Emotional Child Abuse
By: Goddess Johnson
The term emotional child abuse didn't even exist when I was growing up. But that didn't change the devastating outcome--the effects were severe, ever-present, and followed me into adulthood. Emotional abuse is the cornerstone of all the abuses because emotional abuse is always present during physical child abuse, child neglect, and sexual child abuse, and it is the only abuse that can stand on its own. It does not have to accompany any of the other abuses.
What Is Emotional Abuse?
Emotional child abuse is defined as the constant attack of a child or youth by an adult that negatively affects the child or youth's self-worth. It is important to note here the word 'constant'. With emotional
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Emotional abuse of a child — also referred to as psychological maltreatment — can include: Ignoring. Either physically or psychologically, the parent or caregiver is not present to respond to the child. Rejecting. This is an active refusal to respond to a child’s needs (e.g., refusing to touch a child, denying the needs of a child, ridiculing a child). Isolating. The parent or caregiver consistently prevents the child from having normal social interactions with peers, family members and adults. Exploiting or corrupting. In this kind of abuse, a child is taught, encouraged or forced to develop inappropriate or illegal behaviors. It may involve self-destructive or antisocial acts of the parent or caregiver, such as teaching a child how to steal or forcing a child into prostitution. Verbally assaulting. This involves constantly belittling, shaming, ridiculing or verbally threatening the child. Terrorizing. Terrorizing can include placing the child or the child’s loved one (such as a sibling, pet or toy) in a dangerous or chaotic situation, or placing rigid or unrealistic expectations on the child with threats of harm if they are not met. Neglecting the child. This abuse may include educational neglect, where a parent or caregiver fails or refuses to provide the child with necessary educational services; mental health neglect, where the parent or caregiver denies or ignores a child’s need for treatment for psychological problems; or
Emotional abuse is one of the most harmful abuses for a child because it has the potential to impact their entire life in such a negative aspect. Emotional abuse is doing things to hurt the child emotionally or hurt their feelings and often making them feel unwanted and useless. A child is most often emotionally abused by a parent or trusted adult because the child is seeking approval from them and that causes them to be emotionally hurt a lot more when the adult says degrading or hurtful things. A child that has been emotionally abused may not care about things that are going on around him/her, might not react as a normal child would to pain, avoid a certain person or caregiver, act more fearful, angry and sad than normal, his/her grades in school may go down and they may even result to harming themselves.
Emotional child abuse is a pattern of behaviour that attacks a child's emotional development and their overall sense of well-being. This can include excessive or aggressive and unreasonable demands that can put expectations on a child beyond that of their capability. For example, three-year olds cannot be expected to be able to sit quietly for an extended period of time, due to the fact that they just simply do not have the physical control of their bodies yet. However still, you would find many parents placing this unrealistic expectation on a young child, only to end up getting frustrated due to the lack of the child's compliance.
Child abuse consists of acts that endanger a child 's physical and emotional development. Physical abuse is defined as non accidental injury to a child, includes burns, cuts, bruises, hitting, whipping, throwing, having anti-social behavior, or having fear of adults. Emotional abuse is attitude or behavior that interacts with a child 's mental
Emotional/psychological abuse – a person subjecting or exposing another to behaviour that can result in psychological trauma, often associated by a power imbalance such as child abuse or abuse in the workplace
In American society today we fail to address several issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, child abuse is one of the major issues that our country is plagued with, yet we neglect to bring this to the attention of the entire nation. It is often over looked because everyone has a different view of what exactly defines child abuse. The International Child Abuse Network (ICAN) uses four basis categories to docunment the child abuse cases. They are: emotional abuse, neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. I will be describing the first three.
Psychological abuse also known as emotional abuse is when someone affects the emotional and social aspect of someone’s life. It is a pattern of behaviors by caregivers that interferes with cognitive, emotional, psychological, and social development. In other words’ it is when someone does something intentionally to hurt the emotional aspects of another person.
