The many ways to abuse a child

The National Post, Diane Francis, Saturday, November 22, 2003

Last week, I saw a woman at a counter in a department store violently yank her toddler by the arm, then verbally threaten him. From where I stood she was physically and emotionally abusing a tiny boy who had done nothing wrong. None of those who watched could do anything.

The incident was upsetting but hardly rare. Rough treatment and verbal abuse of children is commonplace in malls, street corners and restaurants. Some professionals believe there is an epidemic of bad parenting out there. Just ask any teacher how many emotionally damaged children are in their classrooms. Just ask any psychiatrist or any prison warden.

That's why it's curious, as governments impose tough new governance guidelines on business leaders to protect investors and the economy, none dare venture into the area of parental governance in order to protect children and our society.

One of the problems in tackling this distressing social issue is that child abuse is too narrowly defined. The abusive mother in the store could only be charged if she left bruises, not because she is leaving emotional scars. Pop star Michael Jackson can only be charged, as he was this week, with child molestation; but he remains unpunished, or unchastened, after he displayed parental neglect by dangling his infant son outside a fourth-storey window for the cameras.

Such bad parenting, or "child maltreatment," must be addressed because its long-term effects are disastrous not only for the victims but for society. Today's abused toddler will be crippled permanently without intervention, growing up dysfunctional, violent, angry, depressed or all four. He or she may abuse his or her own children or turn to crime. Despite such obvious dangers to society, governments are not even gathering information as to the extent of the problem.

The first nationwide survey into child abuse and neglect was based on 1998 data and published in 2001 by Health Canada. The report, entitled The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, was based on 7,672 child maltreatment investigations by 51 child welfare agencies in all provinces and territories, as well as three aboriginal services, in the last three months of 1998.

The definition of maltreatment was explained in the report: "Unlike abuse, which is usually incident-specific, neglect often involves chronic situations that are not as easily identified. Emotional maltreatment involves acts or omissions by parents or caregivers that cause or could cause serious behavioural, cognitive, emotional or mental disorders. It can include verbal threats, socially isolating a child, intimidation, exploitation, terrorizing, or routinely making unreasonable demands on a child."

Researchers estimated there were 21.52 investigations of child maltreatment per 1,000 Canadian children, with 45% substantiated, 22% unresolved and 33% unsubstantiated. The research showed that neglect and emotional abuse were more common than physical or sexual abuse.

Child maltreatment cuts across socio-economic lines. Middle-class kids are being raised by appliances, such as televisions and computers, without parental involvement or guidance. Such neglect leads to trouble, poor study habits or worse. The new movie about the Columbine High School massacre, Elephant, demonstrated a chilling disregard on the part of one killer's parents. Their son was obsessed with violent video games and guns, and was accumulating weapons in a bedroom decorated with neo-Nazi and Hitler posters. How could they not have known?

Even wealthy or ambitious mothers are now routinely outsourcing their parental role to nannies who may, or may not, care emotionally or effectively for their children. Two years ago, I called an ambitious Toronto lawyer to report to her that her nanny had manhandled her three-year-old in front of me and others at a tennis club. She was fired immediately, but Heaven knows how long that child had been abused by that employee and how much damage had already occurred to his self-image.

The story's the same for the less fortunate. Daycares are professionally supervised and, for the most part, provide enlightened parenting, but financially strapped parents often rely on bargain-basement care in the form of elderly relatives or neighbours who are untrained and may be abusive. Still others recklessly leave their children unsupervised.

Clearly, governments must get their heads around this in partnership with educators and health care providers. Perhaps what's needed is a powerful Children's Protectorate whose mandate would be to educate parents, punish them and retrain them as well as to keep a registry of bad parents; to lobby for better laws and co-operation among jurisdictions and to intervene in court cases. While interventionist, it takes a village to raise a child. But now in our impersonal, urban society a substitute must be found.

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In my list of Liberal abuses last week, I inadvertently neglected to attribute a number of the entries to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, whose research has uncovered so much government waste over the years.

Copyright 2003 National Post