On Emotional Abuse and Resilience
Summary of Resilience Following Emotional Abuse by Teachers
The research paper Resilience following emotional abuse by teachers: Insights from a cross-sectional study with Greek students by Dr. Finiki Nearchou shares excellent insight into the different forms of emotional abuse often faced by children from teachers in school. The author also outlines how resilience (developed through other social support and in-built self-confidence) helps students cope with this abuse.
While the entire paper can be found here (for free), we would like to draw attention to what is Emotional Abuse, how can resilience help to overcome such abuse and the impact of emotional abuse through some of the key findings regarding systemic emotional abuse by persons in positions of authority in schools.
1) “Emotional abuse by teachers can be defined as a pattern of verbal and non-verbal behaviours that do not include any type of physical contact, between a student and a teacher, which results in emotional, social, cognitive and somatic consequences for the student’s functioning and adjustment.” (p.1)
2) Some examples of verbal abuse by teachers include:
· Use of sarcasm, ridicule or denigrating statements,
· Yelling,
· Name-calling,
· Insulting,
· Mocking a student’s appearance or disabilities, and,
· Making negative comments about a child’s family
3) Non-verbal abuse may include:
· Neglect — such as ignoring the student
· Behaviours such as assigning homework to impose discipline, and,
· Using punishment for not responding correctly to an exercise/question
4) The author’s findings suggest that more attention needs to be paid to emotional abuse by teachers and that this form of abuse should be considered as a strong factor leading to behavioural problems in elementary school students and adolescents
· “Social support through its strong effect on self-confidence is an important protective factor of resilience against emotional abuse by teachers.” (p.1)
· While resilient children are somehow able to overcome systemic emotional abuse, it should be noted that not everyone is as lucky.
5) The paper outlines the effects of emotional abuse by teachers, established in many studies:
· A student’s relationship with their teacher is a key part of their schooling experience. Positive interactions with teachers contribute positively to this experience. Negative toned interactions can lead to detrimental impacts on a student’s social and emotional adjustment
· Schools are meant to serve as safe spaces for children. Emotional abuse by teachers in this safe space shatters that perception and creates feelings of uncertainty in student’s minds
· When a teacher incites fear instead of respect, students perceive them as threats to be avoided or to be escaped from. This leads to feelings of powerlessness because students invariably find themselves trapped in the same classroom as the authority figure and have no way out of the abusive situation
6) Teachers inflict emotional abuse on children through intimidation, threats, isolation and humiliation. This not only breaks the trust that should characterise a student-teacher relationship, but also leads to a decline in the connection that students should feel with their school.
· Students who undergo emotional abuse by teachers, report feeling alienated from their school
· Once this loss of connection from their academic environment sets in, negative consequences like poor academic performance, social withdrawal and dropping out of school are often observed
7) Studies have provided ample evidence of the predictive links between childhood exposure to emotional abuse by teachers and students’ psychological functioning in early adolescence and young adulthood.
8) Emotional abuse by teachers has also been linked to a range of negative effects on children’s physical and psychological health
9) “Together these studies show that the outcomes of emotional abuse by teachers on children’s well-being may be as debilitating as the outcomes linked to emotional abuse by parents or other caregivers” (p.2).
This is one of many research papers and studies conducted on the detrimental impact of emotional abuse by teachers. We hope to highlight more such resources because we believe the first step towards solving a problem is acknowledging that it exists and educating ourselves of its nature. Please let us know of your thoughts on this research. Let’s get this conversation going in the comment section below.
Dr. Finiki Nearchou is a resilience and youth health researcher at University College Dublin, Ireland.
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