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.)

I think it should be used in conjuction with the other aspects of child abuse for SS to make cases where perhaps they can see it is extreamly damaging. As I said before, as part of the puzzle it would have been easier to overlook and not add it to paperwork before this enforcement, so hopefully now it may help them get children who are in their eyes at significant harm from other forms of abuse as well, out.

In my case my mother's behaviour escalated and she tried to kill me on several occasions before admitting to a nervous breakdown and being hospitalised. I was very lucky that my grandparents could afford to send me to a boarding school as I have no doubt I would not be alive now, or would have been put through the care system. I always thought my mum had severe issues herself though, and although I don't think too fondly of her much of the time, the idea of her being prosecuted would be somehow wrong and I think I would have been left feeling guilty which would not have been very helpful (such power she had!).

I do however think my case of the situation escalating probably isn't rare, and therefore perhaps in some cases SS may be able to keep an eye on families before the destructive cycle gets too bad in order to help the family before it fails completely.

I'm flummoxed by the persistent strand of this thread, which insists you can't tell the difference between an unfortunate blip and ongoing abuse. Flummoxed is too gentle, actually: I'm disgusted, but that's because I was emotionally abused - and verbally & physically. We were a 'nice' family.

There are a couple of women I see around town, who yell at their kids with venom. They are not otherwise calm mothers having a stress overload. When that happens, the way you shout expresses frustration, anxiety, weariness, anger ... but not hatred.

When I hear a child saying she's useless, I hear an abusive parent.

When a child tells me his dad will knock him into the middle of next week, I believe he has reason to believe it (nobody believed me.)

I sometimes see parents clutching a child by the arm or shoulder, hissing or murmuring intensely while the child shakes with fear. I am watching abuse.

Some people need a perspective adjustment. The arguments being made here are the same ones that were made against criminalising wife beating.

Mental illness is a defence, Lion. But you still should have been removed from the damaging situation - as you were, and more children should be.

I think part of the problem is that the debate has been corrupted for a long time by the anti adoption brigade, who insist that children are taken for nebulous or spurious reasons on the merest whiff of emotional harm.

And I think this makes a lot of people afraid because they are worried that just the normal everyday rough edges of parenting are going to get them into trouble.

I agree with you - it shouldn't be hard to tell the parents who persistently and deliberately set out to emotionally abuse their children.

But I think it is a very interesting area because inevitably there is going to be some testing of what kind of behaviour is worth prosecuting, if we ever get the law.

I just hope it is reported responsibly and not in the usual Mail/Telegraph crap fest of scaremongering.

Better check on my winged pigs.

Don't get me wrong, I was definitely in a better place not living at home. It took me years of feeling guilty though and I don't think I really appreciated how lucky I was until my mid 20's. She spun me many stories of how evil SS and my father had gone through her bins to find bottles (I remember we used to walk for miles to buy booze from different shops and depose of bottles in public bins wrapped in plastic bags in case they went through our bins at home!) and I really did feel she had been slighted. As I said I realised when I was early teens my situation was unusual, but I was still seeing her every other weekend and no one checking up by that point, so her EA went on (as well as a bi-nightly call to me at the school which could run for 2 hours) so her hold over me was still very strong. I didn't even realise she had emotionally abused me until about a year ago when I saw a clinical psychologist who told me in no uncertain terms after the first session and suddenly it all clicked into place. The feelings of guilt surrounding her, the self conciousness, belittling myself, setting myself impossible goals, never feeling at home and many more issues that I have somehow always thought were just inbuilt (my damn fathers genes!), and now can see are stigmas she left that I can actually get over if I work at them. The result of just being in contact with her and not living with her full time has definitely affected me for life, and I was one of the lucky ones!

"I'm flummoxed by the persistent strand of this thread, which insists you can't tell the difference between an unfortunate blip and ongoing abuse. Flummoxed is too gentle, actually: I'm disgusted, but that's because I was emotionally abused - and verbally & physically. We were a 'nice' family."

I think the problem is sterotypes. I am sure that middle class naracisstic mother would get round this law. I refer that the young teenage mums who loves her kids, but needs support might suffer.

I fear that a law that has been made with good intentions might be misapplied. Ie. the domestic violence victim will end up with a criminal record as allowing her children to witness violence is emotional abuse.

" think part of the problem is that the debate has been corrupted for a long time by the anti adoption brigade, who insist that children are taken for nebulous or spurious reasons on the merest whiff of emotional harm."

