^nna aDUse is a national disgrace that we must

^nna aDUse is a national disgrace that we must work together to cure. As part of that effort, the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors have followed the lead of Governor Charles S. Robb in declaring April as Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Child abuse is on the increase— not just in the nation, but in Rappahannock County, according to the county’s Social Services Department.

Who are the abusers?

They are your friends, your neighbors, and your relatives. It is a sad irony but many abusers genuinely love their children. Yet they find themselves caught in life situations beyond their control and they do not know how to cope. They are isolated from friends and family, they may not like themselves, they may not know how to get their emotional needs met, they may have no one to give them emotional support. In many cases they are abused as children themselves,and because this is the only kind of parenting they have known, they repeat it with their own children.

Abusers often perceive a child as being different or having special needs that set the child apart from other children. The child may seem too passive or too active. The child may be the result of an unwanted pregnancy or may have a birth defect. Sometimes in a family of several children, just one will be singled out as a victim while the others lead relatively normal lives. In other cases, all the children will be abused.

Abusers tend to have unrealistic or inappropriate expectations of their children. They may set standards that are impossibly high. They may wrongly believe that children should always be quiet, or never make a mistake.

Child abuse does not belong solely in the domain of the poor. Abusers come from all economic, racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Money problems, however—especially the grinding money problem of