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The Abuse of Children is an Everyday Crime
The words child abuse have attained the stature of high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and nuclear war in that they immediately convey an image of something dangerous, potentially lethal, and something that is tragically a part of everyday reality.
Overuse of any term leads to dulling of the senses. Just as the Vietnam era delivered a constant, deadening flow of carnage from half-way around the world, the media heralds the dangers of child abuse with numbing frequency.
Most people associate child abuse with sadistic beatings and sexual assaults. Indeed, these categories are neat and tidy and allow most of us to readily see we do not fit into any of those groupings.
Actually, while physical and sexual abuse are usually psychologically devastating to the child, the degree of damage will depend, in part, on the emotional messages (and abuse) which accompany these physical acts.
The emotional abuse of children is widespread and probably overshadows other forms of abuse in its frequency of occurrence. Its forms range from simple neglect to the systematic destruction of a child's self-esteem, self-image, or even his or her will to live. While its effects can be devastating, acts of emotional abuse are often difficult to define, let alone document. Consequently, it is difficult to successfully prosecute offenders in court, even when the emotional abuse leads to dire consequences.
What Qualifies As Emotional Abuse?
Can we define emotional abuse? Technically, we might say that every time we act against the best interests of the child, we have committed abuse.
However, in this imperfect world we will never succeed in offering perfect parenting. From time to time, we are bound to be overly critical, emotionally unavailable, insensitive, or inappropriately angry. These are the facts of life. Fortunately, kids are generally quite resilient and can handle occasional lapses in good parenting.
Perhaps we can restrict the term emotional abuse to describe a characteristic way of handling the child which damages his or her ability to love, empathize, hope, show initiative and pride, or which induces so much shame or rage that self-acceptance becomes all but impossible.
While this list is not exhaustive, it probably covers the most commonly observed symptoms of (childhood) emotional abuse.
It's important to emphasize that not every person who manifests one or more of these symptoms has been abused as a child. further, most abusive parents are not consciously aware of their deeds (although many have a vague sense of their wrongdoing).
Parents typically treat their children in a manner similar to how they were treated as children. It is interesting to note that while many people vow to treat their children differently than they were treated as kids, more often than not, they wind up treating their own children in a similar manner. In this way, the cycle of emotional abuse is passed on from generation to generation.
About Dr. William Ralph...
Dr. William Ralph is a therapist based in San Francisco, California, specializing in addiction issues, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, chronic physical illness, depression, relastionship issues, and more.
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