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Emotional Abuse And Neglect

Decent Essays

Sneddon (2003) explained emotional abuse as the emotional mistreatment or negative response of the child. Emotional abuse can include sustained rhythmic inappropriate emotional responses and reactions to the child’s emotions and behavior. For example, an inappropriate response may involve a parent getting angry with the child in reaction to the child unintentionally breaking something and yelling at the child extremely or calling the child names. In addition, other emotionally abusive behaviors include terrorizing or belittling the child, isolating them from others, and rejection. Turner et al. (2012) added that emotional maltreatment might include hostile parenting, such as poor stability, inconsistency, negative interactions, low nurturing, coercion, and rejection of the child. …show more content…

There are varying definitions among advocacy groups, clinicians, and lawmakers. It is especially not easy to prove actual, measureable harm to the child due to the emotional nature of the abuse (Hamarman, Pope, & Czaja, 2002). Smith Slep, Heyman, and Snarr (2011) outlined the difficulty in defining emotional abuse, and also took into reflection cultural factors. Internationally, verbal punishment is used 70-85% of the time (e.g. yelling). The question is then asked, is this emotional abuse or is it piece of a family or group culture? After examining research and other definitions of emotional abuse, their findings and definition support Sneddon’s (2003) definition of emotional abuse, outlining parental behaviors such as, degrading, humiliating, threatening, berating, abandoning, or coercing the child, and using extreme discipline. Although there are many opinions and definitions surrounding emotional abuse, there is agreement on the devastating effects caused by these behaviors towards

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