Emotional harm to children

Meanwhile, all those who suffer in silence will carry on doing so, and carry the emotional scars all their lives...

Failing to bond isn't a criminal offence, nor will it be with this legislation. It's the intention to harm, or emotional neglect that inflicts harm, that will be assessed as to whether it has caused sufficient serious emotional damage that prosecution is warranted, usually when a child has been removed to safety by care proceedings.

How can you actually criminalise parents who fail to bond with their children?

Greenfinch That woman is taking things a bit too literally. Yes if shouting outweighs any positive communication it can be damaging but in most households it is part of life.

"GET YOURSELF OUT OF THAT BED RIGHT NOW"

As with many things a little bit of righteous rage when needed does not do too much harm.

Greenfinch that young social worker was just plain daft.

It is extremely difficult jane and would require addional assessments by other professionals eg doctors, nurses, psychologists, to support the social work assessment. In my experience it is very rare to find emotional abuse in isolation from any other type of abuse. I don't know how often emotional harm is used as the only grounds for care proceedings, but I suspect not often as it is so difficult to prove. For that reason I don't expect parents would be prosecuted very often either, but I do think it makes sense for it to be possible.

I think in almost forty years as a social worker I have come across only one case of emotional harm in isolation and it was very distressing to see. However, it was a long time ago when cases were never taken to court on these grounds, and I don't think it would reach the threshold for care proccedings even today.
I wonder if any other social workers on here have had experience of this?

A lot can be defined into patterns of emotional neglect.

A lack of nurturing and physical comforting, does the child ever get hugs?

Cuddles and the "muttering of sweet nothings" are important for even a very young child's physical and mental well being.

Bottle propping with young babies might suggest mum/dad does not feel close to the child, how much eye contact do these children get?

What is mum/dad's usual tone of voice to the child? Does the child get lots of praise and approval. A hug and a kiss better if he falls over, or does he get shouted at for being clumsy?
Children all need that bit of comfort and reassurance when they are hurt or frightened.

Some homes can be wonderfully clean and comfortable without much emotional warmth, and poor but grubby homes can be very loving.

A lot depends on how good your ancestors were as loving and nurturing parents.

When we were temporarily looking after our grandchildren we were visited by a very young social worker who classed shouting as emotional abuse. This made my daughter feel worse even though she very rarely shouts .....it's me who is more inclined to do this. Help!!

DD1's soon-to-be-ex is an emotional bully. He has taken away all self esteem from DD and 3 GCs. In public he is a different person, but in private he plays what I call mind games, I am so glad they are divorcing -it is a long story which I won't tell here. Only now are they beginning to recognise the previous cruelty and endless criticism, which has affected their behaviour.
Unfortunately I doubt many of these cases could be proved.

nightowl how is emotional harm assessed?

I think this is fraught with difficulty.
Of course children must be protected, but criminalising emotional abuse?
Where do you draw the line, and what standard of proof will be required?
I'm sure most of us have been guilty at some point of not being quite as good parents as we would have wished.
Philip Larkin summed it up quite well I think.
'They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad
They may not mean to, but they do.......'

The salient words being 'they may not mean to'

Very few parents indeed mean, or want, to harm their children.
Those who do should be given help, not prosecuted.

I've been thinking about this, and it seems to me that in cases of emotional abuse only, such a law would encourage yet more secrecy. A sadistic or cruel parent can usually intimidate a child into not 'telling', just as with physical abuse. They'll just make doubly sure no one else sees them doing it.

Children can be taken into care on the grounds of emotional harm, if the threshold of 'significant harm' is reached. In practice it is likely that emotional harm will accompany physical harm, sexual abuse, or neglect and these would be easier to evidence and therefore more often used as grounds in court. In the smaller number of cases where emotional harm is the only type of harm, and the evidence is sufficient for a care order to be made, it makes sense that parents or carers could then be prosecuted.

I think they may have to take all parents into custody now.

Part of me thinks it ought to be harder to become a parent, perhaps we ought to pass a parenting test, because there are some pretty dreadful parents out there doing untold damage to their poor children and therefore doing untold damage to their children and anyone they come into contact with in the future. But of course it's impossible. Do we want a Nanny State, checking up on our most private and most basic and fundamental relationships?

Not sure what is proposed is the right solution but at least it's opened the debate. Children need to be protected from all forms of abuse. Every child deserves to be loved and nurtured and to live without fear but that's the ideal world and the world ain't ideal! Is more litigation the answer? Not sure.

I agree thabags but perhaps adults can deal with it better and can get away. Children tend to be more captive which is why I think they are proposing this new law.

I agree it may be difficult to prove but at least it will give police, teachers etc a chance to challenge it which they do not have at the moment.

Emotional damage can be done to adults too.

I thought I'd seen something about this today:

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/31/child-abuse-neglect-law

How would you define emotional damage?

I think it could be very difficult to prove that a particular person had caused a particular kind of emotional damage.

There is no doubt that emotional damage can be done to children - but quite hard to prove I would think.