Child Abuse - Effects of Emotional Abuse
Emotional Abuse is extremely difficult to define.
Before discussing the prevention methods, we have to look at what exactly emotional abuse is.
Emotional abuse is being insensitive to a child's emotions or exploiting them at will.
This could be triggered by sadism or simple ignorance.
Here are a few examples for you to understand emotional abuse: 1.
) exploiting feelings of jealousy: Parent to child: 'See how well Jenny performed in her test compared to you.
You should try to be more like Jenny, she is so smart' Now although this comes across as harmless and just simple encouragement, it instills a massive inferiority complex in the child at a very early age and it takes a mountain's worth of difficulty to overcome such traits.
A notable method of prevention : Schools can keep workshops regarding unintentional emotional abuse to enlighten parents about the effects of certain behaviors.
Now an interesting question was mailed to me, it read: 'My Child was running after car lights in a pretty busy highway, this could've been fatal, I yelled at him and slapped him and now he seems very afraid of me and his confidence too has decreased, what would you have recommended me to do in this case? I believe one of the biggest misunderstandings parents have is that 'tough love and discipline works'.
Yes, it can work but only till the child has reached fifteen years of age, after which the things you hit/yelled at your child for doing will be done in abundance.
Why? Well, children as they grow up change their influences/role models from parents to more popular figures such as celebrities, cultural icons and popular acquaintances.
And as you are well aware, the current media depicts that parents/teachers depict the 'uncool' side of life and are 'icons of ignorance' there is little you can do about this.
Even if this wasn't the case, once a child hits puberty, his/her priorities and perspectives differ to role models who seem to easily attract mates.
This is well researched psychology here.
So assuming you yelled at your child for failing an exam saying: 'Do you want to become a junkie when you grow up? Do you want to be a dropout?' Surprisingly enough, since the parent represents uncoolness, the child is likely to directly associate the things the parent shunned as 'correct'.
This is just one of the many ways 'opposite association' works in this world.
We have to understand that is impossible to monitor children after they reach a certain age and at that age they are most likely to do the exact 'rebel cool thing' with the parent/society's opposition working as nothing less than fuel for the already blazing fire.
Now the question comes 'How can we make the children understand that drugs and under-age drinking are wrong for them?' There is only one way towards this, which too is not 100% feasible if the peers/society/circumstances outweigh the awareness.
We have to as much as possible encourage responsibility and awareness in the children.
What does this mean? It means that parents have to back off more and let the child take care of his own problems.
Now the emotional abuse caused by being insensitive has much more devastating effects than just 'opposite effect'.
Although this form of emotional abuse too happens almost entirely in ignorance most of the time.
Assuming a parent comes home extremely tired, can't move a muscle and his kid wants him to play with her, she goes: 'Daddy! Daddy! Lets play catch' Although she knows little knowledge about how exhausting his day has been The parent, exhausted and mentally frustrated with the noise, yells out: 'shut up! You are so annoying! Let daddy sleep, go away' This statement is likely to do more than its fair share of damage in both the long and short term.
For example, the girl will associate her personality as 'annoying' and would likely become introvert because her mind has already accepted that she is annoying.
Again, an extremely difficult chain to get out of.
This would also encourage a mindset like 'no one likes me' and causes massive inferiority complex.
So what can be a good response in such a situation? 'Baby girl! I love you so very much but today daddy is so so so tired, he really can't play, lets sing together instead' Although its hard to understand, just a single shift of statements could avoid a massive life changing butterfly effect.
It can literally make the difference between 'happy and healthy' and 'depressed and unhealthy' How come? During the first 7 years of life, a child's brain is in the process of development and association, for example: A for Apple, Ice cream = tasty, hygiene, locking doors, etc.
Consider the amount of habits which take place at a young age, for example: flushing the toilet after use, closing the door after you enter, wiping your mouth after eating, washing hands after eating.
Not that there is anything wrong with the above habits but simply that imagine having 'I am annoying and I should shut up' in the above list Pretty devastating, huh?
