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Verbal Abuse and Children Part II
by Patricia Evans
Part I Part III
Communicating Limits
Good communication includes communicating limits to your child. Children feel safe and cared for when parents set limits for them. When they become adults, they set their own limits. They are best able to do this when they learn how during their childhood.
You can set limits for your child while still validating his or her feelings. For instance, it is natural for children to want to stay up past bedtime or to want things they can't have, but there are limits to their endurance and to the number and kinds of possessions they can have. You, as the parent, should encourage them to realize this. For example:
- I hear you. You want to stay up, but now it's bedtime for five-year-olds. After you're ready, we'll read a story.
- I can see that you want to watch that on TV, but that's not a kids' show. Let's pick out something else.
- That's not okay.
- When you're screaming I can't hear you. Let me hear your words.
- Let's talk about it.
- Tell me what you want.
- No, I'm not buying any toys today.
- I'd like you to have that, too, but I don't have the money for it.
Communicating Choices
Whenever possible, children should be given the opportunity to choose. It takes extra effort on the part of the parent -- it's easier to say, "You're wearing this, like it or not." But if your child learns early on that she or he can make choices and take responsibility for them, your child will be better able to make good choices in life. Following are some examples of ways that you can present your child with the opportunity to make choices:
- Do you want corn or peas?
- Both your white top and your yellow top look nice with these pants -- which do you want to wear?
- This is the school menu. Do you want to buy lunch or take your own?
- Is there anything you want to do this school year, like sports or the photography club?
- Who would you like to invite to your birthday party?
When Children Hear Verbal Abuse
Sometimes, even while trying to protect a child, a parent may lose sight of just how to respect the child's feelings. For example, a woman wrote, "In the past I had a grandfather who yelled at me and berated me. My own parents told me to not let Grandpa bother me -- to just ignore him. I was really happy when he passed away"
 In a situation like this, the child needs to hear, "What he just did [said] is not okay. Come with me while I tell him." The abuser needs to hear, "What you said to Mary [or John] is not okay. I really don't want her [him] to hear this kind of talk again."
If you are abused for speaking up, take yourself and your child out of harm's way, again acknowledging your child's feelings ("I know it hurts when he talks mean") and reiterating to your child the fact that that kind of talk is not okay.
If your child is yelled at or put down in any way, she or he needs your support. Sometimes a parent may inadvertently teach a child to put up with abuse. It is sometimes helpful to ask yourself, "Is there anything in what I've said that minimizes the abuse?"
If a child is told by a parent, "She [he] didn't mean that," the child's experience is invalidated and his or her pain discounted. The abuse is minimized and the child is taught to tolerate it.
Minimizing abuse is something most people are taught. To say, "Forget it. He was just having a bad day" may seem like a way to make the pain go away, but it just leaves the hurt inside. And it's crazymaking. (Does having a bad day make abuse okay?)
Acknowledging Your Child's Feelings
When you acknowledge your child's feelings and respond to verbal abuse, you validate the child's experience. And you are the all-sympathetic witness. In this way you teach your child appropriate responses to verbal abuse and help your child to honor his or her own feelings.
On the other hand, teaching your child to pretend that words don't hurt (something males especially are taught) doesn't do anything good for the child. It even makes children doubt themselves.
 Depending on your child's age and to whom she or he needs to respond, your child needs to learn appropriate responses to verbal abuse such as those covered in this book. Even an older child needs emotional support to respond to an adult who verbally abuses. "I'll stand by you" may be all the child needs to hear.
Children learn to abuse from adults and from each other. One of the most effective responses a child can make to a peer who puts him [her] down is to say, "That's what YOU say," with a strong emphasis on "you."
This response usually startles the other child and implies "I don't buy it. You said it. You are responsible for what you say."
Sometimes a child is verbally abused while visiting a parent after separation or divorce. I recently talked with a woman whose son would come back from visiting his father appearing very upset. When asked what was wrong, his standard reply would be, "If I tell you, even if you say you won't tell, he'll find out." Clearly, this is a serious problem. The child is suffering and feels too threatened to confide the incident.
If the parent cannot gain the child's confidence, outside intervention -- a family friend, relative, or counselor who could become the child's confidant -- would be of real value.
To find out what the American Acadamy of Pediatrics says about children and verbal abuse go to http://www.aap.org. Then search: Verbal Abuse.
Part I
Part III: "Letter to An Abused Mother of An Abused Child"
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