A parent's thoughtless words or actions can amount to emotional abuse

of a child, causing anguish and leaving a permanent scar.

WHEN I feel smug about my children not having had the horror of sexual

abuse when they were young my conscience always gives me a twinge.

I remember picking up my youngest at nursery school, rushing in late,

as usual, because my surgery had run over time, as usual, and saying:

''I'm so sorry that I am late, darling.''

He replied: ''Not late, mummy. Early again.'' I realised he had the

words mixed because each day I had promised him ''I'll be early'', and

because patients always take longer than their allotted time I was

always late.

I sat down then and explained my error to him and he was remarkably

unworried. But I have always felt guilty about it. I hate being left to

wait for someone who has promised to come at a certain time and doesn't.

I had put my patients before my child, expected him to accept my job's

problems, and he was only four.

It got me thinking about all the small abuses that we expose our

children to and expect them to put up with.

''What a horrible child you are,'' we say. ''Don't ever do that

again.''

The child only remembers that his mother thinks him horrible. The

thought upsets him.

In fact we mean ''What a dreadful thing for my lovely son to do'' and

that is what we ought to say.

A father brought his small son in to surgery the other day. The little

one had tonsillitis and a raised temperature.

''Home and bed,'' I said.

''Not today,'' said his dad. ''He'll have to go back to the nursery

because his mother is working and so am I, and his grannie is on

holiday.''

I thought about the days in bed I had spent as a child with my mother

bringing me books and chat and comfort until I was well, and I just

said: ''It won't do. You can't treat him like that.''

In the end he stayed half the day with the boy, his wife came back for

the other half and next day grannie was back. No-one lost their jobs

because of it and the wee boy was comfortable.

Our children are so dear to our hearts yet we treat them with amazing

cruelty.

I have seen children buckled into cold cars and overheated cars while

their parents shop. I have seen them whining at their mother's heels and

getting the sharp edge of her tongue for doing it.

I have heard mothers telling others of their children's uselessness.

''Johnny has two left feet, he couldn't play football if he tried.''

''Kirsty never gets anything right.''

The children believe it. They may never realise that there are things

they can do well.

It is so easy to put children down and that is a form of abuse, not so

serious as sexual abuse, but just as long lasting in the bad effect it

has on the growing child.

Children left howling in their prams outside shops may be afraid their

mothers will never come back. The fear remains with them for life.

It all comes down to treating children as we would like to be treated.

Just because they are smaller doesn't mean that they feel things less.