This is a post about childhood psychological abuse. According to the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (Health Canada, 2008), the most common form of child abuse in Canada is emotional abuse and neglect, followed by emotional abuse and physical abuse. Homes, places where children long for love and refuge, can tragically be the very places where they experience harm. Childhood abuse is the most damaging form of domestic violence because children are the most vulnerable, the weakest to be victimized. Of all family members, the children’s own biological parents, the adults who gave birth to them and are supposed to nurture and protect them, are the very ones who are most likely to be the perpetrators (Department of Health and Human Services, 2005; Health Canada, 2008; Statistics Canada, 2001)—extensive research refutes some Chinese old sayings which glorify all parents: 天下無不是的父母 (“No parents are wrong in this world,”) or 虎毒不吃兒 (“Even an evil tiger would not eat its cub, let alone human parents”).
Children who are severely and frequently abused, such as being threatened with death, can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, dissociation, and heightened anxiety (Margolin & Gordis, 2000; Morrissette, 1999; Perry, 2001). Child mistreatment comes with lifelong repercussions. For example, people with a history of child abuse have a greater risk to develop heart disease and cancer (Dong et al., 2004; Holman et al., 2016). Studies indicate that the detrimental effects of childhood abuse and trauma are often permanent, permeating the victim’s life in every aspect, throughout the lifespan. The child outcomes of abuse are strongly correlated with the duration, the frequency, and the intensity of the abuse, in combination with inborn vulnerabilities which vary between individual children. It is repeated and arbitrary emotional abuse, rather than accidental lashing out, that often causes a child permanent harm (White et al., 1994).
To begin, it’s of paramount importance to address the definitions of emotional abuse, as well as elements of abuse in a narcissistic household (Berger, 1980; Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs; Malkin, 2016; Newfoundlander Labrador; Rothschild et al., 2012; White et al., 1994):
Gaslighting (labeling a child's normal behaviour or accurate perceptions as being incorrect, bad, or a sign of illness)
Swearing
Yelling
Humiliating, shaming, poking fun at the person to an excessive degree without consent
Putting a person down
Making a person feel guilty, worthless, bad about herself
Making a person think she’s crazy and stupid
Denying the existence of the abuse, calling the victim a liar
Blaming the child for having caused the abuse—claiming to correct the child’s perceived flaws, in order to justify the abuse
Refusing to admit parental mistakes
Blaming the child for being the cause of all problems in the household (such as the parents' health problems, work or financial problems, etc. –for example the child may be told "If we get cancer, it's because of you")
Talking behind the child, gossiping about the child
Shaming the child in front of family, relatives, neighbours, strangers
Denying the child’s needs and opinions
In cases, even in wealthy families, parents may refuse to pay for the child's basic health care, such as dental and optometry checkups, or paying for eyeglasses
Preventing the child from demonstrating normal emotions, by mocking or scolding
Verbal abuse:
Using written or spoken language to harm a person
Calling a person fat, ugly, stupid, crazy, useless
Name-calling
Repeated and unjustified verbal abuse is an extremely detrimental form of abuse because—words are one of the aspects of experience which carve, form, and define a child’s self-concept
Totalitarian and patriarchal practices:
Treating the victim like a servant
Being the master of family decision-making, having supreme authority
Some totalitarian homes can have a parody of egalitarian practices, by insisting that the child expresses simple preferences, such as food choices, hobbies, or even paint colour in their bedroom—but such preferences then get ignored and the choices are made as always by the totalitarian parent. This teaches the child to become passive, resigned, and cynical
Isolation:
Controlling who she sees, what she does, where she goes
Limiting her social relationships with outgroup members
Financial Abuse:
Restricting access to money
Making the child beg for money
Taking away her money (the most iconic example of this would be literally taking away a child's "piggy bank" with the money the child had saved for years from little jobs or gifts from grandparents, etc.)
