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Van Niekerk (1990) virtually paralyses the child. Maree (1990) also states that
loneliness and insecurity are to be intimately associated with anxiety to be the silent
companion of every man's life. The anxious child has difficulty in shouldering the full
responsibility for his decisions (Van Niekerk 1990). Anxiety would thus make the
abused child feel helpless because he is unable to resist it.
When education takes an unfavourable course, like in the life of an abused child, it
always gives rise to anxiety. This inturn acts as an impediment to the child in his
development. His feeling ofinsecurity is often revealed as a reluctance to explore, thus
resulting in the inadequate actualising of his psychic life. The wheel then turns full
circle, as his anxiety is necessarily increased by the very fact of his inadequate
exploration of his world (Van Niekerk 1987 : 22-23). The opportunities for him to
actualise his psychic life with reference to specific educational contents also diminish
because he prefers to withdraw from that which appears to him to be strange or new.
Owing to inadequate assistance in his search for meaning a negative attitude toward
life develops in the child, driving him to be always on the defensive (Lubbers 1971 :
58). According to Van Niekerk (1990 : 4) the abused child is always on the defensive
and disregards all forms of authority.
Muller-Eckhard (1966) explains that this defensive attitude may be a flight to the fore
(aggression), into oneself (isolation), or into the past (regression). The child cannot
take up any new position and only accepts that which is totally familiar to him. He
feels that he is a captive, and impotent to change (Van Niekerk 1987 : 127).
A child's reluctance to explore also gives proof of the fact that the volitional
education, i.e. education directed at developing the child's will, has been neglected.
Unwillingness to actively participate in the task ofbecoming an adult is rarely evinced
by an affectively stable child (Van Niekerk 1987: 128). Sonnekus (1973) states that
both reluctance of will and weakly-directed intentionality occur when the child's will
is not adequately actualised. This reluctance ofwill and weakly-directed intentionality
is one of the major problems facing the abused child.