Possibly the anti adoption bridage have a point. Family courts are closed and in the past social services have made horrendous mistakes. (Think of the cleveland child abuse scandel)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_child_abuse_scandal

I do think that the secrecy of closed family courts is an obsticle to open justice. I have no idea how you protect the indenties of the children without closed family courts.

We all want to prevent child abuse, but knee jerk reactions like criminalising something that you find difficult to prove is not always the best way to prevent emotional abuse.

Family courts aren't secret
www.marilynstowe.co.uk/2014/03/26/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-secret-family-court-by-john-bolch/

Mistakes don't equal deliberate corruption.

I'm quite at that response OP. After everything I went through and a life where no one else made any effort to help me with anything at home, SS were the only people to intervene. As I said I have no doubt I would be dead if they had not.
Do not underestimate what lies behind EA.

I am flummoxed too Garlic by the level of minimisation on this thread.

It is pretty easy to spot EA. It follows a clear pattern.

As always EA is generally found alongside other forms of abuse. It is vital this becomes part of the criminal act of abuse.

Better check on my winged pigs. - Looks like they have some distance to fly, Spero.

It sounds a wonderful idea but I agree policing it will be very difficult.

do you really think the police would come after 'the young teenage mum who loves her kids' ??

the police will be too busy going after the young teenage mum who is pissed at 2am with her baby in a pram dressed only in a nappy. Or who has left her children locked alone in a bedroom with urine soaked mattresses and no bedding. Or who has no food in the kitchen and a house so disgusting they send a scene of crime photographer....

I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

What a dreadful idea - state invading into personal family life. PP mentioned how ideas changed and fashions - that affects parenting too. Why don't they help the children who really need help - ASD, PDA, summer borns etc, etc

So you think children born in the summer need help more than children who are ignored/belitted/shouted at on a daily basis?

Was that what you meant?

Boggle.

That's a joke, right, tiredandsadmum? I'm a bit tired and sad myself, and not sure I can tell...

I really can't tell anymore on these threads who is joking and who is deadly serious.

She MUST be joking. Nobody thinks summer borns have a worse time of it than abused children...

I have been sent a video where it is alleged that children are stolen to order by the United Nations so I am prepared to believe she is serious.

My brother was born in August and he is weird. So there you go.

No funnily enough I am not joking. I am absolutely FUCKED off with there being no PROPER support for families and children. Do your children bang their heads on the table because they are so stressed? Mine does :( Yet there is no proper help. However if I shout or get angry because my DS is violent towards me (because of all the stress and anxiety), all I can expect is to be accused of emotional abuse by the state and a vicious controlling ex. Jesus Christ what a sick society we live in. And your pathetic sarcasm belittles what Mumsnet used to be about.

At 17.39 I said this I would rather see energy put into helping/working with families before things get so bad that care/criminal proceedings are seen as only response

So I don't accept your criticism.

Sorry to hear you are having such a hard time but I don't think it at all likely someone in your position would ever attract the attention of the criminal law.

And I still don't understand why you mention 'summer borns'.

tiredandsadmum, if you posted something about the difficult time you are having, you would have my full sympathy. But that is not what you posted. I'm very sorry you're having a tough time, but I'm not a mindreader and took your post at face value. (You're not a mindreader, either, or you'd know that my child has challenges, too.)

And, perhaps, the emotion of my reaction is partly because my child was very failed by her birth mother, and I don't believe the problems of summer-borns can compare in any way.

I have to leave this thread.
I have to say that if this thread shows how EA is perceived by the public it is no wonder the Daily Mail has such a big readership.
Not only that but I am a summer born too, and I used to self harm (is it worse that I did this not because I have a medical issue but because of complete lack of faith in myself or anyone around me tiredandsad, seeing as you seem hell bent on comparing the two?).

"Sorry to hear you are having such a hard time but I don't think it at all likely someone in your position would ever attract the attention of the criminal law. "

Irrational fear of attracting the attention of criminal law might stop someone in tiredandsadmum postion seeking help. Fear of criminalisation may mean that the myth that mothers with depression will have their children taken away from them becomes stronger.

Domestic violence often starts off with milld emotional abuse in the early stages and escalates to more serious emotional abuse and violence later. I would rather that somoene who knows that they have mildly emotionally abused their child seek help before the abuse becomes worse.

I don't think anyone is minimising emotional abuse on this thread. People just have different ideas on how to deal with it. Criminalising a behaviour is only effective if we can actually enforce the law. In some circumstances criminalising a behaviour just drives it underground. Abusers are unlikely to come forward for help if they know that they will get a criminal record.

It would be interesting to know how other countries handle emotional abuse.

Lion, I'm sorry the thread has distressed you. Thanks for your posts and good speed with your recovery.