The impact of emotional abuse

Emotional abuse affects children across all aspects of their development; in their educational and
academic attainment, in their social skills and behaviour, in their physical health and mental well being
and in their relationships, and beyond their childhood into adult life. The longer the abuse continues
the deeper and longer lasting the harmful effect, which can lead to long term psychological damage.

Emotional abuse occurs across a wide spectrum of situations and the risk of emotional damage is
increased when additional factors are present such as disability, learning difficulties, parental
substance misuse, domestic violence, larger families and social exclusion. Those who are particularly
vulnerable include children with birth defects, premature babies and children with learning difficulties
or physical disabilities. The evidence suggests that boys and girls are both equally at risk of emotional
abuse, however it may be that girls are more likely to report it.

Prevalence studies suggest that registered cases of emotional abuse represent just the tip of the
iceberg, and that children on the child protection register comprise only a small proportion of the total
number of children actually experiencing abuse of this type. Radford’s study of abuse and neglect
(2011) identifies one in 14 (6.9%) have experienced emotional abuse in childhood.

The emotionally abusive parent:

Iwaniec et al (2006) identify a set of common parental behaviours which are linked to emotional abuse:

• persistent hostility and harsh discipline

• failing to respond to the child’s physical, emotional, intellectual and social needs
• unrealistic expectations
• encouraging the child to be aggressive or to behave sexually in an unsuitable way
• exploiting the child for their own needs
• extremely inconsistent care and insecure attachment relationships
• belittling the child
• emotional unavailability

The parent’s own personality clearly plays a significant part; parents who are emotionally troubled,
those who experience more illness, who are aggressive or hostile towards others, those with low self-
esteem and those who find it hard to mix socially are all more at risk of emotionally maltreating their
children. Some parents are re-enacting their own earlier history of abuse which now affects their
ability to cope with stressful situations or unhappy relationships with partners or children.

Mental illness, learning disability, substance misuse and domestic violence can all affect parents’
capacity to provide adequate care. Cleaver et al (2012) found that parental problems may mean
parents have difficulty controlling their emotions, or providing emotional warmth. Parents may neglect
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their own and their children’s physical needs, children may be insecurely attached because parents are
insensitive, unresponsive, angry and critical of their children. Mental illness can seriously affect
functioning and can blunt parents’ emotions and feelings, or cause them to behave towards their
children in bizarre or violent ways. Learning disability affects parents’ capacity to learn and retain the
new parenting skills they need, negative childhood experiences leave many parents with low self-
esteem and a poor sense of self worth.

What are the consequences:

The age of the child when the abuse is taking place has a bearing on the ensuing impact; for instance
family violence can have a much more dramatic and long lasting effect on children under the age of
five as they have less emotional maturity to deal with it and to some extent older children can learn to
adapt and can employ coping mechanisms to keep themselves safe. However ongoing chronic
emotional neglect can have long lasting and severe consequences for children of all ages which can be
affected by many changing factors which include:

• the nature of the abuse, how often, how severe and how long it lasts
• the individual characteristics of the victim
• what kind of relationship there is between the child and the abuser
• how others respond to the abuse

Emotional abuse affects children’s ability to develop their cognitive and academic skills especially in
reading, maths and language and they often struggle to adapt to the school environment where they
are frequently disruptive, find it hard to accept discipline, need to repeat academic years, have low
educational and vocational aspirations and leave school without any qualifications.

In their social interactions victims of emotional abuse find it hard to cope with stressful situations or to
manage emotional problems and their behaviour is often described as either too compliant and eager
to please, or too demanding and self centred. As children move into adolescence they may start to self
harm, to use alcohol or drugs to mask their distress or to develop delinquent behaviours. Many
emotionally neglected adolescents are extremely vulnerable, but often hard to reach, widespread
adolescent emotional abuse and neglect often go un-noticed, leaving adolescents neglected both by
their families and also by services. The consequences include suicide and death or serious injury from
risk-taking behaviours (Brandon et al 2008).

Emotional abuse also has a noticeable impact on a child’s physical health, victims are often smaller and
weigh less than their peers and fail to meet the normal developmental milestones. Emotional abuse
can also affect their neurological development and it has been linked to hyperactivity, sleep
disturbance, anxiety and learning and memory problems. These effects tend to remain for many years
particularly if the child continues to be vulnerable and emotionally neglected. Recent research
(Davies& Ward 2012) suggests that the risk of fatalities from neglect, including emotional neglect, may
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be as high as that from physical abuse, and ten times as many children experience emotional abuse
and neglect as come to the attention of child welfare services.

Childhood exposure to emotional abuse is strongly predictive of future mental health problems,
particularly a sense of hopelessness, helplessness and low self esteem.
When parents have been highly critical and verbally hostile it seems to play a significant role in later
relationship and identity problems, with the victim taking on board the negative messages and
internalizing the critical voice of the caregiver.

Children learn to cope with inconsistent caring, from carers who are often unresponsive to their child’s
needs, by developing insecure attachments styles. They learn that adults may love and reject at the
same time, that they can both protect and hurt, that relationships are about pleasure and emotional
pain, and that others are not to be trusted. Children with experience of emotional abuse find it much
more difficult to make or keep caring reciprocal relationships; more often they choose relationships or
social situations which replicate the abusive patterns of their earlier years and which inevitably confirm
their negative view of themselves and others. In this way the cycle of abusive behaviours continues.

An overview of the research into emotional abuse by Barlow and Schrader McMillan (2009) suggests
that the complex issues underlying emotional abuse require both population-based and targeted
interventions. Therapeutic-based interventions with parents such as cognitive behavioural therapy,
parent–infant/ child psychotherapy and work around attachment relationships appear to offer the best
results.

Refs:
Barlow, J & Schrader McMillan, A: (2009) Safeguarding Children from Emotional Abuse: What Works?
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RBX-09-09.pdf

Brandon M et al; (2008) Analysing child deaths and serious injury through abuse and neglect: what can
we learn? A biennial analysis of serious case reviews 2003 – 2005
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RR023.pdf

Cleaver, H; UnelI, I & Aldgate, J; (2012) Children’s Needs – Parenting Capacity: Child abuse: Parental
mental illness, learning disability, substance misuse, and domestic violence. 2nd edition.
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/Childrens%20Needs%20Parenting%2
0Capacity.pdf

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Davies, C; & Ward, H (2012) Safeguarding Children Across Services: Messages from research on
identifying and responding to child maltreatment.
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-RR164

Radford L, Corral S, Bradley C, Fisher H, Bassett C, Howat N and Collishaw S (2011) Child abuse and
neglect in the UK today. London: NSPCC
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/findings/child_abuse_neglect_research_wda84173.html

Iwaniec,D; Larkin,E;& Higgins,S; (2006) Research Review: Risk and Resilience in

cases of emotional abuse in Child and Family Social Work Vol 11, Issue 1,
Feb 2006.

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