Parents who shout at their children or call them “stupid” are leaving their offspring at greater risk of self-harm, drug use and ending up in jail, new research claims.
Talking harshly to children should be recognised as a form of abuse because of the huge damage it does, experts say.
The authors of a new study into such behaviour say “adult-to-child perpetration of verbal abuse … is characterised by shouting, yelling, denigrating the child, and verbal threats”.
“These types of adult actions can be as damaging to a child’s development as other currently recognised and forensically established subtypes of mistreatment such as childhood physical and sexual abuse,” the academics say in their paper in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.
I think there’s a missed distinction here.
“Yelling” at your child to get them to stop something, or not step into traffic, or not eat pills is one thing. That’s certainly not verbal abuse.
Shaming and berating your child for getting a C, telling them they are worthless, they are the reason Dad left, they are ugly is very different. This is clearly verbal abuse.
It’s conceivable that the sustained verbal abuse as I defined it could absolutely harm a child in a long term way, and cumulatively have an impact similar to physical abuse.