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.

  • @ZombieTheZombieCat
    8•8 months ago

    There’s this short series on Netflix called Unbelievable. I recommend every single person watch it, but especially anyone who wants / needs to know exactly what it’s like to try to report sexual abuse to the police. It’s dramatized but it’s based on a true story of an 18 year old girl who was sexually assaulted by someone who broke into her apartment in the middle of the night. From the minute she reported it she was treated like a criminal. She was interrogated by cops who criticized her from the second they sat down. She ended up being charged and convicted of making false police reports. She was in some kind of group home at the time. She got in trouble, lost her friends, home, supports, and job. Several years later, the suspect assaulted another woman and was finally caught. I can’t imagine the relief and vindication she must have felt. Except that the cops literally allowed the suspect to assault at least one more person before doing anything about it. It’s a good thing it happened in another state because if it had happened in the same place they probably would have just arrested the second victim too.

    But the depiction in the show is true to life. It’s for everyone who has ever said “well if it actually happened then why didn’t they just call the cops?”