The image many people hold of “an abused child” is a child with marks on their body, a child who can’t make it to school, a child who isn’t being fed.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines child abuse as four types: physical abuse, neglect, psychological abuse, and sexual abuse.
For FY2023, child abuse consultation cases (preliminary, MHLW): psychological abuse roughly 135,000 cases (59.8%), physical abuse 51,623 (22.9%), neglect 36,465 (16.2%), sexual abuse 2,473 (1.1%).
Even Without the Four Types, “Psychological Neglect” Hurts
This article is about a fifth thing — one that does not fit cleanly into the four official categories, that does not surface in statistics, but that quietly does serious damage to a child’s mind. Psychological neglect.
What Psychological Neglect Is — Food and Shelter Without “Mind” Arriving
Psychological neglect is a state in which physical care is delivered, daily life rolls on, and yet the parent never reaches the child’s interior — the child’s feelings — at all.
It is not visible from outside. Even so, the damage it does to the child’s mind is severe enough that it cannot be set aside as minor. Without violence, without verbal abuse, without sexual abuse, with the child fed and clothed — if psychological neglect is present, the home is still abusive. That is what I want this article to make clear. Some examples follow.
Showing no interest in the child’s feelings
Never asking “is it tasty?” “are you full?” “how was today?” When a child raises something serious, the response is, “Mom wouldn’t know about that.” When the child confides bullying, all that comes back is “oh really,” with no further interest in what the child is feeling.
Indifference to the child’s existence
The parent doesn’t take the child’s hand. When the child asks to be held, they are pushed away. The parent has the sick child run errands. The parent doesn’t know what the child treasures, what they like, what they don’t.
Crossing the boundary
The parent says “I never said that” when they did. They use the child’s money. They confide marital affairs to a teenager. The fifth type of abuse has its own concrete behaviors that don’t fit cleanly into the four categories.
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