What is child maltreatment?
Psychological maltreatment is also known as psychological abuse or emotional abuse. This type of maltreatment includes behaviors such as ridiculing, intimidating, insulting, rejecting, or humiliating a child.
Emotional abuse is a silent type of abuse, i.e. the marks are not visible and the perpetrators are usually the parents.
What are the symptoms?
Some of the symptoms of emotional abuse are:
- Problems at school: lack of concentration, lack of interest or poor school performance.
- Eating problems that can generate a marked increase or loss of weight.
- Low self-esteem.
- Depression.
- Anxiety.
- Bad behavior, which may be evidenced as lack of respect for authority and established rules, for example.
- Aggressiveness (expressed verbally or even physically).
- Seeking the approval of adults: their desire to please hides the need to be loved and protected.
- Sleeping problems.
- Physical neglect.
Causes of psychological child abuse
We speak of psychological child abuse when these types of situations occur:
- Humiliating and/or criticizing the child constantly.
- Threatening the child with physical punishment (even when this does not exist).
- Yelling at the child and calling him/her “humiliating names”.
- Using sarcasm to make fun of the child.
- Controlling the child, preventing him/her from developing individually.
- Ignoring the child.
- Manipulating the child.
- Never complimenting or expressing positive feelings toward the child.
- Imitating the child in a derogatory way.
Can it be prevented?
Parents should avoid destructive behaviors towards their children by being aware of the way they act towards them. Being aware of the ways in which you act will help to avoid the behavior.
Another fundamental step for adults is to be empathetic and take a deep breath before acting, taking a minute alone to regain our composure.
It is also important to apologize to children if we have spoken badly to them. It is very valuable to recognize our mistakes in front of our children and to ask for forgiveness when we “overdo it” with some assessment or challenge.
Adults who believe they are the cause of emotional abuse towards their children should seek help. In case you know a child in your family, friends or close ones who suffer this kind of abuse, you should also act.
What does treatment consist of?
The main priority of treatment is to ensure the safety and protection of children who have been abused. Treatment therefore focuses on preventing future maltreatment and reducing the long-term psychological and physical consequences of maltreatment.
In addition, treatment can help both children and parents in abusive situations.
Talking with a mental health professional, psychologist or psychiatrist can:
- Help a child who was abused learn to trust again.
- Teach a child about normal behaviors and relationships.
- Teach a child how to handle conflict and thus increase self-esteem.
Different therapies can be effective, such as:
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy. This type of therapy helps a child who was a victim of maltreatment to better manage feelings of distress and cope with trauma-related memories.
- Parent-child psychotherapy: This treatment aims to improve the parent-child relationship and create a stronger bond between parents and children.
Psychotherapy can also help parents to:
- Discover the causes of the abuse.
- Learn effective ways to cope with the frustrations that are inevitable in life.
- Learn appropriate parenting strategies.