Parenting: Being angry or shouting at children repeatedly can affect your brain

Parenting: Being angry or shouting at children repeatedly can affect your brain

by

How ‘severe education’ can affect your child’s BRAIN: being angry, hitting or shouting at children can decrease their neural regions associated with anxiety and depression, study warns

  • Scientists analyzed parenting practices and performed brain scans of children aged 2 to 9 years
  • Those subject to ‘severe paternity’ had smaller tonsils and prefrontal cortex
  • These brain structures play a key role in emotional regulation and anxiety
  • Researchers hope the findings will encourage parents to implement less severe measures when interacting with their children

By Shivali Best For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

Being angry, hitting, shaking or yelling at your child repeatedly can affect your brain structures in adolescence, a new study warned.

The researchers found that children raised with ‘severe parents’ developed smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala – two brain structures that play a key role in emotional regulation and the emergence of anxiety and depression.

It is worrying that these severe parenting practices are common and generally considered socially acceptable worldwide, according to the team.

The researchers hope the findings will encourage parents to implement less severe measures when interacting with their children.

Being angry, hitting, shaking or yelling at your child repeatedly can affect your brain structures in adolescence, warned a new study (stock image)

Being angry, hitting, shaking or yelling at your child repeatedly can affect your brain structures in adolescence, warned a new study (stock image)

What areas of the brain are affected?

The team used data from children who have been monitored at CHU Saint-Justine hospital since they were born there in the early 2000s.

Parental practices, the child’s anxiety levels and brain scans were assessed annually while the children were between two and nine years old.

Worryingly, the results revealed that children subject to higher levels of severe education developed smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala – two brain structures known to play a key role in emotional regulation and in the emergence of anxiety and depression.

In the study, researchers at the University of Montreal and Stanford University aimed to analyze the effects of parental severity on children’s brains.

Dr Sabrina Suffren, who led the study, said: ‘The implications go beyond changes in the brain.

“I think the important thing is that parents and society understand that the frequent use of severe parenting practices can impair the child’s development.

‘We are talking about your social and emotional development, as well as your brain development.’

The team used data from children who have been monitored at CHU Saint-Justine hospital since they were born there in the early 2000s.

Parental practices, the child’s anxiety levels and brain scans were assessed annually, while the children were between two and nine years old.

Worryingly, the results revealed that children subject to higher levels of severe education developed smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala – two brain structures known to play a key role in emotional regulation and the emergence of anxiety and depression.

Dr. Suffren explained: ‘These findings are significant and new.

Worryingly, the results revealed that children who were subject to higher levels of severe paternity developed smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala - two brain structures known to play a key role in emotional regulation and the emergence of anxiety and depression

Worryingly, the results revealed that children who were subject to higher levels of severe paternity developed smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala – two brain structures known to play a key role in emotional regulation and the emergence of anxiety and depression

“It is the first time that severe parenting practices that fall short of serious abuse have been associated with a decrease in the size of the brain structure, similar to what we see in victims of severe acts of abuse.”

The researchers hope their findings will encourage parents to implement less severe parenting strategies going forward.

In the UK, it is illegal for a parent or guardian to beat their child, except when it amounts to ‘reasonable punishment’.

The Child Legislation Council explained: ‘Whether a’ slap ‘amounts to a reasonable punishment will depend on the circumstances of each case, taking into account factors such as the child’s age and the nature of the slap.

‘There are strict guidelines that cover the use of reasonable punishment and it will not be possible to rely on the defense if you apply severe physical punishment to your child, which amounts to injury, actual bodily injury, serious bodily injury or child cruelty.

However, statistics released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggest that emotional abuse in families is still very prevalent in the United Kingdom.

ONS explained: ‘The Criminal Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated that 1 in 11 adults aged 18 to 74 years old suffered emotional abuse before the age of 16 (3.8 million people); this includes only perpetrators aged 16 and over.

‘The abuse was most commonly perpetrated by the child’s parents; about 5 out of 10 were abused by the mother, about 4 out of 10 were abused by the father. ‘

HELICOPTER KINDS: A FORM OF SUPER PROTECTIVE KINDS

Overprotective parents are sometimes called ‘helicopter parents’.

They gained this stereotype by being perceived as relentlessly hovering over their children, trying to micromanage their businesses.

The first use of the term is largely attributed to Dr. Haim Ginott’s 1969 book, Parents and Adolescents.

In it, the teenagers said their parents would hover over them like a helicopter.

The term became popular enough to become a dictionary entry in 2011.

Helicopter parents pay close attention to their children to try to protect them from failures, rejections and injuries.

They want ‘happy’ children and often believe that teachers should pay attention to their children in the same overprotective way.

This approach has been controversial, with some experts arguing that in order for children to become well-adjusted, they need to experience a full range of emotions.

Parents who want their children to be always happy are doing them a terrible service, from that point of view.

The ‘helicopter’ father runs to help, instead of allowing his son to try to deal with a challenging situation on his own.

Some experts say that this can lead to children who are unable to cope with minor problems, as they never have the opportunity to fail and learn from their mistakes.

However, some experts suggest that this ‘insistent’ parenting may benefit children later.

Among them is Dr. Matthias Doepke, professor of economics at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University.

He argues that the intensity of fatherhood has increased in many countries in line with the increase in inequality.

Insistent parents of ‘helicopters’, usually from more economically favored backgrounds, usually creating high-performing offspring.

.Source