A Child Called “It” is an autobiography written by David Pelzer. David uses this book to describe his viewpoint of the shocking abuse he endured while living in his parent’s house from aged 4-12 years of age. This book was not easy to read, s the abuse David experienced from his mother, Catherine, was heart wrenching. It was so severe that I had to take breaks from the book to clear my mind.
QUESTION ONE:
Throughout this autobiography, multiple types of abuse affected the main character, David. This includes acts of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Each form of abuse went unnoticed from the outside world. I know David endured physical abuse throughout his childhood because it can be defined as “a child being injured by a caregiver or a caregiver failing to protect a child from known harm” . The story depicts many instances where David is subject to various forms of physical torture from his mother as well as many beatings. One of the more disturbing examples if this is when his mother stabs him after an argument between the two of them. “Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blurred object fly out of her hand. A sharp pain erupted from just above my stomach. I tried to remain standing but my legs gave out, and my world turned black”. The act of violence from his mother was an obvious demonstration of physical abuse left David with a large open wound. This wound later become infected and caused David to become very sick days later. Leaving a physical mark on a child is one of the main indicators of physical abuse. The next most prevalent form of abuse within the story is neglect. As the textbook states, neglect can be defined as “a condition in which a care giver responsible for the child either deliberately or by extraordinary inattentiveness permits the child to experience available present suffering and/or fails to provide one or more of the ingredients generally deemed essential for a developing persons physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities. With that being said, many ingredients that contribute to healthy childhood development were intentionally missing in David’s life. He was forced to wear the same dirty clothes for months at a time, and was often denied food for days as punishment. “Once I ate some left over pork. Hours later I was bent over in extreme pain. I had diarrhea for a week. While I was sick, mother informed me she had purposely left the meat in the refrigerator for two weeks to spoil before throwing it away because she knew I couldn’t resist stealing it. Since David was deprived of food so often, he would steal food from the families’ garbage can or from other kids lunches at school. Failure to provide adequate nutrition to a child is considered neglect because it can cause physical health problems to the child. These health problems pose threats to other areas of a child’s like such as social skills and education. Many times throughout the book, David complains he can barely concentrate in school because all he can think about it food and how he is going to get his next meal.
QUESTION TWO:
Risk factors are certain events or situations that occur in a victim’s environment that puts them at an increased risk of being abused in any form. The factors are divided up into categories that include environmental factors, child factors, parental factors, and social factors. The more factors that apply to a child or their environment, the more they are at risk of being abused. The first factor I noticed within the Pelzer family was substance use by both of David’s parents. “For my parents, 3:00pm meant ‘Happy Hour’. They often drank from mid afternoon, until my brothers and I climbed into bed”. It was usually when David’s mother got drunk that she started to get most violent with him. This seemed to trigger an indescribable anger within her that she would take out on him. He could always tell when she was drunk by the glazed look in her eyes when she was yelling or hitting him.
The next factor I noticed was the isolation and lack of support his mother instilled on herself. All Catherine did was stay at home drinking and watching television. She did not allow herself to make friends and cut ties with anyone that tried to become close to her, including her own mother. Miraculously, at one point in the story, Catherine befriends one of the mothers on their street. This friendship put her in a better mood, and often made her less aggressive towards David. However, “In time, the relationship between Shirley and mom became strained. One day, for no apparent reason, Mother broke all ties with Shirley. Shirley’s son was not allowed to play with the boys and Mother ran around the house calling her a bitch”. This isolation and lack of social support demonstrated by Catherine puts her at a higher risk of abusing her children. Her anti social personality is noted multiple times in the story, and it is revealed that Catherine has always been like that.
The third factor that puts David at risk is living in household with a failing and unstable marriage between his parents. David’s father would do anything he could to avoid coming home. Many times he would go to the local bar and come home drunk after work. This would cause a vicious cycle of screaming matches between the couple. “She often telephoned Father at the station and called him names. ‘Worthless’ and ‘drunken loser’ were two of her favorite names for him. After a few calls, the fireman who answered the phone would lay it down and not page Father. This made mother furious and then I became the object of fury”. The anger from fighting with her husband was usually projected onto David in the form of violence. Catherine often blamed David for the marriage problems in attempt to justify why her husband was always absent from the home. Frustration from an unstable marriage is a major risk factor for a child to become abused.
QUESTION THREE:
Since David experienced multiple forms of abuse. A variety of intervention strategies could be effectively implemented. However, I think that is it most important to provide an intervention plan targeted at his trauma from physical abuse. This is because it is common for children who have grown up physically abused are likely to abuse their own children in the future.