Research finds verbal abuse leaves young people at greater risk of self-harm, drug use and going to prison

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.

  • Franzia
    18·
    1 year ago

    I really hate the idea of parents. Like two people raise you and are responsible for you? Reading Brave New World as a kid, it took me until the very end to understand it as dystopian. I thought the idea of your parents being barely a part of the equation, just absent minded and high all the time? Great. Trusting school to raise you entirely using weird subliminal studying methods was actually an improvement. It is dystopian, but yeah I basically think this idea of an atomic family unit to be the most bizarre and selfish, anti-social bullshit. My parents didn’t let me know my relatives, were able to choose who I was friends with, where I was able to go. And all the while I’m reliant on them to not be kidnapped or hate crimed and to support my goals rather than force me to sit at home. The abuse just continues on and on. I will never be okay, I can only hope to make some cool art before I die. But that start of life decides for you whether you will be important or not.

    • mcmoor@bookwormstory.socialEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      Childhood is basically an Achilles heel for every single libertarian concept, and one which authoritarians exploit every single time. Until every single human is born with complete knowledge and faculty, this weakness will always prevent full individualistic freedom.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
      7·
      1 year ago

      I can only hope to make some cool art before I die

      That, friend, is more than most people could hope to dream of. And I don’t mean that in the “poor kid in Rwanda” way. Let the wound do the talking there’s medicine there, not just for you.

    • urist
      3·
      1 year ago

      hugs

      It’s terribly lonely, isn’t it? And so hard to explain to other people.

      I remember when I was allowed to go to school (kindergarten). I was so excited to finally have friends and thought everyone was automatically my friend. That’s how it worked on TV, all the kids were friends with each other on the tv shows. Turns out that’s not how it works, and everyone had friends already from preschool. I was a permanent outsider from that point on, bullied. Struggled to make friends. When I finally did, we moved.

      Nobody cared if I was lonely, only if my grades were good (and they were perfect), and the floors were mopped and the knickknacks were dusted weekly. Anything less was an hour long screaming session.

      Nobody understands why I don’t want children. How do you raise children without a family?