Parents who shout at their children or call them “stupid” are leaving their offspring at greater risk of self-harm, drug use and ending up in jail, new research claims.

Talking harshly to children should be recognised as a form of abuse because of the huge damage it does, experts say.

The authors of a new study into such behaviour say “adult-to-child perpetration of verbal abuse … is characterised by shouting, yelling, denigrating the child, and verbal threats”.

“These types of adult actions can be as damaging to a child’s development as other currently recognised and forensically established subtypes of mistreatment such as childhood physical and sexual abuse,” the academics say in their paper in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.

  • @psycho_driver
    link
    101 year ago

    The amount of girls who are sexually abused is astounding. Honestly haven gotten my daughters to 12 and almost 14 without ever having had to experience this (unless they’ve misled us which I do not believe they would) is among my most proud accomplishments as a parent.