Forms/Types of Abuse
- Siana Kotha
- Oct 4
- 9 min read
Updated: 6 hours ago
Child abuse is a painful reality for many. It can leave deep scars that last a lifetime. However, healing is possible. There are 6 types of child abuse that this website discusses:
Emotional abuse
Verbal abuse
Physical Abuse
Coercive control
Neglect
Exposure to Domestic Violence
Emotional abuse:
Emotional abuse is when a person in the family, usually a parent or partner, constantly criticizes, belittles, humiliates, or manipulates their child or partner. This is a broad category of abuse in which the perpetrator aims to harm someone’s mental well being, self worth, or emotional stability
Examples can include things like:
Name calling
Threats
Degrading your child
Making a child the subject of a joke or using sarcasm to hurt them (i.e. humiliating the child)
Gas lighting
Controlling behavior
Pushing a child too hard without considering their own imitations
Constantly blaming or belittling their child
Actively refusing to respond to a child’s needs
For example refusing to touch them
Consistently isolating a child from normal social contact with peers or family
Not allowing a child to have friends
Constantly swearing, yelling or screaming at a child
Signs of emotional abuse
Having these symptoms does not definitively indicate that someone around you is being emotionally abused, however they can be possible signs of emotional abuse.
General:
Being constantly unconfident or lacking self assurance
Struggling to control one's emotions
Struggling to create or maintain relationships
Act inappropriately for their age
Acting like an adult. For example they might try to parent other children
Acting too young for their age. For example they might frequently rock themselves or bang their head on surfaces
Develop unhealthy coping mechanism: sucking, biting, held harm
Lack attachment to their parent or guardian
Attempting or considering suicide
Demonstrate extremes in behavior, for example they might overly compliment, be demanding, be extreme passive, or become aggressive.
In younger children:
Being overly affectionate to strangers or people they don't know well
Seeming to be unconfident, wary, or anxious
Not having a close relationship or bond with their parents
Being aggressive or cruel towards other children of animals
In older children:
Using language you wouldn’t expect them to know for their age
Acting in a way that you wouldn’t expect for a person of their age
Struggling to control their emotions, often time because they weren’t taught how to regulate their emotions when they were younger
Having extreme outbursts
Seeming isolated from their parents
Lacking social skills having few or no friends
Verbal abuse
This is a type of abuse that includes shouting, insulting, mocking, or threatening someone with the intent to cause them harm. This type of abuse can be both overt and subtle.
Verbal abuse affects two in every five children, however just because it happens often does not mean it should be normalized or accepted.
Verbal abuse is often categorized as a pattern of behavior where criticism, threats, and rejection is consistent and leads a child to feel constantly belittled, blamed, scared, or threatened. Thus it is distinct from occasionally saying hurtful things to a child in the heat of the moment.
It is most often used to intimidate or undermine a child so that a parent can maintain a level of control over them
This type of abuse falls under the umbrella term of emotional abuse
Studies show that verbal abuse can change how a child sees the world, and often times it can lead to increased risks of anxiety, depression, suicide, and drug use later in life.
Examples:
“You’re so stupid”
“You can’t do anything right”
“You’ll never amount to anything”
Non constructive remarks that are deliberately hurtful
Threats or blackmail: “If you go out with your friends tonight, don’t bother coming back”
Manipulation: Saying things like “if you loved me you’d do this” or “I did this for you”
Putting their child down and then saying that the hurtful comments were “just don’t”
Physical abuse:
Physical abuse is classified as any acts that result in physical injury to a child or adolescent that causes long lasting effects on a child’s development.
This can include hitting, shaking, kicking, burning, or using any object to cause harm.
It can happen as part of physical punishment that goes too far or as acts of anger and aggression toward the child.
Children who are abused physically have the possibility of developing child traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety
Every day five children die from child abuse, most are under 3 years old
It often occurs from physical punishments that go too far or when a parent or guardian lashes out in anger at their ward/child.
