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.
Unfortunately, both my parents are like that too. I went no contact for that reason, actually.
It is possible to get closure anyway, eg. by not doing the same mistake yourself or by surrouding yourself with healthy relationships and realizing your parent is just a human being full of faults and you’re your own person. I have examples around me of people who were able to get over it finally and also of people who carried it with them their whole life (and I don’t blame them). The sad thing is how many people have such burden in the first place.