Emotional abuse is the portion of the class that I found to be the most fascinating. This is mainly due to the uncertainty involved with this particular issue. Childhood emotional abuse is defined as the adverse parental behaviors in a sustained pattern of interaction, which impact a vulnerable child producing damage to a child s emotional and psychological function. The definition can be further explained by giving examples of the abusing parent s actions towards the child. The parent could possibly be rejecting the child. Rejecting a child could mean either, not paying attention to the concerns of their son or daughter, or just failing to validate their feelings. Isolation is also another factor of emotional abuse. This simply means the caregiver is preventing the child from participating in any outside activity and keeping the child secluded at home. These emotional factors severely affect the psychological development as well as the physical development. When a parent chooses to emotionally abuse their child, they hinder the child s overall development and cause the child to feel inadequate, isolated, unwanted, or uninvolved. This leads to a low self-esteem and may trigger unwanted behavioral responses, which may consist of anger and aggressiveness, or at the other end of the spectrum, depression or suicide.

One of the major problems with childhood emotional abuse is detection. Sometimes the parent does not even realize that he or she is truly abusing their child. The abuse may come as a result from a stressful day at work, or problems with a spouse. It is when the child takes the blunt of the anger on a constant basis; the issue is then seen as emotional abuse. Lack of immediate physical signs also makes emotional abuse difficult to detect. Where as physical abuse will leave bruises, bone fractures or some other indicator, emotional abuse directly affects the child s mind. Therefore detecting emotional abuse takes time. To try and predict whether or not a child is being emotionally abused, one has to look for behavioral trends in both the child and the parents.

The discussion of childhood emotional abuse seemed a bit ambiguous to me at first. My first thought of the issue was there was no accurate way to pinpoint emotional abuse. In the field of Microbiology, one looks for empirical data to discover an exact truth through precision and accuracy, but when one deals with the emotions of an individual, precision and accuracy are replaced by instincts from observations. I also see the distinction between emotional abuse and a parent just going through a rough time. Prior to this class, my personal feeling would have shadowed any difference and I would have seen the issues as one in the same. Therefore the class has not only enlightened me, but also made me a better person through lack of ignorance.

In conclusion, remember the definition of emotional abuse. It is the adverse parental behaviors in a sustained pattern of interaction, which impacts a vulnerable child producing damage to the child s emotional and psychological function. We as adults must make a conscious effort to realize the consequences of our actions. As adults we have the mental capacity to control how and what we do. Emotional abuse is just as devastating as any other form of child abuse and is the underlying factor in all other forms. Parents must take into account the vulnerability of a young child and provide for their physical and emotional well-being.