Psychological Abuse: More Common, as Harmful as Other Child Maltreatment
It may be the most common kind of child abuse — and the most challenging to deal with. But psychological abuse, or emotional abuse, rarely gets the kind of attention that sexual or physical abuse receives.
That’s the message of a trio of pediatricians, who write this week in the journal Pediatrics with a clarion call to other family doctors and child specialists: stay alert to the signs of psychological maltreatment. Its effects can be every bit as devastating as those of other abuse.
Psychological maltreatment can include terrorizing, belittling or neglecting a child, the pediatrician authors say.
(MORE:Child Abuse Pediatricians Recommend Basic Parenting Classes to Reduce Maltreatment and Neglect)
“We are talking about extremes and the likelihood of harm, or risk of harm, resulting from the kinds of behavior that make a child feel worthless, unloved or unwanted,” Harriet MacMillan, one of the three pediatrician authors…
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Abused Children May Get Unique Form of PTSD
Child abuse scars not just the brain and body, but, according to the latest research, but may leave its mark on genes as well.
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How Child Abuse Primes the Brain for Future Mental Illness
Child maltreatment has been called the tobacco industry of mental health. Much the way smoking directly causes or triggers predispositions for physical disease, early abuse may contribute to virtually all types of mental illness.
Now, in the largest study yet to use brain scans to show the effects of child abuse, researchers have found specific changes in key regions in and around the hippocampus in the brains of young adults who were maltreated or neglected in childhood. These changes may leave victims more vulnerable to depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the study suggests.
Harvard researchers led by Dr. Martin Teicher studied nearly 200 people aged 18 to 25, who were mainly middle class and well-educated. They were recruited through newspaper and transit ads for a study on “memories of childhood.” Because the authors wanted to look specifically at the results of abuse and neglect, people who had suffered…
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Standing Together in Pink
By Olivia Heffernan, NYAC Co-Facilitator, and Maree Rodriguez, NYAC member
The idea for Pink Shirt Day started when a student came to school wearing a pink shirt and was made fun of for wearing it. Two students in the school heard about this incident and decided to do something about it. They went to their local discount store and bought fifty pink shirts and asked other students to wear pink in support of the student who was bullied. NYAC’s Olivia and Maree share their experiences with bullying, to raise awareness about this ongoing issue and important awareness day.
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Inspirational Person: Jamie McKay, Sustainable Building Consultant
Jamie McKay is self described “Husband, Father, principal at Morrison Hershfield (15 yrs), LEED Fellow, adjunct teacher (Carleton University), lecturer (CaGBC & USGBC), engineer, environmentalist, dumpster diver, artist/designer/builder, canoe paddler, skateboarder, and telemark skier – and that about sums it up”. Quite impressive!
Jamie, as a recognized leader in Sustainable Building Design, where was your passion born?
In 1995 I graduated from Civil Engineering at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) and headed to the Yukon Territory, in search of adventure and autonomy. I met many people living radically different lives than anything I’d ever seen before, and was exposed to many new ideas. It was there that I first found my passion for the environment and self-sufficient housing. This was also where I met my wife, a staunch environmental activist. I began to seek out any information I could about the field of sustainable construction, and ultimately moved to Victoria (1997) and Vancouver (1999)…
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Consistent Institutional Racism in Nunavut: 1962 – 2014
The Qikiqtani Truth Commission’s final report, published in 2010, paints clear, stark and uncomfortable images of what life in Nunavut was like in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Uncomfortable because, as a conscious human being and a Canadian, I don’t want to believe the stories hundreds of Inuit who lived those years told the commission. Stories of forced relocation, forced quarantines thousands of kilomteres away from home, families left in the dark, families thrown geographically asunder—stories of pain and grief and regret, all archived and relived.
Uncomfortable because of the clear glimpses of stark racism that persist from those days.
In 1950 most Inuit in the Qikiqtani region (Baffin) lived in tightly-knit kinship groups, five to thirty people big, on ilagiit nunagivaktangit—seasonal land camps traditionally used for hunting, harvesting and gathering.
By 1975, almost all Inuit lived in permanent settlements, lured by promises of material security that failed to…
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My Top 10 List as to why Dating a recovering Addict is better!
- We have no problem admitting our faults and imperfections, and unlike those who haven’t admitted it, we’re actually doing something our problems.
- You can always count on having a DD when you go out with us
- We’ll never be the one accused of stealing your last beer/drink from the fridge
- When we throw a party, we always bring too much food, have too much fun and never leave a mess of empty cans and bottles lying around.
- We’re usually not broke because we didn’t spend all our money the night before partying
- While the general population comes into work Monday hung over, we’re the ones being OVER productive.
- We have friends, REAL friends that actually care about our well-being and not just what they can get from us or vice versa.
- We work a 12 step program aimed at making use better people. It’s not just about being clean and…
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