Push Throughout the story of Push by Sapphire, the author writes about a teenage girl involved in psychological, sexual, and physical abuse. Clareece Precious Jones experiences these three forms of abuse from her parents throughout the book. Not only is he a victim of mistreatment, but he also suffers from social injustices due to his socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity. Furthermore, we can apply Brofenbrenner's model to Precious's story and see how influential her surroundings are. Precious is a twelve-year-old African-American woman who suffers physical, sexual and psychological abuse from her parents and social injustice from some of the characters in Push. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Child sexual maltreatment can be defined as when an adult inappropriately touches a child or engages the child in any sexual activity (Hines, Malley-Morrison, & Dutton, 2013). There are many negative effects in both short-term and long-term outcomes whenever a child is sexually abused. Short-term outcomes can influence a child's interpersonal, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral health (Hines et al., 2013). Additionally, those children are more likely to become anxious, suicidal, depressed, and aggressive than those who are not a child. victim of sexual abuse of minors. In Precious' story we see that she is a victim of child sexual abuse by both of her parents. Her mother sexually assaults her while she sleeps by touching her inappropriately while she is enjoying herself while her father sexually assaults her by making her pregnant a second time at the age of twelve (Sapphire, 1996). Since Precious is twelve years old, her brain is not yet fully developed. According to Van der Kolk (2013), a child traumatized by sexual violence at a young age may eventually develop eating disorders, substance abuse and lack of confidence because his or her brain has not yet been fully developed. As a result, the child will have an underdeveloped brain. There are many risk factors in ecological systems that contribute to child sexual maltreatment. The macrosystem includes unemployment and low socioeconomic status while the exosystem consists of living in a rural area (Hines et al., 2013). One reason living in a rural area increases the risk of child sexual maltreatment is because the family is socially isolated compared to families who live in urban areas and experience more socialization. The microsystem includes gender, age, living with a nonbiological parent, dysfunctional family, lack of intimacy between parents, emotionally unavailable mother, or mother with alcohol problems. According to Hines et al. (2013), those who are between the ages of seven and twelve and are female are at increased risk of sexual maltreatment. Furthermore, girls who live with their stepfather or who do not receive their mother's emotional attention are also at risk because this leaves them emotionally deprived and defenseless against sexual predators. Finally, dysfunctional families are at risk because they are unorganized families that leave the child vulnerable due to a lack of closeness, flexibility and cohesion (Hines et al., 2013). This makes them passive, needy, silent and socially isolated, making them more attractive to sexual predators. Physical child abuse can be defined as when an adult physically kicks, punches, throws, or even pushes a child (Hines et al., 2013). Furthermore, there are also both short-term and long-term consequences. The shortterm includes lacerations, burns, bruises and bites while long term includes martial, emotional, social, financial and behavioral problems (Hines et al., 2013). In Precious' story, we also see that her parents persecute her through physical child abuse. When her father was raping Precious, he ordered her not to scream or she would suffer another beating (Sapphire, 1996). However, his mother is the main culprit of physical abuse whenever he is abused. He ordered Precious to do whatever he asked of her and beat her if she refused (Sapphire, 1996). For example, her mother hit Precious with a frying pan and forced her into labor when she found out about the pregnancy. Many risk factors can contribute to why a child may experience physical abuse. The macrosystem includes low incomes while the exosystem consists of low-quality neighborhoods (Hines et al., 2013). One reason unemployment and poor neighborhood quality contribute to physical child abuse is because poor neighborhoods tend to have single-parent families and can be unstable while low-income families are dissatisfied with their situation and vent their frustration about their children. The microsystem includes the chaotic home environment as well as younger children. According to Hines et al. (2013), younger children are at greater risk for physical abuse, but this risk begins to decline as children grow. Furthermore, chaotic home environments can contribute to physical abuse of children because they are usually not cohesive and do not communicate well with each other (Van der Put & Ruiter, 2016). They tend not to communicate or work together, resulting in limited family cohesion. As a result, younger children who come from a lower socioeconomic status in a chaotic home environment are at greatest risk for physical child abuse. Psychological child abuse is described as denial of emotional responsiveness, isolation and verbal abuse (Hines et. al, 2013). The result of this child abuse includes lack of impulsive control, distractibility, negative emotions, low self-esteem, angry behavior, and difficulties in learning and problem solving, causing physical aggression in the child. Precious is also a victim of psychological child abuse because her mother verbally insults her using degrading words such as cunt, nigger, slut, whore and other offensive language. People think that psychological maltreatment is the least concerning, but in reality it is more harmful than physical and sexual maltreatment (Hines et al., 2013). Psychological child maltreatment has a lasting effect that can carry into adulthood. We see this in Precious' story because she has difficulty learning and reading. Instead of attending school, she is placed in an alternative learning facility. Precious's learning disability shows that she may have suffered psychological abuse, explaining why it is so difficult for her to learn and why she quickly becomes angry. There are many risk factors that explain why a child experiences psychological abuse. The macrosystem includes poverty while the exosystem includes deprived relationships with extended families and social isolation (Hines et al., 2013). These risk factors contribute to psychological child abuse because families living in poverty may not have the time or energy to help their children. Parents can spend all their time and energy working countless hours, leaving the child alone. Furthermore, families with low socioeconomic prestige, with homes earning less than fifteen thousand a year, alcohol and drug