Verbal Violence in the Family and the Effect on Children

Verbal violence is underestimated - as harmful! It may not be a form of aggression as visible, shocking, and disapproved of as physical violence, but symbolic (or verbal) violence can have just as harmful effects on the family.

Words hurt, the power of words is impressive, especially if they come from a close person we care about, who influences us. We sometimes use words without thinking, without being aware of their impact on the interlocutor. Just remember the last time you were offended, bothered by someone - they may not even have intended to insult you.

But his words stayed with you, crushed you, and irritated you (at best). Then what are the effects of verbal violence in the family, what are the effects of insulting and/or hurtful words from loved ones?

Verbal violence in marital guilt:

Hostile climate. Initially, if in the conjugal couple only sometimes ugly words were said about the upset, they do not decisively affect the relationship between the partners. But it creates an atmosphere of hostility, a harmful tension in the family.

A single insult to your partner can hurt your partner more than you think. And even if the quarrel ends, that word remains there, between the two, creating tension and preventing them from reconciling completely.

How to become a victim. If one of the partners gets into the habit of insulting, insulting, speaking badly, maybe he will initially retaliate. But the more the situation repeats itself and the two cannot understand each other, the more the words turn the one who says them into the aggressor and the one to whom they are addressed, the one they hurt, into the victim.

Consciously or not, the aggressor transforms the couple's partner into a victim, humiliating him, subduing him. At one point he stopped fighting back, getting used to silently accepting insults.

The constant verbal violence will thus affect the self-confidence and self-esteem of the person, who becomes a perfect victim: he no longer opposes, submitting to verbal aggression. She comes to believe that she deserves those words, she believes in what she is told. He slowly gets used to these verbal aggressions and begins to try to ignore them - but the effects are just as harmful no matter how much one tries to ignore them.

The person undergoes this treatment because his whole self-confidence is destroyed and he comes to believe that he does not deserve more. He no longer opposes, he does not fight back for fear of being abandoned.

Example: those women whose husbands constantly tell them that they are good for nothing, that no other man would want them - they slowly come to accept the silent insults and do not oppose, believing that, indeed, if they would be abandoned by their husband, another man would not accept them.

Verbal violence destroys the possibility of communication over time. You can no longer try to understand yourself, to ask to be listened to by a person who will surely insult you again!

With the destruction of open communication between spouses, the entire marital relationship is destroyed. In the couple, the dominant person is the one who generally resorts to verbal violence, to put the other "in his place" (in general, but not always, the dominant person is the man).

Verbal violence as revenge. But verbal violence is not always used as an attack, as a method of subduing the weakest by the dominant partner. Verbal assaults are often a method of repression: for example, women who insult their husbands when they are away from home, have problems with alcohol, and so on.

Not knowing how to resolve the situation, women repress their aggressive emotions by offending their husbands. But how does it help an alcoholic to hear from his wife "you're not good at anything, you're a drunk"? Such ugly words only strengthen his conviction that this is so!

Verbal violence - effects on children:

Family atmosphere. I have seen that the symbolic violence between the two spouses affects their relationship to the point of destruction: insults, insults, words that hurt and humiliate. But these words also create an unbearable tension in the family environment, which affects the children.

For them, a family in which parents scream at each other, attack each other with words, does not have those elements so important for children - safety, protection, harmony, communication. The child will grow up dreaming of the day he will leave the parental home, developing a repulsion that can even become hatred for the aggressive parent.

Model. Parents are the first and most important role models for the child. And a child who from the first years of life witnessed scenes of symbolic violence between his parents will more than likely take over this model in relationships with other people.

Even without knowing the meaning, he will memorize the words that his parents address and repeat them. In addition, even worse, the child will learn that aggression (verbal or not) is the effective way to impose yourself, to be a winner. The child is influential anyway, and his parents offer him the most elements to take over.

Direct verbal violence. As for insults, insults, bad words directed directly at children - you can imagine that the effects are even more disastrous. We have seen the mechanism of victimization in the couple, in which the dominated person gradually becomes accustomed to the aggression of a victim who no longer has any self-confidence.

In the case of an influential, unstable child, insufficiently self-confident, it is only logical that the harmful effects are even more intense. The self-image of a child who is insulted even by his parent is down to earth. If you repeatedly tell a child that he or she is "bad," "stupid," "useless," "stupid," etc., then the child will come to believe these words - especially because they come from one of the parents. you know! And the child knows that his parents know him best - so they have to be right…

Conclusion? Always be careful what words you use, especially what words you say to your loved ones. Even in anger and nerves, do not use words as weapons: they will not be easily forgotten.