That's what I'm wrestling with at the minute.
Emotional abuse can be just as destructive as physical abuse and hearing the way she constantly bullies and screams at them at the top of her voice angers me when the kids have done very little/nothing to deserve it.
I think there are probably two main types of children when it comes to dealing with parents who become physical/strict to the point of abusive:
1. Those who can deal with it and as they grow older, almost wear it with a badge of pride.
2, Those who can't deal with it and go quiet/shy/asocial and let it ruin their lives.
My neighbour's kids, I hope, fall under the first category. I've not seen them with any physical injuries, and they seem social and fairly normal if a little naughty at times (when out of the house), but sadly they look like they'll end up like their mum in terms of their behaviour and so the cycle will invariably continue. For those reasons, I'm leaning towards not reporting her at the minute but if it gets any worse then I will.
I know a few people who fall under the second category and most of them have had their lives ruined/badly affected by it and so many of them are alcoholics as a means of dealing with it. I'd hate for that to happen here and agree with your last sentence but obviously the difficult bit is whether and when to intervene if you've not got the full picture.
You are thinking along the right lines in some ways, but the decision about what levels of emotional resilience children have can’t be made in the way you describe. It is also dangerous to ascribe adult ways of thinking to children. Think about it like this.... there are not different types of children, there are different types of parenting. You will often hear people (many in this thread) say things like “I was hit and it didn’t do me any harm”. There are a number of reasons for this and many explanations:
1- they were hit, it may have harmed them and they are totally unaware. I see this all the time, it usually manifests itself in anger management issues that they are also unaware of. They get angry and don’t know why. That was me for most of my first 45 years..... 9 years on I am more chilled.
2- they had the odd clout and perceive children that may be being systematically abused as suffering similar experiences through a lack of knowledge on their part.
3- they had firm parenting that involved physical chastisement, on occasions quite extreme, but knew their parents loved them and had consistency and emotional warmth in most other aspects of their childhoods. They knew why they were hit and although they didn’t like it could understand why.
The real problems is when children get hit and they have other factors involved. Inconsistent parenting, inconsistent discipline or boundaries, being screamed at and not knowing why, being scapegoated or marginalised within a family, eg, sibling being treated significantly differently, parents having too high expectations.
Emotional abuse is the most damaging and long lasting type of abuse. It kind of gets lost amongst other kinds of abuse that are more headline makers. It gets lost but is always there..... if you hit / harm a child that also by definition involves emotional abuse, but people just want to talk about the physical injuries, if you sexually abuse a child that involves emotional abuse, but people are abhorred by the physical sexual abuse and yet most people now know about the longer term damage that is caused by the breach of trust by an adult, which is emotional abuse. Never underestimate the damage caused by emotional abuse on its own. Children being shouted at constantly, usually in homes where the parents have not set boundaries or have good routines, is a serious issue. If that is compounded by external stressors, Covid-19, isolation, finance, relationship issues, alcohol, mental health, it can very quickly turn into a high risk situation. If then a child is being hit, that is a dangerous situation.
What most people don’t realise is that you don’t have to lay a finger on a child to destroy them. All you have to do is be inconsistent and Belittle or frighten them. It’s really easy to destroy kids. Someone earlier mentioned they had been on a domestic violence prevention course. I bet one of the eye openers on the course is the damage caused to children from hearing arguing, shouting and fighting. But when you speak to parents you will always get the same answers..... “they weren’t in the room, they never saw anything”. Yet the damage to the kids from what they have heard or the anticipation and fear of what may or may not happen when mum / dad gets in later is what causes a lot of damage.
