Child abuse is everyone's business

I cannot remember the title of the video. It is, however, a video which our superintendent mentioned the other day during our in service preparation for a new school year. Perhaps I cannot remember it because the concept sounded both intriguing and horrific. I will warn you, and re-warn myself, that she also said this video did not have a happy ending.

I am placing that warning before all of us — myself and you who are reading — because I am fairly sure that I will end up finding a copy of the video. I told you it was intriguing.

The story line, to summarize, concerns a child who perceives himself as disappearing, as growing more and more invisible.

This is important because there are, and will continue to be, children in our society who perceive themselves as invisible.

If that does not concern you, then my sympathy goes out to you, also.

Invisible children may be that way because they are victims of child abuse. It is easy for others to turn away from such a reality, to pretend that the abuse is not occurring, or that it is none of our business. It is. It is everyone's business, when a child is being harmed.

Invisible children may be the product of a home where parents are so preoccupied, usually with nothing positive, that they seem to disappear.

Left to fend for themselves, while parents pursue self-centered goals, anything from money to substance abuse, such children may never show physical bruises. The bruises are internal.

Invisible children may be the children who can never meet expectations.

If the child succeeds, it is not praised; the degree is never enough.

Grades, athletics, or appearance are held to an impossible standard, so that the child feels he or she will never measure up.

Invisible children may be the children whose cries are never heard. The child may be a subject of bullying, but no one believes her; the child may have seen something occur, but no one wants to deal with it.

The child may be the one who is suffering from actual hunger or health issues. In our society, it should be a disgrace that kids are actually hungry, or have inadequate health care. yet, until those issues become real priorities, not election year bandwagons, it will not change.

Finally, the invisible child may be the child who slips unnoticed through the school system, whatever school it may be, without being adequately prepared. He is not disruptive, never a behavior problem, so nobody notices that he cannot effectively read, or write, or perhaps do math basics. He gets a piece of paper and graduation, but really, not an education.

The measure of a society is how it treats its children. We cannot call ourselves a compassionate society, so long as we ignore the fact that kids in these categories, as well as a few others, are "disappearing" before our eyes.

Clyde Davis is a Presbyterian pastor and teacher at Clovis Christian High School. He can be contacted at: [email protected]