Emotional Effects of Child Abuse
Emotional Effects of Child Abuse
Child abuse is reported every ten seconds in the United States. In 2001 in Iowa the DHS reported 25,696 cases, finding only that 8,920 cases were ruled abuse, which means that 16.8 Iowa children per 1,000 suffered from abuse. Of those 8,920 cases, only 29 were determined to be emotional abuse. This has dropped since 1998, when emotional abuse accounted for 6% of all victims suffering child abuse. Child abuse has been on the rise for the past ten years.
I am here to tell you about the least understood form of abuse, yet it is the most prevalent and can be the most destructive of all types. It accompanies other forms of abuse but also may occur on its own. Emotional abuse is described as, any attitude or behavior, which interferes with a child’s mental health or social development.
Rejecting or refusing to acknowledge a person’s presence, value or worth is the most common type of emotional abuse. Isolation, which is physical confinement is a way to make the child think he/she is not wanted. Terrorizing a child and inducing terror or fear upon them is also one of the main types of emotional abuse. Yelling, screaming, name-calling, shaming, and telling them they are bad, worthless, or lazy are just a few examples of how easy it is to emotionally abuse a child. Corrupting your child into accepting ideas or behaviors that are not appropriate is also emotionally toying with the child’s mind. Insulting, ridiculing, imitating and infantilizing are all ways of degrading a child. All of these types of emotional abuse are seemingly based on power and control.
There are numerous reasons why children get abused, and not just by parents, but siblings too. Nearly one-third of women in prison reported abuse as children, with males being 14% of inmates reporting abuse in childhood. This brings me to my first cause. A person’s background. If the abuser, has had deprivation he/she is more likely to continue it. Parents who were abused don’t know any better because that’s how they were raised. Therefore, they punish their kids the way that their parents punished them. When a child sees or hears a family member being abused they also are victims of emotional abuse. So...