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: ̗̀➛ Ethics and Education
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Where Do We Draw the Line Between Enforcing Family Values and Harming the Child's Wellbeing?
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Barnette ⋆˙⟡ (my girlfriend's version), Creator, Head Moderator
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Oct 04, 2025 08:06AM
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well there’s like two different family values i see. like one is what’s important, for example, a kid having to give up art to do medicine bc their family values money and success over passion and happiness. and another can be cultural and religious values, there’s extreme examples, like refusing to get a kid medical care bc the family values religion and thinks that prayer is enough to fix sickness, or like cultural values like how some cultures think boys are greater than girls and treat sons better than daughters. idk which one to talk abt though.
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The most common type of parental abuse is emotional, and it comes in subtle ways that break down a child’s confidence, personality, and wonder. It can affect adolescents and children’s emotional communicative abilities and their overall cognitive development and relationship with the world.
Common examples of emotional or mental parental abuse could be telling your child ‘because I said so’. Many parents use this without realizing that it can affect a child’s wonder or curiosity, it encourages them to follow adults blindly. This can be crucial towards not only growth within a child but in cases such as child molestation and kidnapping. If a child is taught not to ask why, that are more likely to let things happen to them.
Another example is what psychiatrists call ‘punishing good behaviour’. If your child is constantly in their room, and you tell them they should come out and hang out, but when they do you make fun of them with words like ‘oh wow, finally ready to talk to us?’ It makes a child uncomfortable and will ‘punish’ them (by embarrassment) for the behaviour you wanted. The child will be less likely to continue that behaviour, and furthermore have a hard time understanding that when they are corrected, they won’t be punished for changing.
Emotional abuse can also come in the form of small comments the parent might forget, but the child remembers. For example: ‘you’re wearing THAT?’ (Creates insecurity in self expression) ‘it’s fine, you can benefit to eat more, you’re literally a stick’ (affects confidence and can create bodily insecurities) and similar comments.
The biggest problem in emotional abuse is communication. Parents commonly like to punish their child for speaking out, talking back, even voicing how they feel. This results in the child feeling they can’t stand up for themselves, and may include a child not being able to discuss an emotion without feeling intense fear or panic. This can also create alexithymia, which is where you don’t know what feeling feel like or how to express them.
How is this related to family values? In a lot of families, hugging is a customary greeting ritual, but it can make a young child nervous to hug a much larger person. They are commonly forced to, and this denies a child’s right to consent. This means they are more likely to be stuck in abusive relationships and not know how to say no to touching inappropriately, etc, because you invalidate their right to consent. This also applies when you force a child to eat a food, or wear something.
Emotional abuse comes into play as well when something like sport or religion goes too far. Maybe everyone in the family has played soccer, parents may pressure a child into playing the sport whether they want to or not. It’s a family thing, but pressuring a child to do it with guilt or threats is emotional abuse. Same with some rituals like going to a church or being baptised. If your child has experienced religion in the right way, they are more than likely to want to participate in these acts, but forcing them onto a child isn’t okay.
Why does this matter? Children who experience emotional abuse are less likely to have confidence when they are older, they are less likely to have good communicating skills, and they are typically more sensitive. Emotional abuse can also result in ptsd and worsen anxiety and depression, as well as increase su!cidal ideation.
Emotional and verbal abuse needs to have more attention shown on it, because it commonly goes hand in hand with sexual, physical, and religious abuse and can cause severe amounts of harm on their brain.
Tessie wrote: "Some people don’t realize that physical abus did not the only type of abuse commonly inflicted unto children.The most common type of parental abuse is emotional, and it comes in subtle ways that b..."
This says anything I would say, I agree
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The most common type of parental abuse is emotional, and it comes in subtle ways that b..."
^^^
especially the part about punishing good behavior, that needs to be said more.
