Acting in a manner that would harm the child or not acting to prevent harm is thus considered as abuse. The four major types of child abuse include physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. Children are a very vulnerable group as they cannot defend themselves and more so because the same people who are supposed to take care and nurture and love them are same people causing the worst form of harm to them. So, what should the government do with abusive parents? Should it punish the parents who abuse their children? This is a very controversial debate since punishing the parents would seem the normal thing to do but we cannot forget that children need their parents in order to develop normally hence punishing them will be detrimental to their well being. This paper will try to argue whether the government should punish parents of abused children or not.

One critical debate given by Henry is truancy. Education is very important and all parents are required to ensure their children go to school by enrolling them and following them up (Henry, page). What happens when children start failing to attend lessons? Is the parent or the child to blame and should the parent be punished for it? According to Henry, it is the duty of the parent to ensure that children attend school and as such the responsibility lies squarely on them. Parents should understand that education is the key to unlocking future potential and as such denying the child education is destroying his/ her future thus this is child abuse in form of neglect. The government should thus take measures against parents to ensure their children attend school and more so all the lessons.