The goal of this study is to examine the impact of various types of abuse experience on children's interpersonal anxiety and adjustment to school and so to raise the awareness of the seriousness of domestic abuse and to straighten out the wrong idea t...
The goal of this study is to examine the impact of various types of abuse experience on children's interpersonal anxiety and adjustment to school and so to raise the awareness of the seriousness of domestic abuse and to straighten out the wrong idea that only serious abuse is abuse. By demonstrating the effect of social support in reducing the negative effects of abuse experience, this study prepared a ground for giving aid to children who experienced abuse so that they are able to grow healthy.
The survey was conducted in the form of a self?report questionnaire on 320 sixth?graders from 4 schools in Bucheon, Ansan, Gimpo and Dongducheon in Gyeonggi-do. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 6.0. The major findings of this study are as follows.
First, the results of this study showed that child abuse is negatively correlated to perceived social supports, but the correlation is not noticeable. Especially support from friends and teachers is almost ignorable. This may indicate that children can get support from another supporters like friends or teachers even if they experience domestic abuse.
Second, support from friends, emotional abuse, support from families and neglect, which are one of the subtypes of child abuse and social support have an effect on interpersonal anxiety. And support from teachers, families and friends, neglect and emotional abuse have an effect on adjustment to school. Among the subtypes of child abuse, emotional abuse has the strongest impact on interpersonal anxiety and neglect has the strongest impact on adjustment to school. Physical abuse has no considerable impact on interpersonal anxiety and adjustment to school. Such findings suggest that an invisible mental wound can be more harmful than a visible physical wound. Among the subtypes of social support, support from friends has the strongest impact on interpersonal anxiety and from teachers has the strongest impact on children's adjustment to school.
Third, perceived social support works as a mediating factor in the effect of abuse and so reduces the negative effect of abuse experience. That is, children who experienced abuse suffer from interpersonal anxiety and fail to adjust themselves to school, but children who perceive social support can minimize the negative effect of abuse.
The results of this study showed that all types of social support have a profound effect on abused children. Especially support from friends and family has an effect on abused children's interpersonal anxiety as well as on their adjustment to school. Support from teachers cannot minimize abused children's interpersonal anxiety but it can help their adjustment to school. Therefore, if children who experienced abuse can perceive only one type of social support, the support may minimize the negative effect of abuse on their interpersonal anxiety or adjustment to school.
Seeing from the results above, abuse experience has a negative effect on children's interpersonal anxiety and adjustment to school. Therefore, it is keenly necessary to prevent child abuse and make plans for minimizing the negative effects of abuse. Especially emotional abuse and neglect have a more negative effect on abused children. Consequently, it is indispensable to change the general perception of child abuse and to give attention to emotional abuse and neglect as well as physical abuse. Also this study revealed the role of social support as protection against the negative effects of abuse. For helping abused children, it is necessary to find out various supporters and enhance the abused children's ability to get social support.