Most children fear telling people about their abuse for many reasons like:
Their parents/guardians will get mad at them
The child fears their abuser might get in trouble
The child fears being removed from their home
The child thinks it is okay for their parent or guardian to harm them, or that they might deserve the abuse.
The child fears not being believed
Signs of abuse:
Unexplained bruises, cuts, burns, or broken bones
Injuries that appear in patterns (for example, marks shaped like a hand or belt)
Frequent “accidents” or explanations that don’t make sense for the injury
Wearing long sleeves or layers even in hot weather (to hide injuries)
Flinching when touched or suddenly moving away from adults
Coercive Control
Coercive control is characterized as a pattern of abusive behaviors that are used to dominate, isolate, or create fear in a person over time.
It may or may not include physical violence, instead it may be manifested in repeated mental tactics like isolation, surveillance, humiliation, and constant micro-regulation of daily life
How does it work?
Perpetrators act in ways that make their victims feel constantly watched, afraid, and dependent
What can this look like?
Intimidation & Threats:
Threats of punishment/harm, harming pets, self-harm, or abandonment
Threats of harm: “If you do this, I will make sure you will never be able to do anything else ever again(or any other threats of harm towards a person)” or “ If you do this I will hurt your pet”.
Threats of self harm, made to induce guilt: “If you tell anyone, I will kill myself” or “If you ever do that, I will hurt myself”
Threats of abandonment: “If you tell anyone, you’ll be taken away” or “I will put you in foster care”
What separates these threats from normal punishments are that coercive threats are unpredictable, extreme, and fear based and their goal is to silence and dominate the child, not to teach them or protect them
Threats like these are used as psychological weapons to maintain a child’s fear even though physical violence isn't present at that moment.
This non-physical violence creates a condition of unfreedom that ultimately changes a child’s behavior because of constant fear.
Isolation:
Blocking friends or restricting activities
Forbidding calls/texts
Monitoring rides so the child cannot leave the house or join clubs
”you don’t need friends they’re bad influences”
”I’ll decide if you can talk to your grandfather”
And these actions only begin to fall under Coercive Control when the isolation is not used to protect or guide the child, but instead to cut them off from outside perspectives and support to make them fully dependent on the parent
Excessive Surveillance:
Demanding passwords, checking devices, location tracking, reading private messages, installing monitoring apps, and forcing the child to relay information about the other parent.
What separates this behavior from strict parenting is that these actions are constant and used to control another parent or to monitor or punish the child, and not to protect them. It is not the rules themselves that are the issue, instead it is the sustained pattern of surveillance and manipulation that traps a child in fear and dependence
Gaslighting & Humiliation:
Denying past events, calling the child “crazy” or “over dramatic”, public shaming, mocking emotions, or making the child “prove memories”
These actions are distinct from normal disagreements or forgetfulness between a parent and a child when the parent is repeatedly and deliberately denying events that have occurred, twisting facts, or mocking the child’s feelings so that the child begins to doubt their own memories and emotions
Economic Control:
Controlling allowances or necessities and withholding child support to limit opportunities
A parent may control or restrict funds for necessary things that a child needs, like money for school supplies, field trips, clothes, transportation, extra circulars, ect- not because they cannot afford it but because they want to establish a system in which the parent completely dominates the relationship.
The parent in this situation may also act with the aim of restricting their child’s ability to act independently and causing them to lose a sense of agency
Micro regulation:
Dictating the clothing, food, homework methods, tone of voice, when one speaks, and who to look at, with harsh punishments dealt for small “defiances”
This excessive monitoring is done without the intent to help the child, instead it serves to prove that the parent has ultimate control
Post-separation coercion:
Using a child to spy on or punish the other parent, coaching the child to repeat messages, and violating parenting plans to maintain control
This turns the child into an instrument of the conflict, resulting in the child and targeted parent being stuck in a state of fear and confusion
To see the effects of these behaviors click here
Neglect
Neglect is the failure to meet a child’s basic physical and emotional needs
These needs include housing, food, clothing, education, access to medical care, and having feelings validated and appropriately responded to
What it can look like:
Consistently inadequate food, hygiene, clothing appropriate to weather, or safe sleeping space; long periods without appropriate supervision.
