Emotional Abuse Summary

For many years, the society has focused more on the physical abuse and neglect among the children. It has led to the increase in the places of protection for the children suffering from physical violence and neglect in the society. However, in the recent years, this has taken a different turn; there have been some studies carried out regarding the developmental issues among the children (Elarousy, & Al-Jadaani, 2013). The studies have revealed that emotional abuse among the children has the same harmful effects as the physical violence and neglect. Unlike the physical maltreatment, emotional abuse does not leave any obvious injuries; as such it's hard to precipitate the identification of emotional abuse by the health and welfare or justice

According to the Children’s Bureau, an estimated 3.1 million children in the United States who are involved some practice of ill-treatment yearly, mainly by the parental, relatives, or other grown-up caregivers (American Psychological Association, 2014). In 2012, an article by the American Academy of Pediatrics singled out emotional cruelty as the most prevalent and challenging system of child cruelty and neglect (American Psychological Association, 2014). Emotional abuse is designated as the verbal cruelty, punitive nonphysical penalties, or pressures of ill-treatment. It represents a recurrent array of the grown-up to child conduct that results in the youngster feeling insignificant, flawed, hated, unsolicited, threatened, or of importance in achieving meeting someone’s prerequisites (Najam, & Iram Rizvi, 2014).

There are several forms of behavior that can be categorized as the emotional abuse. Some of these behaviors include:

Intimidation and threats. This comprises anything that will make a child feel small or stop them from standing up for themselves. These can include a number things such as shouting, acting aggressively or just the minor things that make a child feel scared (ScienceDaily, 2015)

Criticism. This may comprise things such as name-calling, use of unpleasant or sarcastic utterances.

(2013). Emotional abuse among children: A study in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Eastern Mediterranean health journal, 19(10), 869.

American Psychological Association, (2014). Childhood Psychological Abuse as Harmful as Sexual or Physical Abuse. http://www.apa.org. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/10/psychological-abuse.aspx

Schrader, A., & Barlow, J. (2010). Safeguarding Children from Emotional Maltreatment: What Works (1st ed., pp. 11-12). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Najam, N., & Iram Rizvi, S. (2014). Parental Psychological Abuse toward children and Mental Health Problems in adolescence. PubMed Central (PMC). Retrieved 5 April 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3998989/

McLeod, S. (2017). Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Development. Simply Psychology. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html

ScienceDaily,. (2015). Different types of child abuse: Similar consequences: In the long run, emotional abuse might hurt a child as much as violence or neglect. ScienceDaily. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from