By Alicia Ramkarran '23
There’s a direct correlation between the degrading, harsh, and belittling language used by parents against their own children and negative outcomes, including a child’s mental and emotional underdevelopment.
So, how can parents, the people who are supposed to love and protect their children, possibly verbally harm them? While some parents believe being a helicopter parent and micromanaging every aspect of a child’s life will help to make them more responsible and independent, others think they have a right to treat them however they please since it’s their offspring. This ignorance of not knowing the powerful impact their words and phrases have on their children explains the potential for the deterioration of their child’s minds and self-esteem, as they start to feel judged, unloved, and unwanted, being exposed to such treatment constantly.
The Longer-term Impacts: Child Mental Scaring
Using degrading words heavily affects how a child’s brain processes them and how they even treat their future children. Comments like “You’re worthless!” “You should’ve never been born!” “Your sister is so much smarter than you!” “I wish I had a better child.” has been made by parents who deemed such language harmless, not knowing the cloud of worthlessness and low self-esteem it sewed within their child. From being a toddler, children are able to detect the style of their parents' communication and respond back to it. For instance, if a father yells at his son for playing terribly in a soccer game, his son might yell back at him out of anger and draw himself into his own isolation bubble to ignore the conflict.
As these children start to grow older, the negative statements expressed toward them by their parents start to impact their emotional, social, and cognitive development heavily. If the child internalizes their parent’s shaming messages, they become overly self critical, constantly accusing themselves for every mistake they make, exemplified by false narratives such as “I failed this test because I’m so stupid.” These individuals may even become abusive themselves in the future. Abused kids are so accustomed to this toxic treatment from their parents that it can be normalized at this point, making them believe verbal abuse is the norm and standard for how they should treat their own children. Some children assume it’s their fault their parents negatively talk to them, lowering their self-esteem. They start to feel guilty as if they’re a burden to their parents due to the statements: “I’m so stressed out because of you.” The abusive language can limit the growth of a child’s emotional intelligence, such as identifying and processing emotions.
Along with emotional delays, children can experience antisocial behaviors and academic challenges. They often have trouble making friends, fall behind in school, or even partake in regressive habits, such as thumb-sucking and bed-wetting. The chances of physical aggression can also increase; a child may hit or attack other kids or animals to release the anger they developed at home from their parents. Some people believe the emotional trauma they endured from their parents helped to shape them into the adult they are now. They feel that It created this trait of independence within them: “I don’t need help. I know what to do.” “I don’t need to get married; I’m happy all alone.” But, this ultimately leads to creating high expectations of oneself and trying to be an overachiever; the idea of perfection and the goal to achieve all their desires gets formulated in a child’s mind in response to negative messages. If one doesn’t obtain their goals, they’ll start to be extremely harsh on themselves and may even develop depression. When a child feels as if they’re not loved, worthy or strong, these deep melancholic emotions can trigger serious patterns of suicidal ideations. Sometimes, adolescents develop repetitive, toxic coping mechanisms (i.e. cutting or scratching deeply into their skin using a knife or razor blade, overdosing on pills or alcohol, or participating in risky behaviors), which increase their likelihood of intense injury and, tragically, even death.
Modification of a mother's verbal abuse Case Study
Research by Adele Davis Murphy and Sallie O. Davis in 2002 suggests that if a parent recognizes their wrongdoings and modifies their behavior for the child’s comfort, it’ll ultimately improve their parent-child relationship. Researchers studied the effect of an A-B-A-B reversal design, a type of single-case experiment used to examine the effect of two or more conditions on the behavior of repeated participants. The study calculated the frequency of the child’s interruptions as their mother speaks to her; the goal is to have the abusive parent her the use of derogatory terms and engage in techniques of behavior modification. Four sets of thirty-minute tapes were recorded: two first two tapes captured a resentful daughter having been yelled at by her mother, hence a worsening of their mother-daughter communication and interactions. The last two tapes displayed the effects of the mother’s behavioral modification towards her daughter, improving modification of the mother’s language towards her daughter, and improving her awareness of the impolite nature of interrupting someone. After assessing the tapes using the Kasprin-Burrelli, Egolf, and Shames Parent-Child Interaction Scale (Kasprin-Burrelli, 1972), researchers proved that the quality of the parent-child interactions was enhanced when a parent’s mannerisms became more respectful and mindful. While the success of the treatment may have been due to the presence of an examiner throughout the study, the fact that after the mother’s stimulation altered her disciplinary action, the daughter's behavior and their relationship together did advance from the beginning of the experiment. Thus, this study makes clear that when parents don’t belittle or scream at their children when unnecessary, their children won’t spiral emotionally or mentally and participate in rebellious acts, nor would they present isolating behaviors.
The words and phrases parents use around their kid's profoundly influence and shape the way the children think, develop and conduct certain actions. During a child’s growth, negative statements expressed towards them by their parents heavily impact their emotional, social, and cognitive development, making the damage of mentally scarring far outlive the tense interactions of children. So, it’s extremely important for parents to be careful of how they speak with their children.
Parents should think before they speak and consider whether using such belittling words is necessary.
Most parents yell at their kids out of in-the-moment stress or frustration and some even believe their children will “grow up” and mature from hearing such language, but that’s a large misconception. Using reassuring language will not only help a child feel more loved and comfortable in their home, but it will inspire genuine and long-lasting maturity and self-confidence that will benefit that child into adulthood. Compared with corporal punishment, positive discipline is a far kinder and more effective method to mend the broken bond between a parent and child to create a loving relationship.
References
HealthDay. (2019). Yelling at Children (Verbal Abuse). Consumer HealthDay. https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/children-s-health-10/child-development-news-124/yelling-at-children-verbal-abuse-648565.html
What are the Effects of Verbal Abuse on Children? - Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. (2011, August 16). Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. https://www.ccpa-accp.ca/what-are-the-effects-of-verbal-abuse-on-children/
Verbal Abuse of Children: What Can You Do About It? (n.d.). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201403/verbal-abuse-children-what-can-you-do-about-it
Ghosh, M. (2014, July 30). 8 Serious Negative Effects Of Verbal Abuse On Children. MomJunction. https://www.momjunction.com/articles/serious-short-long-term-negative-effects-of-verbal-abuse-on-children_0082357/
Kids HELPLINE. (2018, September 10). Understanding child emotional abuse. Kids Helpline. https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/understanding-child-emotional-abuse
Murphy, A. D., & Davis, S. O. (1979). Modification of a mother’s verbal abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 3(3-4), 1087–1092. https://doi.org/10.1016/0145-2134(79)90155-8
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