General Chat

I was reading an article in the Daily Mirror yesterday about a woman who had been horribly emotionally abused by her mother.

Interestingly, but not really of any relevance to what I am saying, her mother used the same terms of abuse as my own. Ask yourself if you would call your own eight year old daughter a slut!

Her circumstances were different from my own and she was able to go to the police who informed her that they were unable to take any action on her behalf because only physical abuse against a child is a criminal wrong. Emotional and psychological abuse against an adult is, however, a criminal offence.

Our laws on chid abuse are over eighty years old.

The charity Action For Children is campaigning to have the law updated, and not before time.

There is quite a detailed report on their web-site.

Perhaps time we stopped saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me"

Just not true, is it

Emotional cruelty does more harm than physical. Bruises on the flesh go but memories don't. From someone who knows :-(

Abuse of any kind against a child should be taken seriously and be made a criminal offence. As LaGooner says bruises heal but mental scars often never heal and have regularly been proven to be the root cause of problems in later life.

Very true OFITG ,a lot of things still haunt me from my childhood all thanks to my evil so called Mother. I have been told all my life that I was never wanted and that she wished I had never been born and of course lots of other hateful comments. I only went to her funeral to make sure she was really and truly dead

Did you have the dreams where she came back repaired?

I hope that, if the law is updated, there will be a rash of compensation cases. It is not that I am in favour of litigation but, those who think they have some sort of privilege that allows them to humiliate their children might reconsider if they think their pocket may suffer later.

I had loads of bad dreams about her and still occasionally do.

Not too long ago, I remember reading a comment along the lines of 'praising children excessively can do more harm than good, especially to those with low self-esteem'.

From my own experience, I was happy to receive a balance of praise & correction with the best of intentions from both my parents - but never cruelty.

My own children and grandchildren receive praise and correction when necessary but I most definitely do not treat them in any way like my so called Mother did to me. I love them all dearly and could never be so cruel.