problems are at riskand who live in rural areas. Furthermore, parents who do not work and do not have higher educational qualifications are more likely to neglect their children (Hines et al., 2013). Parents who depend on alcohol and drugs may psychologically neglect their children because they are always drunk or high. Additionally, poor families with children are at greater risk because the pressure to provide for the family can lead to denial of emotional awareness and oral maltreatment. According to the World Health Organization (2016), violence is defined as the deliberate or threatened use of physical force against someone, which may or may not result in immortality, injury, psychological damage, deprivation, or poor development. Precious' story is a great example of the World Health Organization's definition of violence because she was a victim of violence. Both of Precious' parents used physical force to hurt her as she was growing up. Her mother would beat her if she refused a command and her father would threaten to beat her if she refused sex. According to Brofenbrenner's ecological systems theory, there are four different systems called macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, and microsystem (Krase, 2015). Precious is involved in all four ecological systems in the book Push. In the macrosystem, Precious is affected because she lives in poverty throughout her story. She has two children and is supported by social security, but the checks go directly to her mother. On his first day at alternative school, he didn't have enough money to eat, so he had to steal fried chicken on the way to school. Also, her classmate bought her fifty-cent chips because she couldn't afford them. In the exosystem, Precious is affected due to the poor quality of her neighborhood. Evidence of a poor neighborhood includes single parents and insufficient social resources. Under the mesosystem, Precious has built relationships with multiple people at school throughout her story. They include her alternative school teacher Blue Rain and her close friend Rita. In the microsystem, her mother directly influences Precious. His mother does nothing at home except watch television and collect welfare checks. Furthermore, he orders Precious to prepare food for her, otherwise he will be beaten. The three spheres of violence include interpersonal, institutional, and structural (Contreras & Cano, 2016). Precious is also part of these three spheres of violence because of her parents. In the interpersonal sphere of violence, her mother and father commit sexual violence against her. In the institutional sphere of violence, her mother continuously beats her whenever she doesn't listen. Under the structural sphere of violence, Precious tries to resist her mother's hierarchy, but is always forced to submit until she leaves. Today, many deterrent policies are in place to address child maltreatment. The main goal is to stop the violence and keep families together instead of simply removing the child from the family. Some of the strategies to prevent child maltreatment and abuse include providing better economic support, developing positive parenting to foster healthy growth of children, and providing excellent care and learning early in life (Altafim & Linhares, 2015). To provide better economic support, the approach is to start by strengthening the family's economic security with family-friendly employment policies. Developing positive parenting to foster healthy growth in children requires approaching and teaching the family different parenting skills so that they learn how to raise children. Provide assistance and learningexcellent to children in the early stages of life involves family commitment to preschool development and improving the quality of child care through accreditation and licensing. Formal systems today, such as the Child Protection Service, are designed to respond by first investigating a report made by a person (Milani, Vianello, Cantoni, Agostoni, Fossali, 2016). They then send a social worker who interviews family members and people involved to gather information to make a disposition. Once completed, the disposition may include reason to believe that abuse or neglect has occurred, exclusion of abuse or neglect, inability to investigate because family could not be located, inability to determining it and administrative closure because the information is unjustified (Milani et al., 2016). Furthermore, if the caseworker decides that the child is safe, the case is closed. If he or she finds any threat, the family will have the opportunity to fix it before they intervene. However, if the social worker deems it unsafe due to significant safety concerns, he or she may file a petition to protect the child. In Precious' story, we see that the child abuse system has not worked well. When he lived with his mother, no one noticed that he lived in an abusive family. Furthermore, when she left the hospital with her second child, she had no choice but to stay in a homeless shelter with a newborn (Sapphire, 1996). In today's society, if someone saw a teenager walking around breastfeeding their baby, there is no doubt that someone would call social services or any type of program that could help them. Additionally, police officers, school officials, and medical personnel are now trained to detect and respond to any suspected child abuse (Jud, Fergert, Finkelhor, 2016). This is a step forward in their policy compared to Precious' time. However, Precious was living in the 1980s, meaning that racism at that time may have been extremely high. One of the reasons why no one helped Precious may be because she was a poor young African American woman, especially when she asked the nurses at the hospital for help. Instead of helping their patient, they directed her to a homeless shelter (Sapphire, 1996). This shows that racism may have played a large role in Precious not receiving the help she needed until later. Precious has been in contact with many people throughout her history. They include his parents, teachers, nurses, classmates and civil servants. Nurse Butters, also known as Lenore Harrison, did not respond to Precious's cry for help (Sapphire, 1996). After Precious gave birth to Abdul, she explained her situation to Lenore and asked for her help, but told Precious that she was going off duty and would have to go get her daughter, leaving her with another nurse. Her teachers, Mrs. Lichenstein and Blue Rain, both responded positively to Precious. Mrs. Lichenstein took time out of her day to talk to Precious at her home about an alternative school (Sapphire, 1996). Furthermore, Blue Rain worked hard and never gave up on teaching Precious her education. Blue taught Precious the basics of reading and writing by using a notebook and writing in it every day (Sapphire, 1996). Some of the social attitudes that contributed to the failure of neighbors, medical and school staff, and social work to spot the abuse and act to defend Precious may have been racism. For..