This is a blog that needs a warning label: as you read it you might find yourself relating to your own childhood or notice how some of the children in your life might be victims of parental bullying. This awareness can be very painful.
Recently I was talking with a good friend about some of the struggles she sees one of her granddaughter’s friends experiencing — a father who is a horrible bully to his kids. Her granddaughter was very upset by how terrible this was for her friend and felt powerless to help.
This conversation made me wonder about all the children out there who might be trying to cope with a parent who mistreats them in ways we might say is abusive, even though it is not against the law to bully one’s child as long as it doesn’t cross certain boundaries involving physical harm. I recall being horrified that one of the ways social services decides if a child has been abused is if a bruise lasts more than three days. Broken bones, cuts and concussions are often investigated, but there are no laws about the kind of bullying I am focusing on in this blog. (Note that we may automatically think that a parent who bullies is a father figure, however mother figures can also bully children, based on how we define bullying.)
Let’s consider the definition of bullying. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, bullying is “abuse and mistreatment of someone vulnerable by someone stronger, more powerful.” They note that bullying can involve a kind of pleasure someone gains from being able to overpower someone who is vulnerable. Some examples of what a bullying parent can say: “I wish you had never been born!” “You don’t deserve to be a part of this family.” “You are a useless piece of sh*t!” They might threaten the child: “I’m going to throw you out on the street!” “I’m going to put you into foster care!” That parent might push, shove, shake or hit a child. (It is very important to note that we can put emotional abuse on a continuum in terms of frequency and degrees. I think almost every parent has lost it with a child, has yelled, said things that are threatening, cruel and degrading. Most likely these don’t result in lifelong wounds, although for a very sensitive child that is a possibility. Hopefully sensitive, caring parents apologize to their child for those moments when they temporally spiraled out of control, and work to find ways to avoid these behaviors in the future.)
Many of you are familiar with the ACEs research (“ACEs” stands for “Adverse Childhood Experiences”) conducted by the insurance company Kaiser Permanente and the Center for Disease Control, the “CDC.” The original ACE study was conducted from 1995 to 1997 and has been repeated hundreds of times since, with virtually the same results showing that experiencing adversity in childhood profoundly impacts the mental and physical health of a person throughout their lifetime. A very informative and powerful YouTube video by Nadine Burke Harris, a Canadian-American pediatrician who was the Surgeon General of California between 2019 and 2022, provides an excellent explanation of the ACEs research. In it, she describes how the many toxic stress responses, which result from experiencing severe adversity, impact a child’s brain and body; furthermore, how these profoundly affect a child’s sense of safety, their beliefs about themselves, and their abilities to be happy and successful in life. She uses an image that equates the powerful stress responses of the human brain that a child would experience were they attacked by a bear in the woods, with the question: “…But what happens if the bear comes home every night?”
One of the categories in the ACEs research is emotional abuse. Wikipedia defines emotional abuse as: “a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another person to a behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder among other psychological problems. It is often associated with situations of power imbalance in abusive relationships. Emotional abuse can take several forms. Three general patterns of abusive behavior include aggressing, denying, and minimizing. Even though there is no established definition for emotional abuse, emotional abuse can possess a definition beyond verbal and psychological abuse. Blaming, shaming, and name calling are a few verbally abusive behaviors that can affect a victim emotionally. The victim’s self-worth and emotional well-being are altered and even diminished by the verbal abuse, resulting in an emotionally abused victim.” (I thought it was important to note that there is no established definition for emotional abuse.)
Let’s consider noted trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s definition of a traumatic experience: “Trauma results from inescapably stressful events that overwhelm people’s existing coping mechanisms. It leaves individuals stuck in a state of helplessness and terror, altering how they perceive danger.” I think we can easily see that all the behaviors of bullying parents fit this definition of what can traumatize a child.
Note that there are two important reactions to being caught in an inescapable situation that can go unrecognized (most people have heard of the fight, flight or freeze reactions): submission and capitulation. Children who are being bullied by a parent typically cannot escape the situation and are forced to submit to it. They basically cave in and comply with whatever is being said or done to them. Capitulation refers to what Dr. Bruce Perry describes as the child’s attempt to assess and then comply or please the adult who is abusing them. Obviously neither of these responses are emotionally healthy.
I usually like to end blogs like this with some suggestions for what to do. Unfortunately, the Internet does not provide clear ideas for helping young children caught in situations where a parent is the bully.
The only resource I could find was Do Your Parents Bully You? 12 Ways to Respond and Get Help (wikihow.com). However, it suggests things like: find a place where you’re completely free from your parents (like a parent wouldn’t follow them), walk away from your parents when things go south (I think this would only make a parent angrier), set clear boundaries stating what is okay and what is not okay (which a parent might consider to be disrespectful). There are more things on the list, but I consider the suggestions naïve and inadequate.
I think of my friend’s granddaughter who was so upset by witnessing one of her young friends being bullied by the father. She so badly wanted to help but did not know what to do. The sad thing about this is that there really are no clear suggestions other than finding an opportunity to share some of the information in this blog with her friend and listen compassionately to how she feels. The children being bullied by parents can suffer extreme stress which can harm the growing brain. It is a real tragedy. Even as you read this consider the fact that there are children out there who are experiencing parental bullying right now. Such a painful realization!
Invitation for Reflection
- What thoughts, feelings, sensations, images and/or memories did this blog evoke for you?
- If you were a victim of parental bullying, how do you think that impacted you then and now?
- What additional ideas do you have for helping a child who has a bullying parent or a child who knows another child who has a bullying parent?
- Are there ways we can all work together to be better advocate for children?
Below is some additional information about the ACEs research in terms of the impact of adverse childhood experiences and recent research on the impact of childhood verbal abuse on children.
Source: About the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study |Violence Prevention Injury Center CDC
Additional research: Childhood verbal abuse as a child maltreatment subtype: A systematic review of the current evidence – ScienceDirect states the following: “ Parents or caregivers who yell at their kids could be doing long-term harm to their kids’ psyches, new research suggests.
Researchers from Wingate University in North Carolina and University College London found that “childhood verbal abuse” (CVA) — primarily identified as “yelling and screaming” — could have negative effects on kids’ mental and physical health throughout their lifetimes.
Published October 2023 in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, the review included 166 prior studies involving “childhood maltreatment” from four medical databases spanning more than 45 years — from 1976 through May 2022.