this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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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.

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[–] books@lemmy.world 90 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Like I've definitely raised my voice with my kids but couldn't imagine a world where I ever would call them stupid. That is just trash parenting and amazing that anyone would do that to their offspring.

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ya, I think the study is mostly aimed at the negativity and denigration of the child. While I almost never raise my voice and would absolutely never call my children "stupid", there are times where a raised voice helps break though to the child. It's also good when you leave such a raised voice for imminent situations. For example, kid starts reaching for something dangerous, a shout will stop them cold, especially when they aren't used to dad shouting.

[–] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Oooh yeah. My parents gently raised me and a shout from one of them was immediately understood not as them being angry but them being scared. By contrast we had some friends who were just incessantly yelled at in anger all the time. The difference was stark in how willing to accept advice, correction and trust in the experience of adults was. When you are essentially just told to obey and then yelled at you don't really grasp the underlying principles that advantage you later because at any point that anger could just be you hitting a parent's pet peeve. It's also really hard to respect someone who doesn't respect you back.

We grew up pretty damn straightlaced. By contrast our yelled at peers ended up by and large going completely off the rails once nobody was in a position to force them to obey and about half of them went really far astray.

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[–] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it also depends highly on the circumstances, if your child did something very very bad (hit bother with a hammer say) then youd actually be derelict in your duties as a parent not to yell at them (and ground them, etc) in that situation. Going too soft on them when they really go off the rails can be just as bad or worse than being too hard on them.

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[–] lustyargonian@lemm.ee 54 points 1 year ago (3 children)

One benefit of shouting at your kids and generally dismissing their emotions is that you can enjoy your retirement without them anywhere near you and die alone.

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

and you won't understand how your action created the circumstance you're in and you'll complain to everyone about it.

[–] burrito@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

I see you've spoken to my in-laws.

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago
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[–] 1D10@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not just yelling at kids, just being in a house where people are verbally abusive can fuck a person up, if my parents were not yelling at each other they were yelling at one of us kids. to the day 30 some odd years later just being around someone who is pissed off triggers my anxiety.

[–] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 year ago

i really feel that about being around someone who is pissed off. i also get little adrenaline rushes whenever anyone shuts a door forcefully

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 31 points 1 year ago

Just last night i went out to help my dad change a flat and it brought up so much shit from him yelling at me over everything when I was a kid. That was 30 years ago and he wasn't even yelling at me this time just pissed off at the situation.

This crap definitely sticks with you.

[–] Ulrich_the_Old@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am 70 the words uttered by my father when I was 5 still ring in my ears. He said "I wish you had never been born".

[–] Shush@reddthat.com 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I am 32. I love my dad, he did his best. He was a good dad.

But I will probably never be able to forgive him for the times he shouted and yelled at me when I wasn't a good kid. He went into fits of rage over mundane things like homework and failing school. I remember everything he said in those fits of rage. Every instance of it. And I definitely remember feeling terrified.

And will remember it until the day I die.

Even at 70 years old.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I loved my dad, but he would yell really angrily when he got mad at me and it would terrify me to the point where I would beg him not to hit me (he never hit me). I turned out mostly okay, but I can see how that could really screw someone up.

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[–] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is correlation study, and we all know what that means, right? Correlations are significant results certainly, but not at all conclusive.

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[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe shouting at children all the time until they leave home is about the same as them getting sexually abused once.

But they aren't equivalent in the slightest when compared in the same quantities.

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[–] mojo@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is horrible to do, but I feel like this really downplays physical/sexual abuse.

[–] Gloomy@mander.xyz 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How so? If the result is similar they are just different roots to the same outcome.

The main difference is that the resilience, or the ability of a child to cope with the abuse, may vary greatly between physical abuse, sexual abuse and psychological abuse (like what the article is talking about). So a single sexual abuse is much more likley to cause Trauma, then beeing yelled at once. But beeing yelled at for years? Beeing told that you are wortheles repeatedly? That is likley to cause a lot of harm, especially because it plants a sense of "not beeing good enoth" in you that can take a lot of work to overcome once grown up.

