Poor Parent-Child Relationships Causing Mental illness Upon Children

Those of us that have been born and grew up to live a happy life with the parents that we loved

and cherished over the years, has given us something some kids will never be able to experience,

and that is a peace of mind. American Psychological Association, November 2008, "Startling

statistics on child maltreatment".

 

An article from the American Psychological Association titled "Startling statistics on child 

maltreatment" stated that "906,000 U.S. children were confirmed by child protective service agencies 

as being maltreated—a number considered to be a vast underestimate. Among confirmed cases, 

61 percent of children experienced neglect, 19 percent were physically abused, 10 percent 

were sexually abused, and 5 percent were mentally abused."

I had grown up in a household, where I had freedom of speech and I was not restricted of my

basic rights as a human being or end up because of being slandered or emotionally abused.

Although, I am not saying I was never disciplined, but I was indeed not treated in the way that

these children are treated, based off these statistics.

 

 I was thirteen years old, when I had become a witness to mental child abuse of a close friend of

mine. My friend’s parents would daily say mean things and contribute to his lack of self-esteem

and confidence. Although these things were constant in his life, he also had friends to help him

along the way and he had a substitute of people, who cared and loved him for who he was. From

this experience that I was a part of, me and my friends were able to prevent this from anything

from progressing and I heavily stand and believe in preventing mental illness and even stopping

it, and why parents with children should care more about it as well.

An article titled "Children's Mental Health Is In Crisis" Recent studies on children’s mental health 

during the pandemic suggests that for many, home life was full of stressors like school, social media, 

etc. Parents contribute to this and emotionally scarring can be permanent, unless taken care of. 

Emotional and mental abuse, can come in the form of verbal abuse, swearing, controlling, slandering, 

or etc. The result of these things can show up as having low self-esteem, damaged relationships, not 

being able to handle emotions, or even talk to people in private or in public.

 

 One of the reasons as to why parents even contribute to this form of harm on children is

narcissistic parents. Ways Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality

disorders and it is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own

importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack

of empathy for others. From this information, I can conclude that having a sense of being the

only person in the world, that deserves to be treated as something more than others, can cause

them to be self-entitled to certain things.

 

Narcissistic Parents don’t even see children as an actual person with their own thoughts or

feelings and try to live their life through their own child. Parents with this behavior, see the child

simply as an extension of themselves and nothing more than that.

 

Ways and signs of recognizing emotional abuse may be noticed if the child has a lack of

confidence and low self-esteem, signs of being withdrawn from society, language delay, struggle

on focusing and concentrating on daily tasks, depression, sadness, isolation, and even a lack of

social skills or have few, if any, friends.

 

 A source that helped discover this issue can be found in the book “Treatment of child

abuse: common ground for mental health, medical, and legal practitioners”.

Once noticed on these signs and problems of mental and emotional child abuse, people should

know the ways to prevent this and the solutions to this is to just get involved in these things, and

that is by trying to understand the child in the way they behave and act around you. Keeping

your kids healthy is just as important, as getting them the right nutrients to help them grow up

strong and even getting them the proper sleep as well.

 

 Being careful of word choice whenever angered is a must and when used wrongly can result in

the child believing the things you say, because to that child your words can mean everything to

them and a result could permanently scar them for life, as those hurtful words can linger with

them.

The way kids act in general; all starts from the household in the way they are being raised

and treated, because kids are more susceptible to the things that they are exposed to, and it all

starts with us.

 

From this I can say that being able to prevent mental or emotional abuse on children is a good

step, people in general must be the ones to step up in this serious matter whether you be a parent

or not, children naturally deserved to be brought up in this world with civilized parents and not

homewreckers who end up abusing their kids and ruining their lives as a result.