More than a third of U.S. kids were physically assaulted in an 8-month period

child abuse
(Image credit: iStock)

That's according to the latest National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence. Nearly 22 percent of those assaults came at the hands of siblings, while 16 percent involved peers and 15 percent involved caregivers.

"The issue about sibling assault is that we tend to discount it," researcher David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, told The Huffington Post. "We don't think of it as 'assault;' we think that's just how siblings are. But our research suggests sibling victimization is a major source of trauma and distress in the lives of children."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.