Hugs Not Hits

I've decided to try and make something positive come from this post and perhaps help to stop the cycle of abuse.

We live in a real world where our actions have lasting consequences not only on those we interact with but the people they will interact with later and so on.

It would be obviously improper and actually illegal should I strip a grown woman of all clothing below the waste, bend her over my knee and beat her with a wooden spoon as she screamed for help. Yet these actions are inflicted daily on children.

This psycho-sexual violence can't be withstood by a child, it can't be coped with, it can't be processed and it can't be understood. The psychological damage of this physical abuse can take years to be able to process and repair. Feelings of shame guilt isolation and despair are literally beaten into children before they've ever had the chance to develop into anything resembling a mature adult. This oppression of the human psyche, these malevolent acts of violence are a cancer upon our society. These violent acts result in drug addiction, depression, alcoholism and sometimes even suicide.

This paper had the largest sample size I could find with over 95,000 children followed. It's titled

The relationship between physical maltreatment and substance use among adolescents:

And it found that ...

Adolescents who had experienced corporal punishment were more likely to be current users of alcohol (OR = 1.11), tobacco (OR = 1.31), psychoactive substances (OR = 1.60), or heroin (OR = 1.90).

And that's just the drugs. Violence begets violence and victims of child abuse overwhelmingly continue the cycle. Break the cycle.

Hugs Not Hits