The paper presents development of childhood research. There are perspectives of studying child situation described as the first. Than three turning points in child perspective that exist in research are analyzing; the first — child as a star and a hope, the second — emancipated child, child as a subject and the third — child as a citizen and childhod as multidimensionality. Finally, future fields of childhood study are drawn at the end of the paper.

The article, in the face of some reflections on various forms of harm still experiencing by contemporary children despite some regulations and law protection. The author says that a lot of forms of a child harm can be found in the past — they are changing
in their context, intensity, and places of occurring, but not their nature and their damaging consequences on child development. Janusz Korczak is reminded — his interest of a child and his sensitivity to difficult situations of children living in his time. There
are some of Korczak’s and other authors texts quoted, in which child harm is described; examples of inhuman child work and violent discipline. The author emphasis Korczak’s genius of listening to children and painting a painfull pictures of child life.
Showing the picture of a childhood from the beginning of XX century, the authors asks the question: does the picture fit to a child from the beginning of XXI century?! When can we write a book “childhood — a happy picture”?

The article presents a global situation of children. All over the world millions of children do not have fulfilled they basic needs (food, drinking water, medical treatment), work heavily, fight in military conflicts, do not learn in school, live in the streets. What is the future for children what can we do to improve they developmental possibilities — these are questions asked in the paper.

Article presents both some forms of child abuse that exists in social history and first forms of protection of child abuse. The development of the social interest of child maltreatment is also described. The third mainstream of the article is the development of scientific research of the problem; since the first description of the phenomenon of Ambroise Tardieu, through discoveries of medicians of mid XX century (Caffey and Kempe) till the beginning of undertaking the problem by polish researchers.

The article is an attempt to find, through the analysis of history of child abuse and the history of social activities against this phenomenon, the crucial factors that stand behind the change of situation of children in modern world and their better treatment. Through ages child was seen as an object that can be scarify in the name of adult, community, state welfare. The situation of a child changed mainly in XIX century, what was supported by various processes, among which the development of social philosophy of equality, democracy and human right seems to be the most fundamental.

The paper analyzes parents’ opinions about the use of corporal punishment of children. The subjects’ arguments for and against beating children have been organized according to the types of justifications they have provided. The opinions expressed by these parents concern their personal experiences and relationships with their children.

Child that suffers from illness is in a difficult situation. His special needs must be met by parents, he is completely dependent on them on various ways. Parents attitudes toward an ill child are different, coming from cultural and social context. Neglect of health care by parents is a phenomenon that depends on some factors, which are described in the article.

Among children rejected by their peers there is a large group that is characterized by externalization problems. They are resulted from parental practices and the care of children in the first years of their life, both of which make impossible for them to create safe attachment. Relations, between children emotional and social development disorders and conditions of the development in family environment, are discussed in this article. It has been pointed out that there is a necessity to prevent rejection of a child by its peers, by supporting parents in fulfilling their educational and caring functions.

In the article the author tried to characterises the hard childhood of gifted pupils. It could seems that in spite of exceptional gifts and abilities it is impossible to talk about hard childhood or any difficulties in the pupil’s development. However the experiences of gifted, their parents observations and lots of research lead to the conclusion that in the life of gifted and talented children we can find lots of inhibitors which disturb their correct growth.

The analysis presented in the paper are focused at the problems of legal protection of the children and child values. There is presented the juvenile’s status in the civil and family law as well as there is indicated the rule of children’s good as a superior idea, which should be respected by adults during examination the law cases related to the children. There are analyzed the possibilities of the children’s good protection by the court’s interference to the custody by using different law means. There is also presented a reference to the Polish Constitution and it’s legal regulations related to the children and childhood protection.

The article presents some thoughts on childhood and child value in a modern world. We are living in times when there is a chaos of values. Old ones are important no longer whereas the new, often artificially created are not understood, related to culture and other factors. The border between what is proper and legal and what is immoral. But the value of a child should not be undermined. Relations with a child pictured the idea of humanism, man to man relation.

In this article several aspects referring to bystanding child abuse and failure to provide appropriate help to victims were discussed. The author mentions motivations and situational factors as well as personal characteristics influencing human readiness to offer help. The article presents selected theories related to intervention in case of violence and cites the results of research on detterents discouraging teachers and other professionals from intervention to abused children.

Childhood full of painful experiences is familiar to these children who are rejected by their peers. Because of restricted contacts with other people they have few opportunities to develop their social, emotional and cognitive competences. This article presents the theoretical assumption of the authorized programme of supporting the psychosocial development of children rejected by their classmates. This programme deals with creating conditions for the development of emotional self‑control. The detailed goals which enable developing this skill and the ways to achieve them are also presented in this article.

This article pays attention to the need of changing, a very popular in Polish pedagogical theory and practice preventive approach, which focuses on diagnosing and eliminating the influence of risk factors that are threatening for children and teenagers. In Polish schools there is a lack of positive preventive practice effects, based on strength and recourses of children, especially for children from the families with alcohol problems. The number of children coming from this kind of families is the biggest in the population
of threatened children. As for the children, using the idea of resiliency would be especially promising for designing preventive effects having the character of positive prevention. This conception explains how it is possible to support the process of coping with adversities, achieving additional protection by an individual, developing the skills of coping with disruptions resulting from a stressful event.