Psychological abuse: Impact on children

Pages: 526-528
Shagufta Afroz and P.S.N. Tiwari (Department of Psychology, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh)

Psychological or emotional abuse of a child is commonly defined as a pattern of behavior by parents or caregivers that can seriously interfere with a child’s cognitive, emotional, psychological or social development. Emotional abuse of a child also referred to as psychological maltreatment which can include the acts of ignoring, rejecting, corrupting or exploiting, isolating, neglecting the child, terrorizing, verbally assaulting etc. Some parents may emotionally and psychologically harm their children because of stress, poor parenting skills, social isolation, and lack of available resources or inappropriate expectations of their children while every parent wants best for their child. Although the visible signs of emotional abuse in children can be difficult to detect, the hidden scars of this type of abuse manifest in numerous behavioral ways, including insecurity, poor self-esteem, destructive behavior, angry acts, withdrawal, poor development of basic skills, alcohol or drug abuse, suicide, difficulty forming relationships and unstable job histories. To protect the children from Psychological or emotional maltreatment may be the most challenging and difficult task for everyone because the abused child and the abuser parent are in a strong relationship.The paper concludes with some suggestion to deal with and to prevent this silent but dangerous problem because all children need acceptance, love, encouragement, discipline, consistency, stability and positive attention in their life.