To think a law against emotional cruetly to children is too vague and unenforcable

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26814427

Certainly many children do suffer an unreasonable level of emotional cruetly, but how would a "cinderella" law work in practice? Most cases of emotional abuse are not as clear cut as cinderella. Those who emotionally abuse children are rather more subtle and shrewd than cinderella's step mother.

Surely social workers have enough of a case load managing neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse cases. What standard of parenting is good enough? Most parents need support rather than criminalisation.A child whose mother has the occassional mood swing, but is loved 99% of time is probably better off with a loving but imperfect parent than going into the care system.

Does it mean that schools will call in social services when there is a difference of opinon of parenting style or child complains when the parent does something the kid doesn't like. (ie. A parent remarries? Punishing appauling behaviour?) Sometimes children make malicious accusations, so how would you sort out the real emotional abuse from tall stories. Emotional abuse is next to impossible to prove in court.

How do we protect children against toxic parents without making it impossible to discpline our children or for parents to have some say how they lead their lives? (Ie. commiting the "emotional abuse" of putting a young baby in full time nursery so that everyone can have a roof over their heads or controlled crying.)

Where on earth would they get the extra social workers and CPT officers to deal with this ? They can't cope with the amount of referrals they have already.

The authorities were alerted, put on the at risk register but she always had a clever way to explain the bruises. We were to scared to speak out against her. The emotional abuse has done an enormous amount of damage to my self esteem, always thinking that I deserve to be abused. I totally welcome the proposal so that no other children suffer in this way.

As I posted upthread, truffle, it gets pushed down the chain to HVs, schools, the voluntary sector.

In fact, that is already the case where I work

bongo but how would it be policed or reported on?

what happened to you was obviously bloody disgraceful but if your mother got away with physical abuse with outward injuries how easy would it be to pass of emotional abuse?

I really hope you are getting help now xx

bongobaby
How do you think its likely that your mother would have obeyed a law on emotional abuse? Much of the abuse you suffered was illegal under existing laws.

Prehaps we need better training for social workers in councelling skills to get terrorised children to open up. Certainly Protective behaviours is designed to give strageries to children who are suffering abuse to get help sucessfully. A child needs to know who they can turn to outside their family if they are being abused.

SuburbanRhonda are you talking about a normal school? if so yes you are very lucky then. we were offered absolutely nothing really.

I think it's because of the legal action, the ed authority is scared.

My mother was clever. She would set me up to fail. She would hold my face against the mirror and force me to look at myself so that I could see how fat and ugly I was, she would tell me that I would always be thick. If you're told for long enough, you believe. When things started showing at school, she set it up so that I should see the school psychiatrist, obviously it all went back to her, and then she would see in her plummy accent and head teacher status, you see, this is what I have to deal with, she makes all this up for attention, I don't understand the poor girl. Of course I'd get shit for anything I said to the psychiatrist and of course the psychiatrist believed my mother. My poor sister suffered too, she was the golden child, she didn't choose that position, she would die a thousand deaths when we went shopping and darling Mama would buy her green flash trainers (the height of fashion in the seventies) and I would get black plimsolls.
Fortunately and despite all attempts by mother to do otherwise, sister and I are very close.

While I have every sympathy with those who have had their lives destroyed by this, it would be damned stupid to have a law for this. I think (yell if I'm wrong) law is all about words. How can you define what constitutes emotional abuse for everyone?

Shame we can't have a very general allowance that emotional abuse is nasty so the extreme cases can be picked up, but the law doesn't work that way. Extreme cases make bad law, to paraphrase someone-or-other.

I'm amazed that something so nebulous is being considered. And while we're all being so litigious, where's the law to protect parents from abuse by children - by not letting them sleep or putting unreasonable status-driven demands on wallets? Seems about as sensible.

We all have sympathy for those who have suffered emotional abuse. I wonder if other countries are better at preventing emotional abuse than us. Since the definition of emotional abuse is so nebulus then it would be hard to draw up statistics.

My fear with criminalisaiton of emotional abuse is that it would discourage parents to seek help for postnatal depression or parenting difficulties.

Prehaps education on emotional abuse should be part of antenatal classes.

To be honest, I do think if I went to the police now, the story would have been different. I did go then, but just got more abuse. Things are different now and it's good that the parent doesn't have the all powerful role that they adults had in the seventies and before.

Yes, the body, it's a community primary school in a deprived area.

I know we are very lucky to have the counsellor.

But the CAMHS school nurse service is someone every school should be able to access. They deal with mild to moderate emotional and mental health cases and are part of the school nursing team - ask your school if they have one. I honestly couldn't do my job without support from the CAMHS school nurse so I don't know how schools manage without the service.

Dawndonnaagain
I think that child with an abusive head teacher as a mother would still struggle today as much as the 1970s. It is really hard to think what is the best way of helping a child in such a situation.