Forbidding her from getting or securing a job
Threatening to change the beneficiary of a legal will
Refusing to let the child study or attend school
Silent Abuse:
Silent treatment, treating the child as though she’s invisible
Withholding emotional expression: Edward Tronick et al. (1975)’s still-face experiments indicate that when caregivers deliberately maintain emotionally expressionless faces, the babies wail
Withholding affection
Refusing to answer, or ridiculing, a child's question or comment
Using facial expressions, stares, and either subtly or overtly threatening gestures to imbue fear in the child
Threats and Intimidation:
Threatening to kill the child
Threatening to beat the child up
Threatening to abandon her by sending her away
Insulting the child by saying she’s worthy of death
Stating that the child is likely to be raped in the future
Spiritual Abuse:
Using distorted manifestations of religious beliefs and teachings to judge, manipulate, or harm the child
Cultural Abuse:
Using distorted understandings of cultural beliefs and teachings to judge, manipulate, or harm the child
Neglect:
Failing to provide physical assistance for the child whose needs and well-being are utterly dependent on the caregivers (i.e., food, clothing, shelter)
Inadequate supervision, leaving the child alone
Refusing to contact a physician to resolve medical and/or psychological conditions
Emotional Neglect:
Being absent for long stretches of time without any form of communication, care, and affection
Decreasing parent-child interactions
Leaving the child to fend for herself when the child is not ready for this
Feral children, who were deprived of human contact, can have difficulty acquiring language, reasoning, and relationships for the rest of their lives because our biology makeups have time limits—sensitive windows—for humans to acquire skills (Henslin et al., 2010)
Parentification Abuse:
Shrinking parental responsibilities and coercing a child to take care of other siblings to an excessive degree
Role reversal: being insensitive to the child’s emotions and needs, coaching a child to take care of the parents’ needs instead of her own
Narcissistic Households:
Unhealthy boundaries: inappropriate physical contact, inappropriate comments about appearance
The family system is authoritarian
Narcissistic parents tend to have low self-esteem and low empathy
Narcissistic parents tend to be emotionally immature
Narcissistic parents can often be rigidly perfectionistic
Abusive parents tend to be less intelligent than parents who do not enact abuse
Abusive parents are often hostile, compulsive, depressed, anxious
Maintaining the family’s reputation is a top priority in narcissistic households, keeping the mess masked
Narcissistic parents have impaired capacity for introspection and refuse to take responsibilities for their actions
Narcissistic parents see children as extensions of themselves and promote unhealthy competition by assigning children to different roles
Golden Child:
Chosen to boost the parents’ egos
Her successes are praised, her failures are minimized
Encouraged by the parents to bully other siblings and to feel superior over siblings
The golden child therefore learns to gain her parents’ approval and exaltation by bullying and by being cruel, acknowledging that in contrast, the scapegoat child gets punished for being kind and empathic
The golden child, usually, like her parents, has no introspection and therefore remains blind, with deficiencies in empathy. Such begins the next generation of narcissism and abusive behaviour
Scapegoat Child:
Chosen to take all the blame for problems in the family
Problems are projected onto the scapegoat child
If this child refuses to take the blame, it would lead to more attacks; so the child learns to passively accept the abuse in order to avoid punishment
Narcissistic parents feel small inside; therefore, they attack the child to make themselves feel big
The scapegoat child is seen to be the worst, or all bad
The scapegoat child is punished for her successes or achievements, because they are misaligned with the narcissistic parents’ perception that she’s the worst, or she’s all bad
Gemmill (1989) suggests that blaming the scapegoat child for all problems can help promote the unity of the authoritarian family, as well it allows the narcissistic parents and family members to think that they are healthier than they actually are
The scapegoat child is usually the independent child, a high achiever, who strives to be the opposite of what the family says, to unlearn habits through therapy, thereby extricating herself from the dysfunctional family dynamics and establishing stability in emotionality and social relationships
At one point, I wondered, “Why do I have to keep writing about abuse? How come I can’t talk about something more light-hearted?” A dictum says writers don’t get to choose the topics that they write about—instead, their stories find them. We are all appointed to talk about certain topics. I have come to realize that it is my “survivor mission”: I am chosen to talk about child abuse—therefore, nature entrusted me with an extensive knowledge about it—there is nothing else that I know more than abuse.
I am compelled to talk about the effects of child abuse: how devastating it is to experience abuse, to escape, to be affected socially, academically, vocationally, and to encounter a community without much understanding, but with judgment, condemnation, or dismissiveness. In a lot of our stories, there are no open arms waiting for us to come home. After escaping the abuse, there is just another barrage of heart-wrenching events awaiting us—sometimes yet another abusive environment, most struggle financially, and most do not feel well physically and mentally.
Child abuse is a crime. We must take a stance toward injustice because apathy, neutrality, or silence is a support vote for the predator. We must not be bystanders. The bystander effect refers to the notion that a witness simply assumes that the issue—the abuse—is already being dealt with by someone else: the belief is that some other witness is already going to help, so no further action is needed. The trouble is, everyone in the whole group believes the same thing, therefore nobody does anything. We cannot ignore cries for help, or assume that someone else will deal with it. Even if it is too dangerous to intervene directly, it is always possible to do something, such as to call the police or to call a child-protection agency. As citizens, we are all responsible to report child abuse and neglect immediately, even suspected cases, to the police or to a child protection agency, to help put a stop to child abuse.
Zimbardo (2007) challenges each of us to be a “hero.” His idea of being a hero is to be willing to speak out about injustice, and to be willing to help a person in need, even if everyone else in your group is remaining silent. Speaking up, or assisting others, can be scary, and can require physical and emotional energy—but these actions are brave and noble, and can be part of living a deeply satisfying life.
