Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse involves consistently mistreating a child in waysthat harm their emotional development. This can include making them feel worthless, unloved, or only valued for meeting someone else’s needs. It might also involve silencing them, mocking what they say or how they communicate, or imposing unrealistic expectations.

Emotional abuse can also occur through over-protection, limiting their learning and social interactions, or exposing them to the mistreatment of others. Bullying, including cyberbullying, and exploitation are also forms of emotional abuse.

Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, though it may occur alone (Working Together).

Signs that MAY indicate emotional abuse include:

• Lack of self-confidence/esteem 
• Sudden speech disorders
• Self-harming (including eating disorders)
• Misusing substances; e.g. alcohol, drugs. solvents
• Lack of empathy (including cruelty to animals)
• Concerning interactions between parent/carer and the child (e.g. excessive criticism of the child or a lack of boundaries)

NSPCC:

Emotional abuse is the ongoing emotional maltreatment of a child. It’s sometimes called psychological abuse and can seriously damage a child’s emotional health and development.

Emotional abuse can involve deliberately trying to scare or humiliate a child or isolating or ignoring them.

Children who are emotionally abused are often suffering another type of abuse or neglect at the same time – but this isn’t always the case.

What does emotional abuse include?

Because there’s an element of emotional abuse in all other types of child abuse and neglect, it can be difficult to spot the signs and to separate what’s emotional abuse from other types of abuse.

Emotional abuse includes:

• humiliating or constantly criticising a child
• threatening, shouting at a child or calling them names
• making the child the subject of jokes, or using sarcasm to hurt a child
• blaming, scapegoating
• making a child perform degrading acts
• pushing a child too hard or not recognising their limitations
• exposing a child to distressing events or interactions such as domestic abuse or drug taking
• failing to promote a child’s social development
• not allowing them to have friends
• persistently ignoring them
• being absent
• manipulating a child
• never saying anything kind, expressing positive feelings or congratulating a child on successes
• never showing any emotions in interactions with a child, also known as emotional neglect