To hate "child abuse" used as a term for other things

[brasty]

Couldn't think of a good title, but AIBU to be irritated at many on here using the phrase child abuse, for any action/words that are not nice, unfair or insensitive to children?

Actual child abuse is grim. Children being beaten, denied food, treated as if they are worthless constantly.

My mother had a particular foul-mouthed obscene phrase that she used to swear at me.
I remember those words even now, decades after I have forgotten how painful the beatings were.

Abuse takes many forms.
Anything done to deliberately inflict harm, that leaves physical, mental or emotional scars on a child is abuse.

^Shit parenting has a long term impact on children and is not okay.
Child abuse is when SS or other service providers will intervene^

I agree that this definition is correct, but I don't think it is right. If people are consistently parenting their children in a way that will have a long term negative impact, that is abusive, and there should be intervention IMO.

I understand that services for children are woefully underfunded and overstretched, so this is not currently possible, but in an ideal world shit parenting should not be ignored and seen as inevitable.

And comparing ear piercing to FGM is pretty offensive

Don't agree.

It may not be as traumatic or cause the same long-term issues, but it's still permanently altering a child's body and often without their consent.

I'm sure it'll be made illegal within my lifetime and will be one of those things we look back on and say "I can't believe people used to be allowed to pierce holes in their babies for fashion"

The other thread you mentiones isnt just about the woman calling her 2 year old an arsehole. She also refused to take her 3 year old to the toilet forcing him to pee his nappy and she refused to put a napoy on the 2 year old and shouted angrily at him calling him an arsehole when he inevitably soiled the floor. Sounded a pretty abusive environment. Sadly people have low standards and clearly have never interacted with children constantly sworn at and belittled with language.

Brasty I do get where you're coming from, I really do. When you work with extremes, it difficult to get perspective on other seemingly 'lesser' incidents.
A child being told he is a stupid fucking cunt every day is still an abuse victim, albeit at the other end of the scale to the trafficked child beaten daily and sold for sex.
An impact is made by both behaviours. A very negative one.
I think it's occurrence in the main with something like swearing.
But on here isn't real you know this I don't have to tell you...

@brasty - I think abuse ranges from very mild to the most severe, and there is a level below which social services won't get involved - and in part, that level will be decided based on the short and long term harm that the abuse is causing, but sadly it is also based, in part, on resources, and there may be abusive behaviour that is causing damage to the children concerned, but the authorities do not have the money or manpower to intervene.

I think I see what you mean. It's the temporally sustained nature of abuse that makes it abuse.

A parent could be a great parent generally, but have a terrible cold and a bad day and end up snapping at and smacking a child. It's not good parenting and no-one these days would see it as an optimal way of acting. But it's not abuse as an isolated incident. If, however, the snapping and slapping was repeated over and over, it would be abuse.

I think that distinction probably falls apart, however, when you get someone acting really badly. Breaking a child's arm just one time is surely abusive?

SS often don't intervene because all that other people see is shit parenting - but that can well be the tip of the ice berg.
So the child you don't think is being abused because their mother calls them a "fucking cunt" in the supermarket; may well be the child who is then sent to their room with no supper, and the door locked. Or the child who is kicked out of the house on Christmas morning, but when brought back by a stranger the mother pretends it was just a silly mistake. Or the child who lives in a shed for a week because the mother has locked them out.
In fact a lot of these things can happen with the parent whose children are beautifully behaved and she would never swear at them - she doesn't need to.
Being called a "fucking cunt" or "waste of space" or "plain evil" are all forms of abuse, and I would have thought you knew that.

The point is, though, beka, we can't know as casual observers over a very short time period. We can't know what is a one-off parenting bad day and what is a repeat pattern of behaviour, unless we have a more temporally extended view of the child in question. We can't even know if the quiet kids who appear OK are really OK or just traumatised and silent. That's the whole problem. And I speak as someone who suffered years of emotional and violent abuse from the age of 11, with no-one doing a thing about it. I do blame neighbours a bit (they must have been able to hear the screaming through the walls), and I definitely blame my father for ignoring it all too - but a random stranger would never have guessed that my outwardly perfect mother was a horror show behind closed doors.

There is a thread at the moment where someone said they should call childline because the step parent will not get Wi-Fi for their 11 year old step son. Its that kind of thing that annoys me, making light of child abuse by equating it to these kinds of trivial things.

guilty100 - but if you keep seeing the same child being sworn at, then maybe you should report it. If it feels a bit off, then report (SS or NSPCC). A pattern of reports may set off alarm bells.

I really wish someone had reported for my friend and her siblings.

@unlimiteddilutingjuice has hit the nail on the head. Of course abuse can be verbal - swearing, belittling etc is not ok. However, she's right - if you look on that god-awful Gentle Parenting page any 'mainstream' parent is abusive. Supernanny is the devil incarnate apparently. Put your child on the naughty step? Abusive? Tell them they are being naughty? Abusive. Let your baby cry for literally five minutes while you have a shower and rinse the dried on baby vom out of your hair? You're permanently damaging your child's brain development. Stop them hitting you? They need to hit, they can't express their emotions, give them a pillow to punch the crap out of. Refuse to let them sleep in your bed until they are seven or attempt potty training when they are under about age 4? Abusive.

It's just utter nonsense, and does a real, terrible disservice to those poor children who are actually neglected or abused. And I say that as someone who wouldn't use controlled crying etc.

The extreme of you will give your child brain damage if they cry for a nanosecond is ridiculous and dangerous i agree with that calling perfectly ordinary parenting methods abuse infuriates me.

From the title I thought OP meant when people say things like, "making a child learn 3 languages is child abuse" (I've had this one ), "veganism is child abuse" or dressing different aged children the same is child abuse", etc etc. Aka things that are absolutely not child abuse. If this is the case, OP, I agree with you. It really diminishes the seriousness of actual child abuse - in the same way that when people use 'depressed' as a synonym for 'sad it belittles the seriousness of actual depression.

However, OP, any constant negative behaviour towards children is child abuse; including swearing, ignoring, pressurising, etc.