| Home | Abuse | Emotional Abuse England,
South America and Abuse in the Home I just found a quote by Mary Marsh, Director of the NSPCC in England. The NSPCC is the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Here is the quote:
This was in 2002 after the killings of the children mentioned. At the time I thought, as I still do, that there is much more emotional abuse than physical abuse of children and teens. Since then, I have been living in South America where I saw that parents claim to be protecting their children by not allowing them out of the house. Yet it quickly became obvious that there was more violence inside the homes of South America, than on the streets. It is the norm, not the exception to be physically hit in your home in countries like Ecuador and Peru. Being inside the home is clearly more dangerous for children and teens in such countries than being outside of it. Though the parents in South America may not kill their children, they are doing serious psychological damage by using fear to control them. The high level of insecurity and low level of self-confidence in many children, teens and adults in South America is easy to see. The use of fear to control is one form of emotional abuse. All physical abuse frightens, therefore, all physical abuse contains emotional abuse. Yet there are many forms of emotional abuse which don't include physical abuse. Therefore it has to follow that there is by definition more emotional abuse than physical abuse. Threats, insults, intimidation, mocking and invalidation are all forms of non-physical abuse. All of this is present, and very wide spread, in both South America and England. While there may not be as much domestic physical abuse in England as there is in South America, there is still far too much psychological abuse in the British homes. I firmly believe the psychological abuse, and the emotional neglect and invalidation, is the prime reason for the high self-harm which I see in the British teens I have known over the past five years. This is something which is even harder to fight than physical abuse and murder. It is much easier for people to say "How horrible" when a parent murders a child, but what do we say when a parent kills a child's or teen's soul, spirit, or motivation? And what do we say when the parents cause the teen to self-harm or commit suicide? Very few people are willing to take a serious look at the connection between emotional abuse and teen self-harm, depression and suicide. But it is crystal clear to me. S. Hein |
Respect | Empathy Other EQI.org Topics: Emotional
Literacy |