Child Psychological Abuse Awareness Day

History

Child Psychological Abuse Awareness Day is a global awareness day for children who are subjected to psychological abuse. It is held on the 10th October which is also World Mental Health Day.

The first Child Psychological Abuse Awareness Day was established on 10th October 2024. The date was chosen by Thrivers Speak, a group of adult survivors of child psychological abuse in the context of high conflict parental separation. It coincided with their first “Nothing About Us, Without Us!” conference[1].

Child Psychological Abuse (CPA)

Child Psychological Abuse is recognised worldwide and the impacts of CPA on a child’s emotional and psychological development are well researched. In 2014 the American Psychological Association issued a press release to summarise findings of research that found CPA was as harmful as sexual or physical abuse and raising concerns that despite psychological abuse being well recognised, it is rarely addressed[2].

CPA It is defined by behaviours, speech and actions of parents, caregivers or other significant figures in a child’s life that have a negative mental impact on the child. Physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect all impact on the psychological and emotional development of children. Emotional abuse is classed as any form of abuse that is non-physical e.g. verbal abuse, constant criticism and intimidation. It is usually employed to exert psychological control and manipulate victims to meet their needs.

CPA in Context of Parental Separation

Dr Craig Childress, a registered Clinical Psychologist based in the United States, published “Foundations” in 2015[3]. In Foundations, Dr Childress uses psychological principles in the domains of attachment, personality disorders, family systems and trauma, to explain how a child can be psychologically controlled to reject spending time with a “normal-range”/”good enough” parent after their parents’ divorce or separation.

Childress explains that the attachment system is a primary motivational system which has been developed over billions of years to ensure that children bond with their parents in order to gain care and protection.

‘Detachment behaviour can only be produced by the severely problematic parenting of incest, chronic exposure to severely-hostile aggressive parenting, chronic exposure to severe parental incapacity or neglect, or a role-reversal relationship with a pathological parent’.

When a child is rejecting a relationship with a parent, Dr Childress maintains that one parent or the other is creating pathology in the child. Furthermore, Childress also describes this form of CPA as a psychological spousal abuse pathology using the child as a weapon to hurt an ex[4]. Either a parent has engaged in significant abuse of the child, including witnessing significant domestic abuse, leading to a child’s rejection (emotional cutoff) or the child has been psychologically controlled to reject a “normal-range”/”good-enough” parent. That it is important for family courts to undertake an assessment for a differential diagnosis, to understand which parent has employed behaviours severe enough to cause the child’s detachment behaviour.

To aid professionals working in family courts to identify CPA, Childress has documented a diagnostic model, parenting ratings scale and associated clinical signs. Childress also proposes a Contingent Visitation Schedule as part of the treatment plan to repair the parent child bond as quickly as possible in order to mitigate the damage arising from CPA.

Parental separation is a common Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE). The more ACEs a child experiences, the greater the likelihood of victimisation and perpetration of abuse, the poorer their lifelong health and opportunities. Putting a child in the middle of parental conflict (triangulation) can have the following lifelong impacts[5][6][7][8]:

Depression/sadness.
Anxiety/agitation.
Low self-esteem.
ADHD/ASD/conduct disorder like symptoms but no neurological basis for the symptoms exists.
Risk taking behaviours e.g. substance abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity etc.
Eating disorders e.g. anorexia, obesity etc.
Inability to maintain relationships.
Personality disorders. May be preceded by ‘splitting’ where they see one parent as all good and another as all bad. It is a strong indicator a child has been manipulated to reject a parent.
Guilt for rejecting a parent, treating them with hostility and the time they have lost.
Supressed/repressed memories of times with the rejected parent.
Suicidal ideation sometimes stating they will kill/harm themselves.
Sleeplessness.
Inability to think critically.
Lack of focus.
Inability to describe their emotions.

A triangulated child may adapt their attachment strategy, developing increasingly coercive and controlling or compulsively compliant strategies to cope [8][5]. They will be emotionally dysregulated. Some may do well in school and seem older than their years. Others may show protest behaviour e.g. shouting, swearing, hitting, kicking and damaging property. They may display a lot of anger towards the rejected parent and extended family members, often with a lack of guilt. This may extend to other authority figures such as teachers or the police. It may be claimed a child is afraid of the parent they have rejected but children who are really afraid of a parent do not behave in attacking, arrogant and haughty ways that risk that parent’s anger[5]. The pattern of triangulation and emotional cutoff may be repeated across generations in a family, impacting on a child’s future family relationships[10].