The indignation unleashed by the death of 5-year girl Isabella de Oliveira Nardoni on March 28 in São Paulo in still unknown circumstances is the aftermath of an unthinkable and shocking situation for most people: child aggression. From the moment the news started to spread, we have asked: how can an adult, whoever he or she is, could ever beat a child and drop her from the 6th floor of a building? What kind of person is this? What would move someone to take such an action? Not always aggressions suffered by children end up in such a tragic way as in the Isabella case and, most times, they do not even come to the knowledge of authorities or the media. Every day, hundreds of children undergo some kind of aggression or abuse in their own homes, most often than not caused by family members or by persons very close to the family. On the other hand, the aggressed child tends to carry throughout his or her life the marks left by the aggression suffered and requires treatment, alongside caring, in order to overcome the trauma. The experience of an NGO established in 2006 to freely dispense psychological care to children victims of violence and their families shows that cases of violence against children are much more frequent than we think and, often, go unnoticed for a long time until the child shows signs that something wrong is going on. When it was established, the key challenge of this NGO was to face up to the problem of child aggression, especially in poor families lacking the means to look for psychological follow-up. However, it is a mistake to think that only low-income families face problems related to domestic violence. Besides physical aggressions, the distance between parents and children of the medium and upper classes, frequently when the family's adults are more worried about their professional career and social life, leads to disastrous results for children and constitutes a kind of violence, albeit in disguise, that emerges not through slaps on the face but rather by indifference and omission. Consequences may be as harmful to the child as spanking or other forms of physical or psychological abuse. To prove it is the growing number of cases of violence involving youngsters of the medium and upper classes. It is necessary to take care of our children and youngsters, regardless of their social class, since all of them are heirs to the future. * Wagner Odri, president of IHF - Heirs to the Future Institute
* Article published on 04/07/2008 in São Paulo's Jornal da Tarde.