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.)

... While I'm very sorry for what you and similar parents have been put through, cory, I don't see this as adequate cause to block a law with far wider applications.

You seem to have been caught between the problems of having a poorly-understood illness (DD's) and the existence of a safety net for suffering kids. Clearly, this is undesirable but to quite a large extent is a problem of living in an imperfect world. I'm pretty sure I've been misdiagnosed. When I get the correct treatment, I shan't be suing my doctors for the 10+ years I've lost to disability. I wouldn't win, anyway, because neurology is still a new science and people just don't know everything.

I have already raised this on stately homes, but does anyone know....Will adult survivors of EA be able to bring criminal charges against their parents under the new laws?

They can for sexual or physical abuse so it should be the same for EA I would have thought? This could be very interesting.

Dunno, hampton, but it could be a good way of testing the parameters.

If it is just one emotional difficult naughty teenager saying my mother always picks on me being enough because the girl is very hurt, has clinical depression or anorexia and is very bright and able to blame the parent that would not be good evidence.

If a very bright teenager has a clinical mental illness, feels hurt, and is blaming her parents, why on earth would you not suspect she might be right? Sounds like a classic case! It damn well should be investigated.

Good question. Lots of implications - either criminal trials long after the fact or applications for compensation, if the parents have for any money. Emotional abuse can cause life long problems. I have no clue how we would quantify damages. It will be interesting to see how the law develops.

Garlic, though doesn't that mean that just about any of us are at risk of losing our children when laws are so vague?

And how do we unpick the nature/nurture argument? The 'resilience' gene has been identified, so presumably at some stage we will be able to identify genetic roots for other personality traits.

Jane, I don't understand why you think the concept of significant harm is 'vague'.

I don't understand why you think the concept of significant harm is 'vague', either. Good lord.

Spero, resilience is a factor in all abuse. I don't think it matters whether a child was picked on because she's sensitive, or has become sensitive in consequence. We don't say it's less of a crime to punch someone if they're in a wheelchair & can't punch back, do we?

Sorry garlic, what I was thinking was how we would unpick someone being more prone to commit emotional abuse or more prone to suffer from it due to genetic issues, if that will ever be possible to unpick.

I think that is why it is different to physical abuse - most people will be shocked and hurt by a hard blow to the face but some might suffer more or more significantly from the same type of emotional abuse??

Sorry probably rambling, haven't really thought about this much before, which is why this is such an interesting thread, there is going to be a LOT to unpick and understand if this becomes a criminal law.

Yes, Spero, it is interesting. However I think the law has gained a great deal of experience in this field over the last 10 years or so. In some important respects, it's ahead of the woman in the street. Thinking about verbal abuse (as legally defined) and harassment: the victim's perception is pivotal.

Sam might send 50 texts a day to Alex and Pat, asking them both out for a drink.
Alex considers this amusing, or even flattering; Alex is not being harassed.
Pat feels invaded and asks Sam to pack it in. The texts continue; Sam is harassing Pat but not Alex.

Max calls Taylor a "dumb n". Taylor responds "thick honky", then they go into the pub laughing. No abuse has happened.

A manager refuses Charlie's request for a pay rise, saying Charlie is a "dumb n". Charlie has been abused.

Sorry, this has taken ages to type (got hung up on gender neutral names!) Am basically saying the law already has a decent framework for context when assessing abuse.

[Post edited by MNHQ]

But the family dynamic is going to add another dimension - emotional abuse is presumably going to have to happen over a lengthy period of time to cause the requisite degree of harm?

I wonder what kind of sentencing options the law will bring - what will be the maximum prison term for e.g.?

Interesting thought. My dad was a bastard, and Mum was sort of co-abusive (there used to be a psychiatric phenomenon called 'folie à deux', which would apply to them.) If Dad would have been locked up for a good few years, she could have been supported to find her own parenting style and done us all more good.

Lots of fascinating thinking to be done by the legal profession!

I imagine in many cases, a couple could be forced to separate and given some sort of supervision with child protection.

And the law could well lead to more & better support for parents who are abusive due to bad modelling, bad conditions, etc. Could be a good win for kids, parents, and social services. (If Gideon wants a nation full of happy little workers, he's going to have to facilitate this sort of thing.)

The more I read the more I think this is not going to be a very good idea.

Why Jane?

What role does intention have?

For example, severe emotional abuse but because of ignorance (wilful or because of their own emotional damage, or both), could that get prosecuted?

I suspect that emotional abuse will be almost impossible to prove even if bad enough to ruin a child's life.

I'm thinking in parents who are harming their children but are doing so blindly and believe that their way is the right way, what happens then?