I think this is very interesting. I grew up in an extremely emotionally abusive home. Physically abusive to a lesser extent. Both parents personality disordered with no clue how to bring up a child, and no interest in learning as they were perfect in their own heads.

The relationship between them was horrendous enough without bringing a child into it.

Just listening to J Vine now and people are saying it took them until their fifties and tons of psychotherapy to get to grips with the damage caused by these childhoods. I agree with this.

My overwhelming memory of my childhood is that of fear. I remember a quiz in a girl's magazine once in which one of the questions asked how you felt when you were walking up your front path to your house or similar - one of the replies to tick was 'fear' . Then they asked you to ask your parents to fill in what they thought you felt - my mother ticked that she knew I was afraid! Didn't dare ask my father to fill it in!

So on the one hand I think if my own mother knew how I felt and didn't care - and I know that other members of my extended family also suspected that my home life was dreadful - and did nothing, then what can outsiders possibly do?

But on the other hand I think this is a fantastic thing that recognises the misery in which many children grow up, and the damage this causes which impacts on every aspect of the rest of their lives.

The biggest problem I can see with this is that children grow up in what they consider 'normal'. It was only when I had my own children that it really came home to me just how terrible my own childhood was - although I knew I had depression and other problems from being around seven years old. But this was my normal.

Who will police this? And what will happen to the children that are found to be in abusive homes? And who will pay for all this? I read that social services can't keep up at the moment.

And what will happen to parents like mine who are/were disordered? What they did to me was dreadful but it was their very personalities that drove them. They had/ have no concept of anyone other than themselves and that other people are separate people to them with separate feelings, particularly children. Jail wouldn't have made any difference to the essence of them. Are all people/ parents who have 'issues' going to be put in jail?

Will the abused children and up in care? Looked after children already have poorer life chances than others.

I don't know - it's a very complex thing.

Sorry for the rambling.

As a child brought up by emotionally abusive parents, I can't imagine how such a law would be provable or enforceable. What might have helped (had my father not surrounded himself with sycophantic yes people who agreed with everything he did and said) would have been if any other adult in our life had stood up for us. Or rather, one person did (our neighbour), but our father laughed off that concern so comprehensively that we also believed it to be ridiculous. Our extended families were useless even though I can't believe they didn't know what was going on. I've not really forgiven my mother's siblings for this- they basically told her she'd made her bed and should now lie in it. We were entirely at the mercy of our parents (my mother colluded in my father's behaviour).

"What's wrong with existing legislation where a children can & are placed on child protection plans for merely being "at risk of emotional harm". The at risk of bit is something I've never been able to describe properly in my own mind, so how social workers define it I've always wondered - seems very nebulous and subjective to a layman."

Think that covers unborn children

golly margery, impressive cross-post! I also was "depressed" from around the age of 6, "repressed" and "oppressed" might be closer to the mark.

Duchesse - I was about to ask - are you my sister!?

Do people remember Fran Lyons posting on mumsnet? This is the daily mail article.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-511633/I-flee-Britain-stop-baby-snatched-State.html

www.communitycare.co.uk/2007/09/20/fran-lyon-case-the-hidden-agendas/#.UzlY16LLJB4

I find nebulous laws terrifying.

It's one of those vote grabbing, heart string tugging ideas that will be impossible to police and may yet cost an absolute fortune in cash and finger pointing bitterness.

There are many unpoliceable laws being added to the books at the moment, smoking in cars, blinking during sex (I may have imagined that one). We may be being distracted from some very real issues, schools, NHS, economy etc.

I suspect that I was emotionally abused as a kid, I have posted about some of the ways I lost toys and treasured collections / possessions and was always found wanting when compared to DSis. But, although I did suffer for years with lots of suppressed angst I doubt anyone could have stepped in and made any difference.

I would be very afraid of the abuses.... very, very afraid to be honest.

I don't think you can be, Margery- we weren't allowed magazines and I really couldn't have got either parent to fill in a quiz like that... My parents were also perfect parents getting it perfectly right in every way...in their own heads. The annoying thing is that we are all (there are 5 of us) high-achievers and no addiction problems or any apparent external problems at all (although little bro had a brush with fruit machines...). We are lucky to have each other and to trust each other- in fact we trust each other far more than either parent.

Ah Miaow, I've met SW like him- I thought they'd stopped recruiting SW with major issues of their own... I remember speaking to a friend's SW BIL who told me that the family unit was in no way the best method of child rearing.

I agree Reallytired that better training for social workers in counselling skills and Teachers. Not knowing who or how to turn to outsiders can add to the child being even more frightened. It would have been highly unlikely that she would have obeyed the Law, but her just knowing that it was in place might of saved us from some of it.
It amazes me to this day how she was able to get away with it and ruin our childhoods. I am now going into PTSD therapy to deal with it.

My parents were teachers!

Sorry! Posted too soon.

-They would not have had the slightest idea that they were abusive
-They would have been shocked that children actually had any feelings
-Training them as teachers to spot abused children - none starter

Bongo - I hope your therapy helps