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Emotional Abuse

Journalist briefing, May 2007

Definition:


Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child's emotional development. It may involve conveying to children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond the child's developmental capability, as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration and learning, or preventing the child participating in normal social interaction. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, though it may occur alone.
(Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006)

Key Points:

  • Emotional abuse is a constituent element of all forms of child abuse.
  • Some researchers have identified five categories of emotional neglect: (Garbarino et al, 1986, citied in Iwaniec, 1997, p372)
    - Rejecting: Behaviours which communicate or constitute abandonment of the child
    - Isolating: Preventing the child from participating in normal social interaction activities
    - Terrorising: Threatening the child with severe punishment, or deliberately cultivating a climate of fear
    - Ignoring: where the caregiver is psychologically unavailable to the child and fails to respond to the child's behaviour
    - Corrupting: Caregiver behaviour which encourages the child to develop false social values that reinforce antisocial or deviant behavioural patterns

Statistics

  • 6% of children experienced frequent and severe emotional maltreatment during childhood.
    (Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.70)
  • 18% of children experienced humiliation and/or attacks on self-esteem during childhood.
    (Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.64)
  • 3% of young adults said they were not well cared for during their childhood because they were given too little affection.
    (Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.71)
  • 8% of young adults said they had never being praised for doing well at school during their childhood, and 5% said that they had never been congratulated for winning anything. 11% of young adults said that they had not been made to feel special by anyone during their childhood.
    (Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.68)