Impact of Verbal and Psychological Abuse on Child and Adolescent Development

Verbal and Psychological Abuse: Impact of Verbal and Psychological Abuse on Child and Adolescent Development
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Your Institution of Affiliation
November 11, 2017
Introduction
In every corner of this world, the issue of abuse has been one of the most apparent and most persisting problems that people experience. As of today, it could be said that this issue has been mitigated a lot, especially due to the intense efforts provided by individuals, groups, and institutions in response to the dire consequences that abuse (in any form) could inflict to the victims and even to the general society at large. According to ReachMa.org (2017), the six types of abuse are; (1) physical, (2) sexual, (3) verbal/emotional, (4) Mental/psychological, (5) financial/economic, (6) Cultural/identity. In this article, however, the further focus would be on the verbal/emotional aspect of abuse as experienced by millions of people around the world. In most cases, this is the type of abuse, which goes unnoticed, since its effects are less apparent in the victims. However, for people what most of us fail to notice is that this is also one of the most severe types of abuse since it leaves a latent but long-lasting (even permanent) damage to an individual that experiences it. In a study done in the effects of abuse to young individuals, it was found that the effects of verbal and psychological abuse is much greater for a child and an adolescent, especially because this is the stage where they are most vulnerable to these kinds of attacks (Al Odhayani, Watson, & Watson, 2013). However, what makes this more severe is the fact that abuse is not only experienced by the child from his/her peers but at times even from parents/guardians, who are supposed to guide them in their development. In this article, the author would focus on a discussion of the effects of verbal and psychological abuse to children and adolescents. This discussion would focus on both the analysis of this type of abuse from (1) the parents/guardians and (2) peer groups (bullying). Lastly, this article would also try to expound on the effects of “cyberbullying” for children and adolescents today. The author believes that this is important because a large part of verbal and psychological abuse (bullying) happens through social media and other digital forms of communication, with statistics saying that 1 out of 3 teenaged kids who uses social media has been bullied and received “cyberthreats” online. Nonetheless, the author of this article believes that while abuse from the parents would have a much different effect on the individual as compared to those coming from peer groups, both of them could have a permanent and detrimental effect on the child/adolescent’s well-being.
Definition of Terms and Scope of Limitations
In this article the author would employ the definition of Childhood and Adolescent as used by Erikson is his Psychosocial Theory. This would include both the stages of preschool (3-5 years), school age (6-12 years), and adolescent (12 to 18 years) (David, 2014). Individuals in this stage are considered to be most vulnerable to any kind of abuse, but most especially in terms of psychological and verbal ones. In fact, it is said thes...