In this section we’ve provided a brief overview of exactly what constitutes childhood abuse and neglect in the hopes that if you were abused, this will help you get past any vestiges of denial. This section may even identify ways you were abused that you may not currently be aware of. All these forms of abuse can occur separately, but they often occur in combination; for example, emotional abuse is almost always a part of physical abuse. Also note that some behaviors fit into more than one category. For example, some neglectful behaviors can also be considered emotionally abusive.
Neglect occurs when a caretaker fails to provide for the child’s basic physical, emotional, social, educational, or medical needs. (Note that failure to provide for any of these needs constitutes neglect only when options are available to caretakers.)
Physical needs include providing adequate food, water, shelter, and attention to personal hygiene. Failing to provide adequate supervision (leaving a very young child alone at home while the parent is at work or otherwise away, or leaving him in the care of someone who is not fit to care for him) also constitutes neglect.
Emotional needs include nurturing, emotional security, encouragement, and validation of the child’s feelings and reality.
Social needs include providing opportunities for the child to interact with other age-appropriate children.
Educational needs include providing experiences necessary for growth and development, such as sending the child to school and attending to special educational needs.
Medical needs include basic health care, including dental care and mental health treatments.
Emotional abuse is any nonphysical behavior or attitude that controls, intimidates, subjugates, demeans, punishes, or isolates. In the case of a child, emotional abuse consists of acts or omissions by parents or caretakers that can cause serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders in the child. This includes verbal abuse (constant criticism, belittling, insulting, rejecting, teasing) as well as placing excessive, aggressive, or unreasonable demands on a child—that is, demands beyond the child’s capabilities. Failure to provide the emotional and psychological nurturing and support necessary for a child’s emotional and psychological growth and development (neglect) can also be considered emotional abuse.
While psychological maltreatment is sometimes considered a subset of emotional abuse, this term is often used by professionals to describe a concerted attack by an adult on a child’s development of self and social competence—a pattern of psychically destructive behavior that is often more deliberate and conscious on the parent or other caregiver’s part than typical emotional abuse. Under this definition, psychological maltreatment is classified into these forms of behavior:
• Rejecting: behaviors that communicate or constitute abandonment of the child, such as a refusal to speak to or acknowledge the child or show affection
• Isolating: preventing the child from participating in normal opportunities for social interaction
• Terrorizing: threatening the child with severe or sinister punishment, or deliberately developing a climate of fear or threat
• Ignoring: being psychologically unavailable to the child and failing to respond to the child’s needs or behavior
• Corrupting: encouraging the child to develop false social values that reinforce antisocial or deviant behavioral patterns, such as aggression, criminality, or substance abuse
• Withholding: deliberately withholding attention, love, support, or guidance
• Degrading: acts or behaviors that degrade or humiliate the child, such as making fun of their physical appearance in front of other people
• Stimulus deprivation: refusing to provide activities and experiences that children need for growth and education
• Negative influence: exposing the child to unhealthy role models (drug addicts, prostitutes, criminals)
• Forcing children to live in dangerous or unstable environments: for example, exposure to domestic violence or parental conflict
Physical abuse of a child (anyone under the age of eighteen) includes any nonaccidental physical injury or pattern of injuries. This may include any of the following:
• Slapping or punching a child so hard that it causes marks or bruises.
• Kicking a child with such force that it knocks the child down or causes marks or bruises.
• Beating a child with an object.
• Burning a child with a cigarette, putting a child’s hand in the fire, or other heat-related physical abuse.
• Biting a child.
• Twisting a child’s arm to the point that it causes bruising or fractures.
• Shaking a child so hard it causes dizziness, disorientation, headaches, or neck, shoulder, or arm pain.
• Holding a child’s head under water.
• Shoving a child against a wall, across the room, or into furniture.
• Pinning a child down on the floor and not letting them get up.
• Pinching a child so hard it causes severe pain and/or bruising.
Child sexual abuse includes any contact between an adult and a child, or between an older child and a younger child, for the purpose of sexually stimulating either partner, resulting in sexual gratification for the older person. This can range from nontouching offenses, such as exhibitionism or showing the child pornography, to fondling, penetration, creating child pornography, and child prostitution. A child doesn’t have to be touched to be sexually molested.
The definition of “older child” is generally agreed to be two or more years older than the younger child, but even an age difference of one year can have tremendous power implications—enough to make a situation abusive. For example, an older sibling is almost always seen as an authority figure, especially if he is left “in charge” when the parents are away. His younger sister may go along with his demands out of fear or a need to please. In cases of sibling incest, the greater the age difference, the greater the betrayal of trust, and the more violent the incest tends to be.
Child sexual abuse can include any of the following:
• Genital exposure. The adult or older child exposes his or her genitals to the child, or forces the child to expose his or her genitals to the adult or older child.
• Kissing. The adult or older child kisses the child in a lingering or intimate way.
• Fondling. The adult or older child fondles the child’s breasts, abdomen, genital area, inner thighs, or buttocks. The child may also be asked to touch the older person’s body in these places.
• Masturbation. The adult or older child masturbates while the child observes; the adult or older child observes the child masturbating; the adult or older child and child masturbate each other (mutual masturbation).
• Fellatio. The child is either coerced or made to suck or place his mouth on the penis of an adult male or older male child, or the adult or older male child sucks or places his mouth on the penis of the male child.
• Cunnilingus. The child is either coerced or made to place his mouth in the vaginal area of an adult female or older female child, or the adult places his or her mouth in the vaginal area of the female child.