Before discussing the prevention methods, we have to look at what exactly emotional abuse is.
Emotional abuse is being insensitive to a child's emotions or exploiting them at will.
This could be triggered by sadism or simple ignorance.
Here are a few examples for you to understand emotional abuse: 1.
) exploiting feelings of jealousy: Parent to child: 'See how well Jenny performed in her test compared to you.
You should try to be more like Jenny, she is so smart' Now although this comes across as harmless and just simple encouragement, it instills a massive inferiority complex in the child at a very early age and it takes a mountain's worth of difficulty to overcome such traits.
A notable method of prevention : Schools can keep workshops regarding unintentional emotional abuse to enlighten parents about the effects of certain behaviors.
Now an interesting question was mailed to me, it read: 'My Child was running after car lights in a pretty busy highway, this could've been fatal, I yelled at him and slapped him and now he seems very afraid of me and his confidence too has decreased, what would you have recommended me to do in this case? I believe one of the biggest misunderstandings parents have is that 'tough love and discipline works'.
Yes, it can work but only till the child has reached fifteen years of age, after which the things you hit/yelled at your child for doing will be done in abundance.
Why? Well, children as they grow up change their influences/role models from parents to more popular figures such as celebrities, cultural icons and popular acquaintances.
And as you are well aware, the current media depicts that parents/teachers depict the 'uncool' side of life and are 'icons of ignorance' there is little you can do about this.
Even if this wasn't the case, once a child hits puberty, his/her priorities and perspectives differ to role models who seem to easily attract mates.
This is well researched psychology here.
So assuming you yelled at your child for failing an exam saying: 'Do you want to become a junkie when you grow up? Do you want to be a dropout?' Surprisingly enough, since the parent represents uncoolness, the child is likely to directly associate the things the parent shunned as 'correct'.
This is just one of the many ways 'opposite association' works in this world.
We have to understand that is impossible to monitor children after they reach a certain age and at that age they are most likely to do the exact 'rebel cool thing' with the parent/society's opposition working as nothing less than fuel for the already blazing fire.
Now the question comes 'How can we make the children understand that drugs and under-age drinking are wrong for them?' There is only one way towards this, which too is not 100% feasible if the peers/society/circumstances outweigh the awareness.
We have to as much as possible encourage responsibility and awareness in the children.
What does this mean? It means that parents have to back off more and let the child take care of his own problems.
Now the emotional abuse caused by being insensitive has much more devastating effects than just 'opposite effect'.
Although this form of emotional abuse too happens almost entirely in ignorance most of the time.
Assuming a parent comes home extremely tired, can't move a muscle and his kid wants him to play with her, she goes: 'Daddy! Daddy! Lets play catch' Although she knows little knowledge about how exhausting his day has been The parent, exhausted and mentally frustrated with the noise, yells out: 'shut up! You are so annoying! Let daddy sleep, go away' This statement is likely to do more than its fair share of damage in both the long and short term.
For example, the girl will associate her personality as 'annoying' and would likely become introvert because her mind has already accepted that she is annoying.
Again, an extremely difficult chain to get out of.
This would also encourage a mindset like 'no one likes me' and causes massive inferiority complex.
So what can be a good response in such a situation? 'Baby girl! I love you so very much but today daddy is so so so tired, he really can't play, lets sing together instead' Although its hard to understand, just a single shift of statements could avoid a massive life changing butterfly effect.
It can literally make the difference between 'happy and healthy' and 'depressed and unhealthy' How come? During the first 7 years of life, a child's brain is in the process of development and association, for example: A for Apple, Ice cream = tasty, hygiene, locking doors, etc.
Consider the amount of habits which take place at a young age, for example: flushing the toilet after use, closing the door after you enter, wiping your mouth after eating, washing hands after eating.
Not that there is anything wrong with the above habits but simply that imagine having 'I am annoying and I should shut up' in the above list Pretty devastating, huh?
