The mental health impact of yelling at children: The results are alarming

Professor Mark Bellis said: “Our research reveals that verbal abuse in childhood can leave mental scars as deep and lasting as physical abuse.”

According to the data, adults who were physically abused as children were 52 percent more likely to have low mood. This rate rose to 64 percent among those who were only verbally abused. The researchers noted that this difference was not statistically significant.

Individuals who experience both physical and verbal abuse are 115 percent more likely to have poor mental health in adulthood.

Experts say one in six children experience physical violence – predominantly by family members or caregivers – and one in three children experience verbal abuse.

Jessica Bondy, founder of the organization "Words Matter", which fights against child abuse, made the following assessment of the study:

"Words can inflict deep wounds and have lasting effects on a child's mental health. Many adults don't realize how much lasting damage their harsh words can do to children."

Pedagogues list some of the behaviors that fall within the scope of emotional abuse as follows:

• Shouting, threatening or insulting the child
• Making fun of a child
• Using sarcastic language to hurt him

The researchers combined data from seven separate studies covering individuals born from the 1950s onward. In total, they analyzed information from 20,687 adults.

The study, whose results were published in the journal BMJ Open, revealed that while a decrease in physical abuse should have positive long-term mental health benefits, increasing verbal abuse threatens these gains.