Maltreatment and Violence in the Family

Flashcards for reviewing key concepts related to maltreatment and violence in the family.

Family violence

Encompasses a range of abusive behaviors, including physical, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse, as well as neglect.

Child Maltreatment

Associated with stress and has been linked with the unability of a family to handle external and internal stressors.

MALTREATMENT

The “willful injury by one person of another” It takes many forms: physical or emotional maltreatment, neglect or sexual maltreatment, intimate partner violence and maltreatment or violence of the elderly.

Special Parent

Parents who were previously maltreated as children may have less self-control than others

Special Child

Children who are more or less intelligent than other children in the family, unplanned, or may not live up to their parents’ expectations in some way

Special Circumstance

A response to an event that would not necessarily be stressful for an average parent.

Physical Maltreatment

The action of a caregiver that causes physical injury to a child. It is commonly revealed by burns or by injuries to the head or hands.

Mark of Maltreatment

The injury is out of proportion to the history given by the parent or caregiver

Shaken Baby Syndrome

A whiplash injury to the neck, edema to the brainstem, possibly subdural hemorrhage, and distinctive hemorrhages to the retinas caused by shaking a small infant by the arms or shoulders.

Ritual Maltreatment

Cult based or religiously, spiritually, or satanically motivated and typically involves physical, sexual, or psychological maltreatment with bizarre or ceremonial activities

Physical Neglect

A more subtle form of maltreatment than physical maltreatment, but it can be just as damaging to a child’s welfare. Examples include: Inadequate supervision, lack of basic needs, and unsafe living conditions.

Psychological maltreatment

Includes constant belittling or threatening, rejecting, isolating, or exploiting a child or is the absence of positive parenting.

Munchaunsen Syndrome by Proxy

Refers to a parent who repeatedly brings a child to a health care facility and reports symptoms of illness when, in fact, the child is well.

Failure to Thrive (Reactive Attachment Disorder)

A unique syndrome in which an infant falls below the 5th percentile for weight and height on a standard growth chart or is falling in percentiles on a growth chart.

Sexual Maltreatment

Any sexual contact between a child and an adult. It involves the coercion towards developmentally immature children or adolescents in engaging to sexual activities.

Molestation

Involves oral-genital contact, genital fondling and viewing or masturbation towards a child.

Pedophile

An adult who seeks pre-pubescent children(younger than 12 years old) for sexual pleasure

Hebephile

An adult who seeks pubescent children(around 11 to 15 years old)

Incest

Sexual activity between family members, violating cultural norms and leading to significant stigma.

Rape

A sexual activity such as intercourse or penetration of a body orifice by a penis or other subject under actual threatened force.

Statutory Rape

A sexual activity with a person under the age of consent

Sexual Assault

Used to refer other forced sexual acts, such as oral-genital or anal-genital acts.

Date Rape

A situation where an individual forces a date into having coitus despite a voiced unwillingness or inability to consent.

Flunitrazepam (Rohypnol)

A benzodiazepine used to treat insomnia and assist with anesthesia before surgery and has led to an increase incident of date rape.

Rape Trauma Syndrome

A form of posttraumatic stress syndrome that occurs in two stages: Disorganization Phase & Reorganization Phase.

Silent Rape Syndrome

If victims do not report rape and therefore receive no counseling

Intimate Partner Violence

A type of maltreatment by a family member against another adult living in the household, such as a spouse or significant other.

Tension-Building

The offender displays actions such as anger, arguing, and blaming the victim for external problems or for provoking the violence.

Acute Violence

Triggered by a response from the intimate partner or by an external crisis and can result in extreme physical harm to the victim.

"Honeymoon” Phase

Characterized by kind and contrite behavior, follows the violence, lulling the victim into forgiveness and a wish to continue the relationship.