Australia’s most common form of child abuse is on the rise, but isn’t being reported

Australian children are facing more emotional abuse than ever before, new research has shown, with this form of abuse now being the most common form of abuse experienced by children.

Despite this increasing prevalence, only half of Australians would report the emotional abuse of a child, leaving advocates concerned about the short, medium and long term damage caused by emotional abuse and its profound impact on young lives.

Emotional abuse is a pattern of behaviours that damage a child’s sense of self-worth, impacting their emotional development. It includes, but is not limited to, constant yelling, swearing, insulting, criticizing, threatening, calling a child hurtful names or shaming them.

This form of abuse often occurs in tandem with other forms of child maltreatment, as as such it is important to raise awareness, as the signs and symptoms of emotional abuse may not be as readily apparent as other forms of abuse. 

Conducted by Act for Kids, the study found that 57 per cent of the 45,400 Australian children surveyed said they had experienced abuse between 2022 and 2023, and over half of respondents aged 14-17 years said they had witnessed emotional abuse at school.

The research also reveals that 87 per cent of Australians agree emotional abuse is a serious problem in Australia, however, nine out of ten underestimate the prevalence of childhood maltreatment.

Dr Kaye Pickering, Executive Director of Service Operations at Act for Kids says the study is alarming as emotional abuse can have long term negative impacts on the overall well-being of children.

“Emotional abuse can affect children for their entire lives,” she said. 

“It damages self esteem and their ability to see themselves as worthy. It can impact their performance at school, if children are constantly being told that they’re not good enough, or they’re being fed negative information about themselves and being put down and shamed, that can impact their ability to actually do well at school, and that, in turn, can impact the sorts of jobs they get and the education level they go to. It can also create anxiety and depression, which can stay with kids for, you Know, a very long time or throughout their lives.”

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study conducted in 2023/2024 reveals that 30.9 per cent of Australian children experience emotional abuse before the age of 18 years.

Professor Daryl Higgins, Director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies at the Australian Catholic University says the ACMS report shows that emotional abuse is a major contributor to Australia’s mental health crisis, therefore early prevention is important, urging the government to act swiftly. 

“We have to stop pretending that child maltreatment is this inevitable thing that we just sent ambulances to the bottom of the cliff and clear up the mess once children have been referred to a statutory child protection department – that’s too little and too late,” he shared with SBS.

“We actually have to drive a Prevention Agenda and use those strategies that we know work, such as giving parents access to evidence based parenting programs and supports to lean into those trusted sources of information, such as teachers and doctors and early childhood educators to be able to send messages around what works and to help and support parents to do the best job they can of raising children in ways that are caring and emotion focused and are not harmful.”

Access the original comments made by Professor Higgins here.