What if Grown Children Are Verbally Abusive to Their Parents?

About Abuse

• Verbal abuse includes tactics such as yelling, arguing, sarcasm or criticism, name calling, swearing or belittling. It might include or overlap with emotional abuse in which the child threatens to harm the parent, pets or someone else, threatens to commit suicide to get what he wants or tries to control the entire household. According to 2011 findings by Lifespan of Greater Rochester, Inc., Weill Cornell Medical Center of Cornell University and the New York City Department for the Aging, the elderly self-reported major financial abuse exploitation at a rate of 41 per 1,000 surveyed, which was higher than self-reported rates of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse or neglect.

Signs of Abuse

• A parent who is being abused by an adult child is likely to display signs of abuse. These might include withdrawal from normal activities, depression, and strained, tense relationships between the child or caregiver and parent. Some older parents might even exhibit behavior that mimics dementia such as sucking their thumbs or mumbling to themselves. However, according to HelpGuide.org, a mental health resource website, parents who are being abused tend not to want to make a police report of the abuse -- perhaps because the parent blames herself, is afraid the abuse will escalate, or does not want her child to go to jail.

Causes of Abuse

• Parents are more likely to be abused if they are ill or demented, notes to HelpGuide.org. Parents who abused their children when they were growing up, or who lived in a situation where there was domestic violence, are also at increased risk as the abused child might become the abuser as an adult. Parents who tend to be physically or verbally aggressive are also more likely to become victims of abuse by their children. Social isolation -- a situation in which the parent and child spend most of their time alone together -- also tends to influence the potential for abuse.

Legal Issues

• Most states have laws that address elder abuse, according to the NCEA, although the actual law and penalties vary from one state to another. The law may not apply to a middle-aged adult who is being verbally abused by an adult child, however. Verbal abuse is often hard to prove unless there is a witness -- and victims are often afraid to discuss the abuse with anyone else, even other relatives and friends. Although confronting the issue can be difficult, no one deserves to be abused.