Emotional Abuse: The Silent Sin

Sexual predators, child porn, sex trafficking, and horrific physical abuse – that got your attention, right? I’ll bet your eyes were glued to your television set if you were watching when Chris Hansen did his To Catch a Predator stings on Dateline NBC.

The media does a terrific job investigating and reporting on crimes against children, all except for one --- emotional abuse.

Marks and scars on the body of a beaten or sexually assaulted young person are visible for anyone to see. But the silent suffering of a child’s broken heart isn’t sensational enough to merit the attention of your local nightly news. Yet, emotional abuse is widespread in our culture, and the perpetrators are permanently damaging the positive growth and development of our children.

And while there are many forms of emotional abuse, using children as weapons is one of the most common. It usually starts subtly like the divorced mother who says, “You need to tell your father that if he can’t pick you up on time for his weekend with you, then maybe I won’t let you go the next time.”

Often, the abuse is more blatant. The ex-husband tells his daughter that “if you don’t start getting better grades in school, you’re going to end up like that loser mother of yours.”

Isolating, for example, is another form of emotional abuse. Leaving a child unattended in a room for extended periods, keeping the child away from family, not allowing children to have friends, and punishing children for engaging in normal social experiences are all detrimental and abusive behaviors.

Here’s the problem. Isolated emotional child abuse, for example, has the lowest rate of substantiation of any of the types of emotional abuse. Therefore, it’s seldom reported or investigated.

There are many other categories of emotional abuse and in each instance the consequences are equally as devastating as any other type of abuse. The question remains, “What can I do if I suspect that a child is being emotionally abused?”

Frist of all, being educated about the problem of emotional abuse against children is important. You can go to this website and learn some valuable information and suggestions for how to proceed.

http://www.childhelp.org/pages/hotline-home

Most importantly, don’t just ignore the problem and do nothing. A report of child abuse is made very ten seconds in America and five children die each day as a result of being abused.

Walt Disney once said that, “Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.” And it’s our responsibility as parents, grandparents, and citizens of our community to exercise our vocations to enrich their lives while giving our children, our legacy, the opportunity to build a better world.