Child Abuse and Its Manifestation

Abstract

Child abuse is damaging to a person’s psyche. Children experiencing trauma may respond to it differently. Thus, symptoms vary from physical, mental, emotional, social, behavioral, and psychological reactions. This study intends to ascertain child abuse and its manifestation among the children of the Arms of Love Children’s Home, Cortes, Bohol,  Philippines. It utilized a quantitative research design with the aid of a self-constructed questionnaire to gather the perceived symptoms of trauma among the sexually abused, physically abused, neglected, abandoned and surrendered children regarding their physical, mental, emotional, and interpersonal conditions, and the degree of variance among these symptoms. Results revealed that symptoms of trauma were differently manifested by the abused children in the form of physical, mental, emotional, and interpersonal conditions. On the physical conditions, the headache was most evident. Emotional responses to trauma were in the form of an eating problem, guilt feelings, confusion, and hypervigilance. Moreover, this study highlighted sexual and physical abuse as higher degree types of child abuse. However, other forms – neglected, surrendered, abandoned were not taken for granted for these are also detrimental to children’s life.