Emotional abuse – involves the persistent psychological mistreatment of a child and may include making the child feel inadequate, unloved or worthless, imposing inappropriate developmental expectations on a child, threatening, taunting or humiliating the child or exploiting or corrupting
What is emotional abuse? According to Trickett et al, emotional abuse is defined as, “…act or omissions, other than physical abuse or sexual abuse, that caused, or could have caused, conduct, cognitive, affective, or other mental disorders. Psychological or emotional maltreatment frequently occurs as verbal abuse or excessive demands on a child’s performance” (2011). Loue expounds on the terms used interchangeably by stating, “Emotional abuse, a label often used synonymously with the terms emotional maltreatment, psychological battering, psychological abuse, and soul murder…” (2005). Loue further indicates that emotional abuse has also been called, “…the most elusive and damaging of all types of child abuse and neglect” (2005). Emotional abuse should be recognized as a heinous crime. Children who suffer from this type of abuse may not be as resilient as they are when suffering other forms of abuse. Although emotional abuse does not leave a visible scar for those who look upon the victim, it does leave an indelible scar that will not affect the victim for years to come if the victim
Emotional abuse may include screaming, yelling, biting, name-calling, lack of love/affection, and so on. Children may be emotionally scarred when the y are labeled as stupid, ugly, crazy, or unwanted. Emotional abuse includes acts of omission by the child’s primary caregivers that could cause behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders. In some cases of emotional abuse the child’s caregiver may use excessive and bizarre forms of punishment like torture, or locking a child in a dark closet. These things emphasize the need for the intervention of The Child Protective Services.
Emotional Abuse is saying or doing things that make a child feel unloved, unwanted, unsafe, or worthless. It can range from yelling and threatening to ignoring the child and not giving love and support. This version of abuse is definitely more damaging to the heart and soul than anything else. The mental and emotional effects depend on how bad the abuse or neglect is, how often it happens, how long it's been going on, and who the abuser is. Emotional abuse leads to child developing anxiety, depression, criminal behavior/poor attitude, eating disorders, the list goes on and on. “Children who are abused or neglected are more likely to abuse other children and siblings and, later in life, their own children or elderly parents.” the University of Michigan health system explains. This happens because parents may have diminished capacity for understanding and dealing with children (mental retardation, psychopathology, alcoholism, drug abuse), false ideas about children’s needs, or sadistic psychosis. It is hard to deal with these cases because the Michigan penal code does not specify that emotional abuse of a child is against the law. But the description of what child abuse could entail does include references to "mental harm". In Michigan there are three degrees of punishment for child abuse in this case. The first is lifetime in prison for the abuser, the second degree is relocating the child, and a third degree is not really that alike because a third degree is when a parent tries to teach the child a lesson without purposefully hurting the child. He third degree is the most common in Michigan. With the emotional struggles a child has to go through each day with their lives should never have the emotional abuse in it. The tears that are shed, the words swimming through the children's ears that strike the heart
Emotional abuse: is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to
Emotional Abuse – pattern of behaviour that ruins a child’s emotional development or sense of self-worth. This may include constant criticism, threats, or rejection, as well as withholding love, support or guidance. Emotional abuse is often difficult to prove.
Emotional abuse can be described as constantly mistreating a child and therefore affecting their emotional state and development.
The present research is aimed at providing an account of early childhood abuse and its effects on further emotional development. A first focus falls on outlining the psychological stages of emotional development and the notion of emotional response, followed by a thorough analysis of the child abuse spectrum together with effects, both early and belated, of general and most notably socio-emotional nature.
Emotional abuse is one of the most common forms of child abuse. When it comes to children emotional abuse includes encouraging children to develop self-destructive behavior, behavior that is threatening or likely to place the child or the child’s loved ones in danger, excessive, aggressive or unreasonable demands in which place expectations on a child that a child cannot meet, and ignoring a child’s attempt to interact. Emotional abuse in a child also includes the failure to provide the proper nurturing necessary for a child’s psychological growth and development. Terrorizing is the most common form of emotional abuse recognized in the case files, with nearly 81.1 percent of emotionally abuse children suffering from it. 63 percent of the emotionally abused children have experienced physical abuse and