Polansky's typology of neglectful mothers and child mistreatment

¶ … child neglect is described as the failure of a parent or a custodian liable for the child's care to make sufficient food, clothing, protection, supervision, and/or medical care available for the child. In the United States, child neglect is the most commonly recognized type of child mistreatment and abuse. The theoretical definition of child neglect by Polansky is generally acknowledged which states child neglect as "a condition in which a caretaker responsible for the child, either deliberately or by extraordinary inattentiveness, permits the child to experience avoidable present suffering and/or fails to provide one or more of the ingredients generally deemed essential for developing a person's physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities" (Pagelow, 1984).

Mother is commonly considered as the neglectful parent. Polansky and his colleagues identified the distinctive mental characteristics of neglectful mothers and categorized them into five separate types i.e. impulse-ridden mothers, apathetic-futile mothers, mothers suffering from reactive depression, mentally retarded mothers, and psychotic mothers.

The impulse-ridden mothers have a noticeably undeveloped personality that is chiefly the result of an early emotional deprivation. Such mothers are psychologically immature and childish in their incapacities to think about the needs of others, put off satisfaction and pleasure of essential impulses, and do not possess the abilities to invest themselves in another person sensitively. Such impulse-ridden mothers mirror inadequate self-monitoring and strength of mind in a number of behavioral domains (Melton & Barry, 1994).

The apathetic-futile mothers are "discouraged, fatalistic and immobilized women" (Polansky, 1991). They tend to hold an enveloping confidence that nothing is worth doing which simply means that they have a firm clench on pointless feelings. They have a lack of contact and recognition of their own feelings which is the consequence of never-healed events in early life. They do not have pleasant interpersonal relationships which leaves them combating with loneliness. Moreover, they do not have sufficient confidence to learn and try new skills (Polansky, 1991).

Depressed mothers, on the other hand, are antagonistic, unfriendly, unsympathetic, rejecting, and unconcerned towards their children. They are especially neglectful when it comes to providing food and supervision. Such mothers also significantly lack social-communication and problem-solving skills. Mentally retarded mothers are not verbally accessible as they do not possess the ability to express their own feelings in words. They are deficient in knowing the needs of their children.

The mentioned categories also apply to other caregivers because the personality theory perspective applies to all the custodians, whether parents or not. The children are neglected and mistreated not only by their parents but also by their caretakers. This neglectful behavior is due to the caregivers' own personal experiences in their early stages of life and early histories of inadequate and insignificant parental care.

Answer 2

Physical abuse can be commonly described as the occurrence of an injury that the child/woman experiences at the hands of his/her caregiver via various non-accidental means that include "hitting with a hand, stick, strap, or other object; punching; kicking; shaking; throwing; burning; stabbing; or choking" (Giardino, 2012) to the degree that demonstrate harmful results. There is no single cause that has been attributed to describe the incidences of physical abuse. However, there are various models including interactional model, environmental-stress model and social/cultural/economic models that can help to describe the causes of physical abuse.

The interactional model clearly acknowledges that the physical abuse cannot be considered as an only incident with a single cause and single effect. This ecological model of human development and interaction signifies child as a microsystem, the family as an exosystem and the various communities that mingle together to form a social-value system as macro system. This model is usually regarded as the standard theoretical framework from which the multifarious interactions among the parent/caregiver, child, family, social situation, and cultural values that lead to the non-accidental injury of the child/woman can be approached. As all the components of the system are interactional in nature, they influence one another. Thus, when a caregiver and child interrelate around an occasion, in a specified atmosphere, it results in the occurrence of injury to the child. When maltreatment is viewed in this way, it allows us to consider the factors that the caregiver, child, and environment contribute to display the child at a risk for injury (Giardino, 2012).

The Environmental/Life Stress Model illustrates that there could be certain stressors in the environment that may make the care giving less than perfect and may exceed the limits of the coping abilities of the custodian. Straus and Kantor have been successful in finding a complex interaction between the amount of stress existing in the family setting and the caregivers' response. Thus, physical abuse may occur if a particular home situation comes up that contains a somewhat higher degree of tension and a baseline amount of violent behavior within it (Giardino, 2012).

Lastly, the Social/Cultural/Economic Model depicts that physical abuse is caused due to life stress, solitude, melancholy, anxiety, locus of control, parenting attitudes and alcohol/drug use. In short, the researchers have been unsuccessful in finding one profile and/or a common single characteristic that has in the physical abusers (Milner & Murphy, 1995). Social learning models, however, call attention to the role of abusive parents' own ill-treatment experiences as kids. This perspective clearly indicates that abused children gain knowledge of maladaptive corrective practices through their individual experiences of abuse and later on, as adults, replicate this behavior with their own family (Worell, 2002).

Answer 4

Repulse Prevention Model: This model illustrates about ninety percent of young parents have infrequent thoughts about hurting, dropping, or abusing their offspring. A majority of parents overcome such ideas and tend to become more concerned about their children. However, many do not and as a result, become abusive of their children in an extreme way. Therefore, it is critical that parents who get obsessed with such ideas get professional help without any delay and stay in psychotherapy until their situation and thoughts are well under control.

According to research, serious physical abuse is 7 times more common than sexual abuse. In addition to this, biological parents are more likely to be aggressive and brutal as compared to the step-parents. Mothers are more likely to be insulting, offensive and cruel than fathers as they spend more time with the children. Thus, it cannot be regarded a myth that children have a higher risk of being physically abused, when they live with a parent or a custodian who has an anger problem. The fact is that for a majority of people, parenting is more or less always a combination of love and resentment. It is natural that parents become furious at their children at one point or another. This model helps people to evaluate whether they are getting close to becoming violent. If so, they must do something immediately to control their repulsive nature and get help. Although, it is not easy to call for help; a parent should not risk his/her children's physical and emotional health. This is exceedingly important because people who physically abuse children are under massive emotional pressure and thus, need relief. Therefore, it is imperative that such people determine just how much risk they are to the children they are responsible for and try to lessen that risk as soon as possible (Tucker-Ladd, 2011).

Finkelhor's Precondition Model: Finkelhor's Precondition Model has grouped almost all the factors that are recognized as contributing to child sexual abuse into four pre-conditions. These preconditions are Motivation (emotional congruence, sexual arousal and blockage), Internal Inhibitions, External Inhibitors and Resistance ("The Four Pre," 2010').

These four pre-conditions for sexually abusing a child come into play in a reasonable succession. It is eminent that the abuser must first have the inspiration and motivation for sexual abuse. He then must be able to triumph over all the internal inhibitions. After overcoming them, the potential abuser is required to overcome the external inhibitors. Last but not the least, he must practice resistance of the child ("The Four Pre," 2010').

As far as my understanding is concerned, The Repulsive Prevention Model is more accurate as it provides a clear understanding of how to control one's own thoughts and reactions. This doesn't at all mean that the Precondition Model is inaccurate but it needs to be explained more in terms of how to overcome the inhibitions in the internal and external environment.