There is no need to rank diffent kinds of abuse against each other. We need to see them as equaly harmful for children and not trivialice them.

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[–] Gaspar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My dad loves to yell. Not at me, anymore, but he got it from his mother - they used to work out their problems in the form of screaming matches. I remember early in my teenage years he would bring up, almost out of nowhere sometimes, that he never hit us. He was proud of that. But man oh man, he sure loved to yell at us.

I only remember my grandfather yelling at me, once. It's not even fair to say "yelling AT me", because he was yelling FOR me - I was a dumb kid and I'd left the front door open to go outside and play. Once I got in front of him, he explained to me - calmly, quietly, but firmly - why I couldn't do that. I never did it again. I don't remember him yelling before or since that moment.

I miss my grandfather - he's the source of some of my fondest childhood memories and I can only hope I do him proud. Meanwhile, when my dad dies, I'll be glad to be rid of him. So, you do the math.

[–] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I miss my grandfather - he’s the source of some of my fondest childhood memories and I can only hope I do him proud. Meanwhile, when my dad dies, I’ll be glad to be rid of him. So, you do the math.

The math might be either that your grandfather was simply a better person, or that he had less stress at the time when he was bringing you up. He's after all the one who brought up your father.

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[–] crypticthree@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (36 children)

Although I don't think verbal abuse is acceptable, I think that equivalency is a bit much

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You miss-read (or didn't read) the article if that's your take-away. It's saying the long-term effects can be roughly the same. It's not equivocating the actions themselves.

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[–] BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're not equivocating the malice of verbal abuse vs. sexual abuse. They are equivocating the damage this kind of abuse can do to children, which their research supports. There's no reason to take offense as if they were taking a stand on the non-severity child sexual abuse, which they are not.

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[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago

Verbal abuse when I was growing up was backed up with the threat of physical abuse. And having been bit and hit by my dad, and seeing my mom and older brother hit by my dad, those verbal threats carried a lot of weight.

I've walked on eggshells around my dad and every man that reminded me of him my whole life. It's affected my relationships and made it impossible to hold down a job as most bosses have the same authoritarian streak my dad did.

So yeah, verbal abuse is damaging. Rather it's equivalent to other forms of abuse I can't say. But it took me 44 years and a skilled emdr therapist to finally heal enough that I don't feel overwhelmed whenever I get emotional.

And for much of the last fifteen years I've been trying to find a therapist that took my trauma seriously and knew how to help me with it. So many misdiagnosis (anxiety, substance use, and depression were symptoms, but not the diagnosis that helped). Many suicide attempts. Many psych meds that didn't help. Many many years feeling unheard by the medical establishment.

So yeah, it's damaging.

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[–] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I only learned that I was raised by a major league narcissist with anger management problems after I met my wife. She has training in clinical counseling and helped me realize that soooo much of my personality and habits can be traced back to my upbringing. Turns out my grandfather treated him the same way.

Generational trauma is a cruel monster that many of us never learn about. That's a damn shame too.

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[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I really hate the idea of parents. Like two people raise you and are responsible for you? Reading Brave New World as a kid, it took me until the very end to understand it as dystopian. I thought the idea of your parents being barely a part of the equation, just absent minded and high all the time? Great. Trusting school to raise you entirely using weird subliminal studying methods was actually an improvement. It is dystopian, but yeah I basically think this idea of an atomic family unit to be the most bizarre and selfish, anti-social bullshit. My parents didn't let me know my relatives, were able to choose who I was friends with, where I was able to go. And all the while I'm reliant on them to not be kidnapped or hate crimed and to support my goals rather than force me to sit at home. The abuse just continues on and on. I will never be okay, I can only hope to make some cool art before I die. But that start of life decides for you whether you will be important or not.

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No wonder I'm so fucked up.

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[–] randalthor17@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago

Man this makes me glad that i have good parents

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