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.
My dad and I have had our ups and downs but I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the least productive we’ve been with each other is when he got too frustrated and yelled at me about whatever.
I’d instantly go from frustrated but still trying to calmly explain my side of things to “I DON’T KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU ARE SON BUT HOW ABOUT YOU SHUTCHO MOUTH AND KEEP IT CLOSED UNTIL THE MAN WHO RAISED ME IS BACK AGAIN‽”