A Child Called It Essay

Valeria Oceguera
Violence in the family
Professor Hoffman
February 23,2017
A Child Called ‘It”
A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer is a story about a child named David, who is a victim of abuse from his mother and tells his story of how he struggles to stay alive, search for food and the problems he has in school. David lives with his mother, father and brothers, but at the end of the book, he feels a strong hatred for his family and a strong hate for the people who knew about the abuse, David also regrets being born and questions if God exists. There are many health issues that happen when abuse happens to a child specifically and these include, “suicidal thoughts, eating disorder, PTSD can develop from a childhood of abuse.” (Rehman, Kazmi, Perveen, 2016). David towards the end of his story began to think that death was the only way he could escape the abuse. David’s story is the story of many other children around the world who suffer from physical, emotional and mental abuse, these children are in search of a light in the darkness for many years and David’s light in the darkness was his father in the beginning of the book but that drastically changed further on.

What I disliked about the book and had me confused would be how the school staff, the nurses and the teachers did not see the abuse earlier on. In the beginning of the book, when David goes to the nurse, the nurse tells him that he has been injured many times and that David has given multiple excuses for his injuries, what got me confused is how the nurse could have not suspect anything prior after more than three incidents have occurred. Continued child abuse can bring many health issues and including ADHD, “Child maltreatment is associated with higher levels of ADHD symptoms” (Sanderud, Murphy, Elklit,