Colman Noctor: Verbal abuse seriously damages children
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A new review of international studies by a University College London (UCL) team has found that ongoing verbal abuse can be deeply harmful to children, placing them at greater risk of engaging in self-harm, drug use and being jailed. The review of more than 13,000 studies suggests that the number of children who encounter verbal abuse is as high as 40%, considerably more than the estimated percentage of children who experience physical or sexual abuse.
Before we explore these findings, it is critical to understand what verbal abuse means.
Many parenting experts say we should never raise our voices to our children, advising we should be ‘getting down to their level’ and speaking in a neutral and calm tone. However, it’s likely that anyone who suggests this approach has never tried to raise a boisterous child.
Context is critical when considering the impact of raising our voices to children. For example, if you enter your sitting room to see your four-year-old drawing with a permanent marker on your newly painted walls, the most likely result is you will raise your voice and lose your cool. This reaction is not verbal abuse - it is part of being human. And it can happen at any age.
Most of us have gotten into an altercation with a teenager, lost our composure and ended up threatening to ground them for a year, never giving them pocket money again, or something similar. While these are not our proudest parenting moments, they are understandable and inevitable. Parents are under enough pressure to be perfect at everything they do without suggesting they always speak with robotic calmness.
Even if it was possible never to raise your voice or lose your cool with your children, I am not convinced it would be a good approach. How would a child understand the impact of their behaviour on other people if they are only ever interacting with a neutral, non-emotive parent? Children need to test boundaries and know when they cross a line. When this happens, parents need to react and communicate that such behaviour is unacceptable.
Obviously, your reaction needs to be proportionate to the misbehaviour and ideally a calm, measured approach is optimal but this is not always possible. Parents should never lose their temper to the point where their child feels in danger, but communicating your displeasure and handing out a consequence is not only inevitable, it also may be necessary.
As parents, we need to respond rather than react. A reaction is an immediate retort based on your emotional state, whereas a response is a more thoughtful and measured way of managing conflict. While it may be impossible to respond in this way all the time — you're under time pressure to get a child to school or trying to get to work — it's possible to follow up a reaction with a responsive conversation when tempers calm and both parties can listen.
If, in hindsight, we realise we've overreacted to our child’s misdemeanours, there is no shame in revisiting this incident while acknowledging your error of judgment and poor actions. I have often had conversations with my children that involve me owning up to my shortcomings, which I don’t believe is a sign of weakness or poor parenting but a reasonable follow-up to a poorly managed situation.
The authors of the UCL review characterised adult-to-child verbal abuse as persistent aggressive shouting, constant yelling, denigrating the child, and verbal threats to their safety. The review found that children subject to extreme verbal abuse were at greater risk of developing significant behavioural and emotional problems into adulthood, such as self-harm and drug use.
The UCL review included a recent British survey of 1,000 11- to 17-year-olds in which 41% of the participants said parents, carers, teachers and friends’ parents frequently used hurtful and upsetting words to blame, insult or criticise them. More than half (51%) said they experienced such behaviour weekly, and 10% said they encountered it daily. When asked what the most hurtful and upsetting phrases were, the young people cited examples such as: 'You’re useless', 'you’re stupid', and 'you can’t do anything right'.
Review co-author Prof Peter Fonagy, CEO of the Anna Freud Centre, said: “Children are genetically prepared to trust what adults say and take grownups seriously. If we betray that trust by using words to abuse rather than teach, this can leave children not just ashamed, isolated and excluded, but also unable to engage with their community and draw the full benefit of social learning.”
He went on to explain how using words to intimidate, shame and control children may appear less obviously harmful than physical assaults, but persistent verbal abuse can have the same consequences like negatively impacting their self-esteem, increased alcohol and substance misuse and an increase in anxiety and depressive disorders.
Another co-author of the review, American child abuse expert Prof Shanta Dube, said: “Adults are sometimes unaware of how their shouting tone and criticising words, such as ‘stupid’ and ‘lazy’, can negatively impact children, particularly if that is how they experienced being parented.”
While this international review must be taken very seriously, we need to keep in mind it concerns the extreme end of verbal abuse. We also need to understand the difference between verbal abuse and an occasional lapse, which results in someone raising their voice or losing their composure.
My mother used to say, “If you have to raise your voice, you have already lost the argument”, but even her voice went up a few octaves during various altercations with my two sisters and me. To err is human and the advice that we should never raise our voice when interacting with our children is unrealistic.
However, persistent yelling and denigrating comments are not acceptable. I have treated many children who were victims of sustained verbal abuse — the negative impact of this behaviour was profound and long-lasting. So if we recognise that during periods of stress, we are losing our composure more frequently with our children and our reactions to their misdemeanours are becoming more severe, we need to recognise the potentially serious impact of these actions and do whatever we can to address it.
Language is powerful. The research review also found that the most positive things the young participants reported were when adults said, 'I am proud of you', 'you can do it' and 'I believe in you'.
Verbal abuse has a lasting impact on children and may have severe consequences for the rest of their lives. But an occasional loss of composure and harsh words to your child or teenager is not the same.
Forget the parenting advice that suggests you must act like a robotic version of Mary Poppins — that is neither possible nor desirable. However, if you speak aggressively or harshly to your children regularly, you need to reflect and change your behaviour immediately.
- Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist
