriate assistance. Abandoned children may also often suffer physical
damage from neglect, malnutrition, starvation, and abuse. Abandonment experiences and boundary
violations are in no way indictments of a child's innate goodness and value.
Instead, they reveal the flawed thinking, false beliefs, and impaired behaviors
of those who hurt them. Still, the wounds are struck deep in their young hearts
and minds, and the very real pain can still be felt today. The causes of
emotional injury need to be understood and accepted so they can heal. Until
that occurs, the pain will stay with them, becoming a driving force in their
adult lives. The
abandoned child syndrome is not recognized as a mental disorder in any medical
manuals, neither is it part of the proposed revision of this manual, the DSM-5. Many countries, including Russia and China,
have an extremely high rate of physically abandoned children. A 1998 Human
Rights Watch committee report found that more than 100,000 children per year
were abandoned in Russia. Parents are separated from their children for many
reasons, including trouble with the law, financial insecurity, the child's
mental or physical challenges, and sometimes population control policies.
Involuntary loss of a parent, such as through divorce or death, can also create
abandonment issues. Some of the causes are when children are raised with
chronic loss, without the psychological or physical protection they need and
certainly deserve; it is most natural for them to internalize incredible fear.
Not receiving the necessary psychological or physical protection equals
abandonment. And, living with repeated abandonment experiences creates toxic
shame. Shame arises from the painful message implied in abandonment: "You
are not important. You are not of value." This is the pain from which people
need to heal. For some children abandonment is primarily physical. Physical
abandonment occurs when the physical conditions necessary for thriving have
been replaced by:
·
Lack of appropriate
supervision
·
Inadequate provision of nutrition and
meals
·
Inadequate clothing, housing, heat, or
shelter
·
Physical and/or sexual abuse
Symptoms may be physical or mental, and may extend into
adulthood and perhaps throughout a person's life. Today, abandonment of a child
is considered to be a serious crime in many jurisdictions because it can be
considered wrong (wrong in itself) due to the direct harm to the child, and
because of welfare concerns (in that the child often becomes a ward of the
state and in turn, a burden upon the public). For example, in the state of Georgia,
it is a misdemeanor to willfully and voluntarily abandon a child, and a felony
to abandon one's child and
leave the state. In 1981, Georgia's treatment of abandonment as a felony when
the defendant leaves the state was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme
Court. Many jurisdictions have exceptions to abandonment laws in the form of safe
haven laws, which apply to babies left in designated places such as hospitals. In
the UK abandoning a child under the age of 2 years is a criminal offence. In
2004 49 babies were abandoned nationwide with slightly more boys than girls
being abandoned. Abandonment is an epidemic in Malaysia, where between 2005 and
2011, 517 babies were dumped. Of those 517 children, 287 were found dead. In
2012, there have been 31 cases, including at least one instance of a child
being tossed from a window of a high rise apartment. Persons in cultures with
poor social welfare systems who are not financially capable of taking care of a
child are more likely to abandon them.
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