214 Chapter 27
Older children are left to wander away from home and are exposed
to a variety of risks, for example, playing on railway lines, associating
with drug users, petty criminals, and sex abusers. There is a failure
to learn to conform to social norms with resulting difficulties fitting
in with other people and organisational arrangements, notably school
rules. Disruptive behavioural disorders are common.
4 Lack of emotional warmth and availability. This often has profound effects
on children’s ability to enter into rewarding close relationships, as they
have not experienced a normal reciprocal intimate relationship. Their
social and emotional skills and feeling for how to develop friendships
are usually impaired, and self-worth as a person is very low, sometimes
leading into frank depression, but more often being seen as despon-
dency and lack of social interest and responsiveness. Other emotional
disorders such as anxiety and fears are not uncommon. Attachment
patterns in younger children as measured on separation and reunion
with parents are often abnormal, with a high frequency of the disor-
ganised category being seen (see Chapter 32). Other neglected children
are indiscriminately friendly, craving affection and physical contact,
putting them at high risk of abuse. School-age children are unable to
maintain significant friendships. Adults brought up in neglected and
abusive environments frequently exhibit inadequate close relationships.
This is reflected in abnormal features in the way they describe their
relationships with their parents and other intimates, as elicited by the
Adult Attachment Interview (see Chapter 32).
5 Lack of cognitive stimulation and encouragement in constructive pas-
times. This leads to delayed language acquisition, short attention span
with poor concentration, lower IQ, poor skill acquisition, poor attain-
ments, lack of school and examination success, and a greatly diminished
sense of competence and initiative.
Emotional abuse
Although emotional abuse is seldom the main cause for the recording of
concern on official child protection registers in the UK, in many cases it is
the predominant form of maltreatment going on in a family. Furthermore,
it is almost invariably present in the other registered forms of maltreat-
ment. However, because the immediate manifestations are less dramatic
and a causal connection with child impairment is harder to prove, less is
done about it. This is not because it is less harmful; research over the past
two decades has increasingly shown the profound and enduring effects on
children reared under these circumstances. Elements include:
1 Extreme hostility and criticism. Parents can come to see only the bad
qualities in the child, and subject them to a withering fire of critical
and demeaning comments, which the child is not equipped to deal
with. Follow-up studies confirm that children and adolescents exposed
to harsh emotional climates are themselves more likely to be cruel and
bully others.