Suggestions for a paper?

[AngieDoogles]

Originally Posted by Mandy

Angie, maybe use an age category, say 5 to 7 or 8 to 10, and like Cindy said, place yourself in the child's "point of view" it will make it easier.

Hmm, that's a great idea Mandy! Maybe I could do emotional abuse of preschool children and show the long term effects of this abuse. Now I just need a treatment... lol

[Tink]

A possibility I came up with is "Is it abuse if parents smoke in their own home?"
We know the dangers of second hand smoke, but it's not illegal... so could make for interesting debate with yourself.

[Janet]

That's a good and tricky one Tink. I'm sure Angie could make a really good argument with that topic.

My previous idea was also emotional abuse, like only in the home. So many children are treated so poorly in their own home, but you'd never believe it the way their parents make over them in public.

[DianaB]

What about the effects of lack of discipline in children? We have a lot of undisciplined kids in our society. My daughter works at the middle school and they have had a big ordeal with a child that is undisciplined and his parents.

[AngieDoogles]

Wow, you guys have so many good ideas! Now I have a new problem--how to choose between all of these great topics!!! I think I like this problem better than not having a topic at all.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for all of your input! I really appreciate it!

[Mandy]

Originally Posted by Janet

That's a good and tricky one Tink. I'm sure Angie could make a really good argument with that topic.

My previous idea was also emotional abuse, like only in the home. So many children are treated so poorly in their own home, but you'd never believe it the way their parents make over them in public.

VERY true Janet, we dont expect it, but it sure happens.

[goofywife]

How about one with teens, who think they are being abused.

[katepoet]

I've just worked on a few with a student tied to criminal justice. How about the way mandatory minimum sentencing is taking a lot of our young men and women and putting them in jail - creating permanent records - for possession of half a joint of marijuana? It's creating a new culture. Now children visit their parents in jail. The parents get screwed up by the jail culture and have to re-integrate when they come out. It's pretty tough.

Also, how does living in a women's shelter hidden from an abusive father affect children's emotional development?

If you search with google, use their google scholar search tool to get papers you can cite from - http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en

[AngieDoogles]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I'm well into researching and just beginning to write my paper now. I chose to write it on emotional abuse. I'm still waiting for a few articles to be delivered to our campus library before I'll know what treatment method I'm focusing on, but they will be here within three days. I've already found great sources for specifically defining the problem and describing the effects of the abuse on the child and family. I think the treatment methodology I'll be focusing on will be play therapy which is focused on increasing resilience. I just need a few good sources to back it up.

Thanks for the advice about Google Kate, but I don't usually use Google for scholarly journals because most of the links just give you an abstract and you have to pay for access to the full article. I use our online library from our campus website which breaks down into categories, one which is only journals concerning child welfare. I use a different one for my other courses which only contains social work journals. It makes the research process much faster and provides more reliable information.

Anyway, that's probably more than anyone wanted to know, but almost every bit of my spare time recently has been spent working on this, so it's a pretty big deal to me and I wanted to keep you updated since everyone had such great suggestions.

[highlans]

I have just been watching nannie 911 on tv, mum step dad and three rude and unruley kids, step dad was good with them but mum would not cuddle or give them any kinda love so they were all craveing for affection hence became rude to gain her attention be it shouting and teaseing her kids. Even at the end of the program mum did not think she was doing wrong, the children were rude to nannie at the begining but once she showed them love they came round to her and treated her with respect. Nannie told the mum that if she did not treat them with love and affection then it would become a cycle for them to treat there children with out love.

[katepoet]

I do find the nanny shows interesting. I see people I have known in the habits of these dysfunctional families. It is great that it makes people stop, take the time and do the work to change. It's funny - some of the dysfunctional friends watch and exclaim, but never see themselves in it.

(Of course, I never see myself, either! I am, after all, so perfect! lol)