Question

In at least 2-3 pages, please discuss the following:

1-What are the habits of healthy families?

2-What's the impact of abuse on children?

3-What factors build resilience in children?

4-How can faith/spirituality offset the impact of mistreatment for children?

Include a subheading per discussion question above for organization. Be sure to start with an intro paragraph on what the paper will cover and end with a summary paragraph on the main points covered and overall implications. Also, be sure to integrate at least one academic journal to support some of your comments.

Answer 1

Parenting or child rearing is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological. In this paper we are going to understand what are the habits of healthy family, what impact does abuse have on children along with- how to build resilience in children and lastly impact of faith/spirituality in mistreatment on children.

What are the Habits of a Healthy Family

There is a famous saying for a family habit that goes- ‘A family that eats together stays together.’ And this saying aptly lets a major point of eating together with your family rather than cooking and eating separately as also reported in the research ‘The benefits of Family table’ by American college of Pediatricians. Another point is planning vacations together this provides children with confidence that their choice and likes also matter in the family system rather than just obeying whatever is been said to them.

As great as it is to do things together as a family, it’s also inevitable that all members of a family will want some alone time — and that’s a healthy thing. Spending time alone allows a person to reflect, unwind, problem-solve and more. Especially in this age of connectedness, when everyone seemingly has a mobile device tethered to them, it’s important to allow each other to disconnect when they feel the need.

Another point to remember is listening to what your parent have to say and also listening what children have to say rather than just telling them what they have to do for better coordination and understanding within the family.

Relationship counselors will tell you that being open and honest with your partner is imperative to having a positive relationship. It’s the same with families, which are often an extension of an existing relationship. That’s why it’s critical to be honest with every member of a family. It’s especially important to not hide anything. If you’re a spouse and a parent, you want your partner and your children to be open and honest with you, so should you get into the habit of being open and honest with them.

The Impact of Abuse on Children

All forms of abuse and neglect have a harmful effect on children and young people. Children who suffer abuse or neglect feel most of the pain on the inside. Many children suffer low self-esteem and feelings of guilt, often blaming themselves for the abuse. Children can find it difficult to have trusting relationships and experience loneliness and bullying. Children often have feelings of hopelessness, hate, despair, misery, and rage, sometimes talking about feeling suicidal or self-harm. Research shows that children who have suffered abuse are more likely to have lower educational attainment and suffer from drug and alcohol dependency. Long-term physical and mental health difficulties including depression can be a consequence. Research shows that many individuals who commit serious offences suffered from abuse during their childhood.

As well as the impact of abuse and neglect on the child themselves, their family can also be affected with family members anxious and unsure about how to support a child who has been abused. A child’s behaviour and attitudes can be difficult to deal with, and families often struggle to know how to cope.

A Childline report

‘What children say about being abused’ (1995) notes:

‘Take any book describing the effects of domestic violence on women, replace women with children and it will describe the impact of violence on children. Bruises and cuts, even broken bones, dislocated shoulders and burns heal. The physical pain they experience can be shortlived; what they suffer is an assault on their identity and spirit, on their trust and confidence in themselves and their parents and on their emotional development and their capacity to feel loved.’

Building Resilience in Children

Resilience is important for children’s mental health. Children with greater resilience are better able to manage stress, which is a common response to difficult events. Stress is a risk factor for mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, if the level of stress is severe or ongoing. One way of explaining the concept of resilience is to imagine a plane encountering turbulence mid-flight. The turbulence, or poor weather, represents adversity. Different planes will respond to poor weather conditions in different ways, in the same way different children respond to the same adversity in different ways.

· the pilot (the child)

· the co-pilot (the child’s family, friends, teachers and health professionals)

· the type of plane (the child’s individual characteristics such as age and temperament)

· the equipment available to the pilot, co-pilots and ground crew

· the severity and duration of the poor weather.

A parent can help to develop essential skills, habits and attitudes for building resilience at home by helping your child to:

· build good relationships with others including adults and peers

· build their independence

· learn to identify, express and manage their emotions

· build their confidence by taking on personal challenges

Impact of Faith/spirituality offset in mistreatment on Children

A study conducted by Nel and Van der Westhuizen (2015:14) indicates that parents play an important role in the faith development of their children. Faith development is the process of growing and changing physically, cognitively, spiritually and emotionally in the understanding of our faith, which can be defined as your relationship with God, and the people who have an impact or influence on this relationship, for example, family, friends, people who attend the same congregation, reverent or catechesis teacher.

The profound influence that spirituality and religion can have on children’s development and socialization offers the potential to reinforce protective influences and promote resilience. The beliefs, practices, social networks and resources of religion can strengthen children by instilling hope, by giving meaning to difficult experiences and by providing emotional, physical and spiritual support. When child rights efforts are grounded in the protective aspects of religious beliefs and practices and a community that encourages and enriches the spiritual and religious life of each child, the impact can be far-reaching and sustained.

Parental religiousness has been hypothesized to engender less flexible caregiving because fixed factors, such as religious dogma, rather than variable factors, such as a childs needs or the situation, would help to determine parenting. Higher religious attendance and more literal Bible interpretation, for example, are associated with higher parenting stress and risk of child abuse. As many religions require beliefs and traditions that, from a scientific view, are illogical or unreasonable, greater religiousness may also undermine rational parenting and so child adjustment. More broadly, some religious factions are known to promote intergroup conflict and even terrorism and genocide.

Summary

To sumn up the above mentioned points, I would say every aspect has two faces of it. Sometimes abuse can make a children become a better adult by learing not repeat what he/she endured on his children and sometimes it makes them worse person.

Same goes for building and not building resilience in childhood to make them understand importance of things and to make them independent rather than dependent on other for everything.

Sometimes excess of things such as over-involved of parents in their children's lives and too much religiious faith can have reverse impact on children as well.