Five keys to detect abuses on minors in parental figures, according to psychology

The recent episode of Child Abuse, known as Oviedo’s “The House of Horrors”He reminded the company of Rozzo who can sometimes reach the actions of the human being. This type of violence can manifest itself in a physical, psychological, sexual or emotional way, it is part of what is known as abuse of minors and constitutes one of the most worrying ways of domestic violence. According to the latest data published by UNICEF, about 400 million children worldwide suffer some kind of abuse in their homes.

According to the psychologyThe profile of parents of mistreatment usually presents a series Behavior models that are repeated in different types of abuseboth psychological, sexual, emotional or physical. It is not easy to detect the psychological characteristics that define the abusator, in particular those who exercise violence against their children, regardless of how much they can suffer from their actions. Even so, the most common are:

• Control and domain. Many fathers and mothers who mistreat their children try to exercise excessive control over them. Sometimes they use discipline as a method of justification to impose their will in any field.
• Low levels of empathy and affection. The parents of the abuse normally show a difficulty indicated to put themselves in place of their children, therefore they invalidate their emotional needs, added to the lack of samples of love, protection, support and understanding on several occasions.
• Management, victimization and fault. These types of people usually rely on emotional manipulation, blackmail or victimization to exercise control of their children. For example, sometimes children blame problems or situations that were born from parents themselves or other family members outside the children.
• Humiliation and disqualification. There is no room for errors, neither in public nor in private. Since there is no empathy or understanding towards children, failures are synonyms for weakness or disobedience, reaching the self -esteem of children.
• Unresolved personal problems or shortcomings. On many occasions, the parents themselves witnessed mistreatment in their childhood. Not knowing another parenting mode, they activate the same model with their offspring. It is known as models of intergenerational abuse.

How to detect signs of violence in minors

Since there are characteristics psychological characteristics of abuse parents, there are also factors that help to detect this abuse in children:

• Inexplicable or recurring injuries. Sometimes the appearance of injuries such as burns, fractures, wounds or bruises can be a way to detect physical abuse.
• Changes in behavior. If the child in this case has aggressive behavior, anxiety, depression or fear, among others, it can be a signal to detect psychological abuse.
• Basic deficiency for care. The lack of excess hygiene is usually a large detector of minors by parents towards children. The fact of being in unhealthy conditions implies negative consequences for children’s health.
• Inappropriate attitudes of parents. Depending on the behavior of the figure of the parents you can find out if the child can suffer from an episode of abuse on minors.
• Indications of sexual abuse. If the child presents inappropriate sexual behaviors for their age or pain in the genitals, among others, it can be a clear sign of sexual abuse on minors.