In order to understand abused and neglected children, we need to understand what

abuse and neglect are. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, abuse is a verb with the
meaning of “to treat someone cruelly or violently”; and neglect is also a verb with the
meaning of “to not give enough care or attention to people or things that are your
responsibility”. From these definitions, we can conclude that abused and neglected children
are children who were/are treated cruelly by their parents or caregivers; or children who
didn’t receive/aren’t receiving enough care or attention from their parents or caregivers.
Sometimes “neglected” is avoided and child abuse or abused children are used as umbrella
terms.
Generally, there are four types of child abuse which are physical abuse, sexual
abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Physical abuse means that someone harms a child’s
body or puts him/her in physical danger. Sexual abuse is any kind of sexual activity with a
child, not just physical contact. Emotional abuse is a pattern of behaviors that harm a child’s
emotional well-being and development. And finally, neglect is when a caregiver doesn’t give
the child basic care and protection, such as clothing, food, heat, medical care etc.
Since school takes most of our time in a day, teachers have many opportunities to
suspect and report child abuse; and contribute to the adjustment of students who are victims
of child abuse. In my opinion, every education major student should get educated about this
topic and how to deal with it. Of course, there are some general pieces of advice that work
such as maintaining student’s normal status is the class, not discriminating him/her positively
or negatively, respecting and maintaining student privacy and their personal space. But, as
predictable as it is, these are not and can never be the only methods. To conclude, as stated
above, education majors should be deeply educated on this topic and various methods of
dealing with child abuse. I hope in the future there won’t be any child abuse.