Verbal Abuse

[hunnybaby24, BSN, APRN, NP]

How do you tell the difference between verbal abuse of a child patient and a parent just disciplining a child?

[Dolce, RN]

I would consider threats, swearing, demeaning, screaming and yelling to be verbal abuse.

However, there is a gray area of "bad parenting" between verbal abuse and disciplining a child. Unfortunately bad parenting is not illegal but I really wish it was.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

hmmm

discipline=constructive

abuse=destructive

words may be constructive said in such tone may be destructive, hence that aforementioned "gray" area

i would hazzard a guess if you are questioning a particular situation, it is at minimum in the gray area....

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Since this subject is very touchy for people, I will not dive deeply into it. I wouldn't want to offend anyone by being too blunt.

A person's SEC status often, but not always, determines the manner in which he/she rears children. Keep in mind that many people in society, including me, were yelled at, cursed at, sweared at, spanked, ridiculed, demeaned, threatened, and told to "toughen up" during our childhood years, yet we turned out just fine in adulthood.

Although it is terribly unfortunate for a child to endure verbal abuse, you will find that most agencies will not intervene unless physical abuse or neglect are also involved.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Also, the following link may or may not be useful:

http://www.ssireview.org/pdf/2005FA_feature_Kusserow.pdf

Raising a hard individual requires different techniques than does raising a soft individual. Teasing, yelling, spanking, issuing direct commands without a “please” or “thank you,” openly expressing one’s annoyance or boredom with a child, directly contradicting a child’s story (see sidebar, p. 45), and not immediately responding to a child’s questions or crying were all practices that both Kelley and Queenston adults used more regularly and with less guilt than did Parkside adults.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Much depends on the culture, upbringing of the parent, the behavior of the child, etc.. I think also that there is a wide variant in "normal" discipline too.

[missjennmb]

while its really hard to understand how different families raise their children, it takes a lot for something to be considered abuse, legally.

In my family and upbringing for instance, it was normal for my dad to say "I'm going to break your neck" or other neck deforming type threats. I heard it many times as an adolescent. My family also never laid a hand on any of us, gave us everything we ever wanted that they could, and spent a lot of quality time with us. So for me... I don't see threats as abusive, but I see cursing, laying hands on children, and not spending time with your kids as going towards abusive. In my husband's family, they did not do a lot of "family stuff", had the kids do massive amounts of chores on their holidays, curse like sailors and firmly believed in extensive forms of corporal punishment. While he and I parent the same, most of his family tends to swing towards those parenting philosophies and they don't have the same aversion to corporal punishment and cursing at children that I do.

Its really dependent on your upbringing in so many ways that its very hard to see the difference between abuse and parenting-I-dont-agree-with unless there is some sort of physical violence or extremely over the top continuous degradation going on.

I often wish that kids came with a universally accepted instruction manual. I think we'd be a lot healthier as a species...but thats another topic all together.

[twistedpupchaser]

I was often threatened with "rip your arm of and beat you with the wet end" it never happened, and as I realise now it was a venting threat that also served as a warning. I know it isn't appropriate but when Mum said that I knew to settle down...I was more scared of the next threat in the sequence, Just wait 'til your Father gets home...."