Or emotional abuse due to the fall out of parents own emotional limitations / screwed up-ness? I'm thinking of parents who are clever and functioning adults on the outside, your typical middle class professionals and kids with clean clothes type of scenario:

So, scenarios (true):

1. Parents are abusive and disfunctional to eachother and children, especially over meals, resulting in both girls being severely underweight and with eating disorders. Parents punish the eating issues and try and break the children's will whilst maintaining/ increasing their own emotional abuse. Parents deny any eatimg issues and force children to lie. Every meal time is abusive: Threatening behaviour, force feeding, sitting at table for hours, deliberately feeding children food they hate/ cant eat without throwing up. Plus all the existing issues of belittling, scaring them, victimising, telling stories of all the awful consequences of the children being so horrible, parents screaming and threatening each other, verbal abuse and mind games etc. , obviously eating disorders get worse not better.

Very hard to discover and very hard to prove, but would that ever get to court as parents don't know/ choose to disbelieve their own behaviour has created this incredibly damaging situation? even if it's decided the children aren't responsible for their eating issues/ reactions to the family environment, the parents will always believe they are blameless.

1. Parents don't display love or affection for one child, scapegoating the child from birth for everything that's wrong in their lives. Mother is incapable of attaching to child because of her own personality and past issues, is so warped she genuinely believes the child is to blame for everything from failing marriage to lack of job, finances, social standing in community etc.

The child is treated badly but not enough to claim physical neglect, most examples could be considered parenting style but have the effect of emotional abuse/ things like refusal to let the child go to the toilet in private/ have any boundaries,, or isolating child from friends and community, not allowed out of the house at any time other than with parent. The screaming blame and undermining comments are actually just the icing on the cake for a child being brought up in a loveless and hostile environment.

But you could argue its not the mothers fault as she is incapable of showing that child love. However she also scoffs and belittles any suggestion of sorting out her own mental health issues...

Parents can be severely physically abusive because of their own issues including mental health. It doesn't make a difference to the child being abused whether the parent is intentionally trying to abuse them or not.

Actually Urigeller has a point! Bullying in schools can be extremely damaging, with long lasting effects, especially when it's mishandled or ignored by the school staff.
Probably a separate discussion though..

forcing a child to witness dv? usually one parent is the victim are they going to be protected too?

i was never forced to watch dv i hard it was subject to it and ran away from it

This is food for thought.
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-cinderella-law-emotional-correctness-gone-mad-9231233.html

Misc, I know. It will be hard. I don't think the parent has to be consciously doing it. Presumably those who suffer sexual abuse as children and then do it are in a sense not responsible. Those smacked very hard as a child who then do it to their children (very common) because it "never did them any harm" in a sense are not entirely responsible. They should all still be stopped. Those brought up in cultures, religions and houses where girls do all the domestic work and the boys don't lift a finger perpetuate that housewife stereotype on their children and thus pick on girls to do all the work - conditioned into it, not their fault in a sense but perhaps still serious harm under these new rules.

It's all too vague for my liking. As was also raised above some people are robust too and others will cry if the teacher at school so much as speaks to them - some just have egg shell skulls in terms of their emotional capacity to deal with the harshnesses of life at home etc.

Also what about if a sibling thumps another sibling which must happen in every home in the land and you allow that to happen or you let the toddler witness your 6 year olds thumping the living day lights out of each other? Is that also going to be illegal?
Also what if one family is into alking around the house with nothing on - plenty of us are but your social worker has a differnt norm eg people coveru p at home - how are we going to assess what is a norm, what is okay, and what causes severe problems? Is the family who make a child feel it's bottom is shameful and girls should never show their arms even abusing the child or the free love let it all hang out naked lot are fine?

I agree Jane. I suspect that families from other cultures will be given leeway to be different, whereas white British families will not. We will have to toe the line of whatever the current Social Worker political correctness world view is.

Again - this isn't about social workers. It's about criminal law.

A highly resilient & confident child may not suffer harm as much as a more sensitive one. Are you saying vulnerable children should "just toughen up" and don't deserve protection?

If you let your 6yo systematically beat their younger sibling, then, yes, you are failing them both. If it's just the odd fight over a water gun, then obviously not. Why are some people making this so hard, fgs?!

Walking around your own house naked is not a crime. Simple.

I don't believe that criminalisation will help. And I do think that it will have negative effects on the happiness of parents and therefore of their children.
Why do people think that making something like that a crime will stop it happening? Most people who shout at or criticise their children are not out to make them unhappy, they are struggling for whatever reason, these days no doubt often because of money worries. Parents need more practical support - both in terms of training in how to bring up children, and in terms of practical support for those who are struggling and whose stress is affecting their children. This will just pile on more stress. And we need fewer families living in poverty. Bad parenting tends to happen when people are under stress and have little support.