Skipping needed doctor/dental/mental-health visits; ignoring chronic symptoms.
Repeated school absences or not arranging evaluations when disabilities are suspected.
Withholding emotional support/engagement so a child’s feelings are not acknowledged or responded to.
Important legal nuance (what is not neglect): Many laws explicitly say that allowing age-appropriate independent activities (walking or biking to school, playing outside, staying home for a reasonable time) is not neglect unless it’s willful/wanton and actually endangers the child.
For example Florida defines ‘Neglect of Child” as:
A caregiver’s willful failure or omission to provide a child with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the child’s physical and mental health, including, but not limited to, food, nutrition, clothing, shelter, supervision, medicine, and medical services that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of the child. The term does not include a caregiver allowing a child to engage in independent and unsupervised activities unless allowing such activities constitutes willful and wanton conduct that endangers the health or safety of the child. Such independent and unsupervised activities include, but are not limited to, traveling to or from school or nearby locations by bicycle or on foot, playing outdoors, or remaining at home or any other location for a reasonable period of time; or
A caregiver’s failure to make a reasonable effort to protect a child from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person.
Neglect vs. poverty (how to draw the line):
Poverty can be a contributor (stress, fewer resources) but poverty ≠ neglect. Neglect focuses on the failure to provide when options or safer choices are available, and on risk/harm to the child.
Why neglect happens:
It is important to note that there is no single cause of neglect, instead neglect is caused by multiple, interacting contributors at child, parent, and community levels
Parent/caregiver level: mental-health conditions, substance use, burnout, limited knowledge of child development.
Family/interpersonal: domestic violence, unstable caregiving arrangements.
Community/structural: unemployment, lack of community support, burdens associated with poverty.
These are risk factors, not excuses; protective relationships and high-quality parenting buffer risk.
Possible signs:
Frequently dirty, hungry, inappropriately clothed;
untreated medical/dental issues; frequent absences;
very young child left alone;
chronic lack of emotional responsiveness from the caregiver.
(Use judiciously, signs are not proof, but they are red flags.)
Exposure to Domestic Violence
Exposure happens when a child sees, hears, or becomes aware of violence between their parents or caregivers.
This includes watching one parent hit, kick, push, or threaten the other; hearing yelling, harassment, or intimidation; or seeing the damage and aftermath, such as broken objects, police visits, or visible injuries.
Forms of violence children may witness
Physical violence: A parent striking, punching, slapping, shoving, or throwing things during fights.
Threats and intimidation: Threatening physical harm, breaking items, or using aggressive body language to control another person.
Verbal or emotional abuse: Screaming, name-calling, humiliation, and constant criticism meant to dominate the other parent.
Psychological control: One parent monitoring the other’s movements, controlling access to money, transportation, or medication, and using fear to maintain power.
Sexual or coercive acts: Unwanted sexual contact or manipulation used to assert power in front of or within earshot of a child.
How children become involved in the violence
Perpetrators may use children to maintain control, forcing them to deliver messages, take sides, or cover up incidents.
In some families, children are accidentally injured while trying to intervene or while nearby during assaults.
Many children experience both witnessing and direct abuse, since domestic violence and child maltreatment often occur together.
How often it happens
Research estimates that 3.3 to 10 million children each year are exposed to violence between caregivers.
At least one in five children experiences this kind of exposure annually, and as many as one-third witness it at some point in childhood or adolescence.
Child-protection context
Some child-welfare agencies treat child exposure to domestic violence (CEDV) as a form of maltreatment, though few states explicitly define it in law.
Reports of CEDV can trigger investigations, but cases are not always substantiated; many families are instead referred to community-based domestic-violence services.