Speak up and get help so children are not abused

DAYTON, Ohio — Twenty-three-month-old Ashonti and her 8-month-old brother Tommie were abandoned in a dirty trash bin, left there by the mother's boyfriend and Ashonti's father. Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped at age 11, and was freed after 18 years in captivity. These stories of neglect, kidnappings, sexual molestation and the burning and beatings of children have become almost commonplace.

It's hard to understand how people can inflict pain on kids. We all have our times as parents, when we say or do something in a moment of anger or frustration. However, these horrific incidents now seem routine, raising troubling questions as to why we seem to hurt our children so frequently.

For the past 18 years, the Health and Human Services Administration has been gathering data on child abuse in this country. Their latest report, based upon 2007 information, has both disturbing and reassuring news about how we treat our youngsters.

— The rate of child abuse has actually decreased 13 percent during the past four years. It's impossible to tell if this is a long-term trend or a temporary aberration, but it hopefully reflects the better care we are providing to our children.

— Child neglect remains the most common form of maltreatment, making up 59 percent of all reported cases. While some of these situations are affected by the economy, most of the causes of neglect remain parental mental illness or substance abuse. Parents who neglect their children were generally themselves raised in similar homes, creating a terrible cycle of abuse. We need to offer long-term treatment for these families now, or be ready to deal with yet another generation of neglected children taught to be neglectful parents.

— Parents are the most common perpetrators of child abuse, making up 73 percent of such cases. Moms mistreat their kids about twice as frequently as dads, which is not unusual since they typically have more child-care responsibilities.

— Children ages 4 to 7 are at the age of greatest vulnerability for neglect, physical abuse and psychological abuse. Medical neglect is most common with children younger than 1, while sexual abuse has the highest rate among 12- to 15-year-olds. We have a great deal of information about causes and risk factors of the various types of abuse. It's now time to act, and target prevention programs for these high-risk children and their parents.

Almost 800,000 children were victims of child maltreatment in 2007. Here's how we can decrease that number.