Human Services Child and Family Welfare

¶ … children actually came to be respected on account of the important role they play in the social order. Society previously believed that parents should be provided with the power to decide what they wanted to do with their children and the Bible actually emphasizes that Abraham was unhesitant about sacrificing his son, thus showing that the child was little more than a tool in his hands. As society progressed children continued to be treated with discrimination and those whose parents were unable to care for them resorted to becoming outcasts constantly in need of basic resources.

Society actually promoted attitudes that directly harmed children and saw the opportunity to exploit their vulnerability. Throughout time children were used as labor and were sexually abused by unscrupulous individuals. While attitudes change during recent centuries, it was not until an 1838 Pennsylvania court removed children from the custody of their parents that the world was able to acknowledge that it was actually responsible for the well-being of children.

When considering the functionalist theory, it would be safe to consider that a person who abuses children was, in turn, abused as a child and thus came to believe that such behaviors are perfectly normal. Similarly, the respective individuals might be inclined to believe that these attitudes are natural because he or she failed to properly integrate the social order and thus concentrates on employing his personalized understanding of normal behavior. While functionalism would appear to be against ideas such as child abuse, the reality is that the concept largely depends on each person's thinking, taking into account that some people might be inclined to believe that they are justified in abusing children.

3. A. Nicholas Groth provided a theory that separated sex offenders between two distinct camps on account of the ideas that influenced them to take on deviant attitudes. Individuals belonging to the fixated group typically focus on developing relationships with children who are not related to them and they have the tendency to communicate extensively with younger individuals with the purpose of achieving their sexual goals. The regressed group deals with persons who basically have normal sexual interests but who resort to abusing children as a result of circumstances. Such decisions are likely to happen on impulse, as sex offenders act on account of the fact that they are provided with the opportunity to do so.