Emotional harm to children

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

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.

I thought I'd seen something about this today:

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

Emotional damage can be done to adults too.

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.

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

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'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.

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.

nightowl how is emotional harm assessed?

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.

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!!

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.

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?

Greenfinch that young social worker was just plain daft.

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.

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

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.

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

Section b of the Welfare Checklist set out by the Children Act identifies the physical and emotional needs of the children. One of the cases I was involved with was issued on the grounds of physical neglect. By the time it was concluding, the Judge said that it was the worst case of emotional neglect/abuse he had seen in 30 years. That was 15 years ago, so awareness of the emotional needs of children is already enshrined in public law.
I've only come across the 'risk of emotional harm' to the children set out in an application for care proceedings when I have been involved in private law disputes, and it's been clear the children were suffering / at risk of suffering emotional harm as a direct result of the parents behaviour in their dispute about where the children should live, who they should see etc. I rarely saw emotional abuse happening in isolation from exposure to domestic, drug, alcohol abuse.
My own belief is that it's appropriate to have a criminal threshold for emotional abuse.

That's true Ana but it is a step in the right direction. When I started as a social worker we had no mechanism for acknowledging emotional harm. We often didn't acknowledge the fact that sexual abuse happened then either, but we have made a lot of progress there. Unfortunately, children will always find it difficult to tell adults that they are being harmed, bruises will always be easier to recognise, but the challenge for all adults is to be vigilant for other harm and to take what action they can.

Impossible to define or police or prove, it's just nonsense.
Following on from schools and childcare, parents will have to keep records of every interaction. How many smiles and hugs each day? On a scale of 1 to 10, how irritating did you find each child each hour? Did 2 hours sleep every night make your jaw tighten/make you cry/make you swear? If you confess on Mumsnet that you were ashamed of your screaming biting toddler, he will be promptly taken into care.
I could go on, this is quite fun and as likely as become law as the daft proposal.

I don't believe that any child gets through childhood without experiencing at least a bit of unintentional emotional abuse from a parent, no matter how well-intentioned, and perhaps even excellent most of the time, the parents are. Parents are human.

I'm not sure where they think they will be able to draw a line with this.