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.

  • treefrog
    21·
    9 months ago

    People can interpret it how they want and I was aware people would read into it. People read into everything though.

    My interpretation is that growing up in an abusive environment I resonated with other damaged people and that me identifying with protecting my mom from my abusive dad rather than trying to be like my dad, helped other damaged people feel safe around me (generally, when I wasn’t having a meltdown from my own trauma anyway).

    And since my first girlfriend had nightmares from her abuse I learned young to be supportive of people with sexual trauma.