• Digital penetration. The adult or older child inserts a finger or fingers, or inanimate objects such as crayons or pencils, into the vagina or anus of the child.
• Penile penetration. The adult or older child penetrates the child’s vagina or anus with his penis. In the case of a female perpetrator, the female forces the male child to penetrate her.
• Frottage. The adult or older child rubs his genitals or other body parts against the child’s genital-rectal area or inner thighs or buttocks.
• Pornography. The adult or older child shows the child pornographic materials (usually done for the purpose of priming the child for sexual contact or sexually stimulating the child).
Many of you reading this book already know that you were abused in childhood and that you suffer from shame because of it. But in addition to the abuse you have already identified, you may have also been abused in other, less obvious ways. Below is a description of some more hidden forms of abuse, which can be just as shaming as the more overt forms.
In parent–child relationships, subtle forms of emotional abuse can take many forms, including the following:
• Intentionally ignoring, or withholding of attention or affection, including the “silent treatment”
• Disapproving, dismissive, contemptuous, or condescending looks, comments, or behavior
• Subtle threats of abandonment (either physical or emotional)
• Subtle forms of invalidation (not acknowledging the child’s feelings or experience)
• Making the child feel in the way or unwanted
• Blaming the child for the parent’s problems or circumstances
• Projecting the parent’s own problems or issues onto the child
• Encouraging the child to be overly dependent on the parent
• Causing the child to feel inadequate or incapable of taking care of him- or herself
Sometimes parents deliberately shame their children without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on the child’s sense of self. Statements such as “You should be ashamed of yourself” or “Shame on you” are obvious examples. Yet because these kinds of statements are overtly shaming, they are actually easier for the child to defend against than more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. Other examples include when behavior that has been acceptable at home is suddenly treated as unacceptable in public, or when the parent seems to be ashamed because the child is not adhering to social norms that the child was completely unaware of. Such comments as “Stop that, you’re embarrassing me in front of everyone” not only cause a child to feel exposed, judged, and ashamed, but burden the child with the parent’s shame as well.
There are many ways that parents shame their children:
• Belittling. Comments such as “You’re too old to want to be held” or “You’re just a crybaby” are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his child and another (“Why can’t you act like Tommy? Tommy isn’t a crybaby”), it is not only humiliating, but it also teaches the child to compare himself to peers and find himself deficient in the comparison.
• Blaming. When a child makes a mistake, such as accidentally hitting a ball through a neighbor’s window, he needs to take responsibility. But many parents go far beyond teaching the child a lesson, instead blaming and berating him or her: “You stupid idiot! You should have known better than to play so close to the house! Now I’m going to have to pay for that window.” Blaming the child like this is like rubbing his nose in the mess he made; it produces such intolerable shame that instead of taking responsibility, he may be forced to deny responsibility or find ways of excusing the behavior.
• Contempt. An expression of contempt (often a sneer or curled lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can be a devastating inducer of shame, because the child is made to feel disgusting or offensive.
• Humiliation. Berating or hitting a child—especially in front of others—can serve to deeply shame the child and make him feel very bad about himself.
• Disabling expectations. Disabling expectations are those that pressure a child to excel at a task, skill, or activity. Parents who have an inordinate need for their child to excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. When a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he often experiences a binding self-consciousness that serves to interfere with his performance. Such messages as “I can’t believe you could do such a thing” or “I am deeply disappointed in you” accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child’s spirit. These messages are a form of disabling expectations.
Although emotional abuse usually includes only nonphysical forms of abuse, it can also include what is called symbolic violence, which is considered a subtle form of physical abuse as well. Symbolic violence includes intimidating behavior such as slamming doors; kicking a wall; throwing dishes, furniture, or other objects; driving recklessly while the victim is in the car; and destroying or threatening to destroy objects the victim values. Even milder behaviors, such as shaking a fist or finger, making threatening gestures or faces, or using threatening language carry symbolic threats of violence.
Such subtle physical abuse by a parent can also include keeping a strap, belt, or paddle on display for the child to see and pointing at the strap whenever the child doesn’t instantly do as the parent says, or standing over the child in an intimidating way to get him to do something.
Subtle forms of sexual abuse can include any of the following. (Keep in mind that it is the intention of the adult or older child while engaging in these activities that determines whether the act is sexually abusive; even if the older person never engages in touching or takes any overt sexual action, the sexual feelings that are projected are picked up by the child.)
• Nudity. The adult or older child parades around the house in front of the child without clothes on.
• Disrobing. The adult or older child disrobes in front of the child, generally when the child and the adult or older child are alone.
• Observation of the child. The adult or older child surreptitiously or overtly watches the child undress, bathe, excrete, or urinate.
• Inappropriate comments. The adult or older child makes inappropriate comments about the child’s body. This can include making comments about the child’s developing body (comments about the size of a boy’s penis or of a girl’s breasts) or asking a teenager to share intimate details about his or her dating life.
• Sexualized touching. Even back rubs or tickling can have a sexual aspect to them if the older person has a sexual agenda.
• Emotional incest. A parent romanticizes the relationship between herself and her child, treats the child as if he were her intimate partner, or is seductive with the child. This can also include a parent confiding in a child about adult sexual relationships and sharing intimate sexual details with the child or adolescent.
• Approach behavior. An adult or older child makes an indirect or direct sexual suggestion to the child. This can include sexual looks, innuendos, or suggestive gestures.