Education is a cornerstone of preventing child emotional abuse, and I feel called to help stop or prevent child abuse, and to help those who have experienced child abuse, no matter where they are on their journeys. I wanted to be there for them, in a long-term, consistent, substantial way, and I know, as a therapist, I can provide that foundation for them: to listen, to understand, to provide relief. As a writer, I hope other people with similar experiences can find some resonance, comfort, and relief, just as I did. I hope my impact—and yours—can instill a glimpse of hope in lives, in souls, in spirits. I was inspired by scads of storytellers before me, so I wonder whether my small effort can potentially be an act of leadership, too, starting a chain reaction, inviting other people joining in and speaking out, producing a movement in education about child abuse.
I can’t help but wonder whether writing about this matter can also act as a preventative measure, thwarting parents, some of whom with well meaning, from going down a detrimental path. Parents who have poor preparation for parenthood can sometimes become abusive; I, therefore, encourage all parents or guardians to take a parenting course at a college or university before entering into parenthood.
There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children. (Marianne Williamson)
No one is all bad. Even Hitler liked children and animals, according to some reports. All abusers go through cycles of being nice and being cruel towards their victims. They are good at camouflaging themselves, and sometimes they might even feel guilty for being abusive, although it would be extremely rare for such a person to acknowledge their bad behaviour or apologize for it. In some cases, abuse of any severity begins with happy times, a “honeymoon period,” followed by a gradual and inevitable build-up of tension, then an explosion into frank abuse, then a phase of apology, gifts, apparent kindness, starting a new “honeymoon” (Hubbard House, 2010). Each spin of this cycle can kindle some hope in the victim that “this time it will be different.” But after many spins of this wheel, the victim can lose hope of the abuse ever ending, and further can lose the capacity to be optimistic in general. It is a recipe for chronic despair or “learned helplessness.” This cycle can occur at different intervals in different households—sometimes the honeymoon and abuse cycles can be weeks or months apart. In other families, the abuse would return in some form daily—“honeymoon” periods might only last hours, rather than days or weeks.
To learn more about abuse and trauma, please visit the following page:
Affirmations: I enrich my life when I learn about abuse. I enrich my life when I help and support survivors of abuse.
References
Berger, A. M. (1980). The child abusing family: I. Methodological issues and parent-related characteristics of abusing families. American Journal of Family Therapy, 8(3), 53-66.
Department of Health and Human Services. (2005). Child maltreatment 2003. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs. Wheels. Retrieved from https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheels/
Dong, M., Giles, W. H., Felitti, V. J., Dube, S. R., Williams, J. E., Chapman, D. P., & Anda, R. F. (2004). Insights into causal pathways for ischemic heart disease: Adverse childhood experiences study. Circulation, 110(13), 1761-1766.
Gemmill, G. (1989). The dynamics of scapegoating in small groups. Small Group Behavior, 20(4), 406-418.
Health Canada. (2008). The Canadian incidence study of reported child abuse and neglect (CIS). Retrieved from https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/en/CIS-2008-rprt-eng.pdf
Henslin, J. M., Glenday, D., Pupo, N., & Duffy, A. (2010). Sociology: A down-to-earth approach (5th ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.
Holman, D. M., Ports, K. A., Buchanan, N. D., Hawkins, N. A., Merrick, M. T., Metzler, M., & Trivers, K. F. (2016). The association between adverse childhood experiences and risk of cancer in adulthood: A systematic review of the literature. Pediatrics, 138(Supplement 1), S81-S91.
Hubbard House. (2010, October 15). The cycle of abuse. Retrieved from https://www.hubbardhouse.org/the-cycle-of-abuse/
Malkin, C. (2016). Rethinking narcissism: The secret to recognizing and coping with narcissists. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
Margolin, G., & Gordis, E. B. (2000). The effects of family and community violence on children. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 445-479. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.445
Morrissette, P. J. (1999). Post-traumatic stress disorder in child sexual abuse: Diagnostic and treatment considerations. Child and Youth Care Forum, 28(3), 205-219.
Newfoundland Labrador. Defining violence and abuse. Retrieved from https://www.gov.nl.ca/vpi/about/defining-violence-and-abuse/
Perry, B. D. (2001). The neuroarcheology of childhood maltreatment: The neurodevelopmental costs of adverse childhood events. In K. Franey, R. Geffner, & R. Falconer (Eds.), The cost of maltreatment: Who pays? We all do (pp. 15-37). San Diego, CA: Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute.
Rothschild, Z. K., Landau, M. J., Sullivan, D., & Keefer, L. A. (2012). A dual-motive model of scapegoating: Displacing blame to reduce guilt or increase control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6), 1148-1163.
Statistics Canada. (2001). Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile. Canadian Center for Justice Statistics.
Tronick, E., Adamson, L.B., Als, H., & Brazelton, T.B. (1975, April). Infant emotions in normal and pertubated interactions. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
White, J. M., Larson, L. E., Goltz, J. W., Munro, B. E. (1994). Families in Canada: Social contexts, continuities, and changes (3rd ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Zimbardo, P. G. (2007) The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random House.