Child Abuse: What Can A Person Do?

Many people feel powerless to recognize child abuse when it is going on. If they do recognize it, they are confused or paralyzed about responding. And many people wonder what to do with abusive impulses or tendencies they may have towards their own children, especially when they are feeling stressed out or disempowered.

Prevent Child Abuse America offers very helpful pages on What You Can Do.

I don't believe the organization takes a position on abortion. But its current e-newsletter offers tips for expectant parents on prenatal care, nutrition, and positive planning for labor and delivery. The message is clear: healthy parent-child relationships begin when your child is still unborn.

Promoting such relationships before and after birth is not simply the responsibility of individual parents. It is a collective responsibility. We all need to do whatever we can--in our personal lives and at the level of social policy-- to create the conditions necessary for every child to live and thrive in safety and respect, and for every parent to feel that s/he has the power to commit nonviolence rather than violence, at every step of the way.

Starting when the child is in the womb, but never stopping there.