💖 Knowledge, Security, and Human Rights

Below, I have shared empowering knowledge to help you better understand what truly happens in destructive environments, relationships, and family systems.

If anything in the text evokes strong emotions in you, take breaks, breathe, and remember:

You don't have to carry all this alone.

In case of immediate danger, always call 112.

🚩 Abuse or Not, According to AA and ACA?

The difference between use and abuse is not primarily about the quantity consumed, but whether the use causes problems.

This can manifest in relationships, family, finances, health, or emotional connection between people.

It may involve someone disregarding the healthy needs of others or their own needs, starting to hide things, lie, or convince themselves and others that the problem doesn't exist, or that it is exaggerated.

Use becomes abuse when it starts to cause harm, risks, or negative consequences for the person themselves or others.

A clear red flag is when one loses the ability to maintain healthy control over the use.

❤️‍🩹 Passive Abuse and Passive Violence

Passive abuse, or passive violence, is a form of unconsciously destructive behavior often found in dysfunctional families.

It can also be described as emotional neglect.

It's not always about someone consciously wanting to cause harm. Often, it's about a parent, partner, or close relative being so consumed by their own problems that they don't see, understand, or manage to meet the basic needs of others.

This can include needs for:

♡ intimacy

♡ trust

♡ honesty

♡ care

♡ love

♡ stimulation

♡ emotional stability

♡ support in emotional regulation

Many adults themselves did not have these needs met as children, and therefore do not know how to build a healthy and secure relationship.

In some cases, the person is so trapped in their own problems that they lack healthy control over important aspects of life, such as behavior, finances, health, work, or relationships.

Addiction, mental illness, physical illness, stress, trauma, or neuropsychiatric disabilities can play a role and affect impulse control, empathy, and the ability to understand consequences.

But the healthy response in all these cases is to acknowledge the need for help.

As a parent or partner, one needs to dare to accept, or offer, professional support, so that a more secure and stable foundation can be built.

Common to both psychological and physical violence is that it creates emotional distance between parent and child, or between partners, breaking the close, intimate, and trusting connection that should ideally exist.

🤝 The Importance of Turning to the Right Help

I want to emphasize the importance of seeking the right and good help.

Simply put, it means seeking support where you actually notice you are making progress. Where your inner development is strengthened, where you receive a warm welcome, and where you feel lighter and stronger afterward.

I taught my children early on that it's not just about going to a teacher, but about going to the right teacher.

A teacher who truly knows how to handle difficult situations in a healthy way.

When we seek help from someone who lacks real understanding, or is themselves stuck in unhealthy patterns, their advice can be colored by their own fears, blockages, and limitations.

Then we can continue to struggle, without real change.

But when you turn to healthy and secure help, especially from someone who has already understood or managed to get through what you are facing, the advice can become a real way forward.

They can help you create change in a healthy, empowering, and sustainable way.

⚖️ Violence, Harassment, and Illegal Acts

Kollpalagen.se has a good page with simplified explanations of various laws.

Violence and harassment are prohibited by law and can manifest in several different ways.

🛑 Oppression

Oppression can involve using a position of power to suppress someone with less power.

This could be a parent, employer, religious leader, partner, or another person in a superior position.

Social oppression can mean that someone is forced to stifle their opinions, thoughts, or feelings, is ridiculed by others, or feels compelled to be someone they are not to remain or fit in.

🛑 Defamation

Defamation involves spreading information or claims about someone with the aim of making others dislike, distance themselves from, or look down on the person.

It doesn't always matter if what is said is true or not. The central point is the intent to damage someone's reputation and create disdain.

However, safely sharing one's own experience with a close person, with the aim of getting support and comfort, is something else.

In that case, the intention is not to blacken another person's name, but to seek understanding for something difficult one has experienced.

One can feel that someone has behaved badly without wanting others to see the entire person as bad.

That is an important distinction.

🛑 Insult

Insult means that someone uses derogatory, offensive words, accusations, or behaviors to hurt, ridicule, or upset someone.

This can involve mocking, teasing, backbiting, or words used to put someone down.

It's not just the words themselves that hurt, but the intention behind them, to control, harm, or diminish someone.

🛑 Helplessness/Unlawful Restraint

It is forbidden to put someone in a state where the person cannot move freely.

This can, for example, involve holding someone down, binding, locking up, or in any other way restricting someone's freedom of movement against their will.

Such actions violate the fundamental right to freedom and security.

🛑 Unlawful Coercion

Unlawful coercion means that someone forces another person to do something, refrain from something, or endure something against their will.

This can occur through threats, violence, or other intimidating acts.

Unlawful coercion is about taking control over another person's choices through fear or threats.

And it is illegal.

🛑 Bad Language and Verbal Abuse

Bad language can be verbal abuse when used to put someone down, ridicule, provoke, or emotionally harm them.

This can involve words like whore, fat, stupid, lazy, dumb, disgusting, or similar.

When the purpose is to disturb a person's inner peace, take away their joy, make them uncomfortable, or make them feel worthless, it is psychological abuse.

🛑 Destroying Property or Harming Animals

Destroying someone else's property or harming animals is criminal and can be classified as vandalism.

It can also be used for intimidation and control.

Throwing objects, breaking things in the home, kicking down doors, or harming animals in front of a child or an adult can create strong insecurity.

Even if the threat is not explicitly stated, the body can perceive it as a threat.

🛑 Physical Abuse

Physical abuse is when someone causes another person bodily injury, pain, illness, or renders them helpless.

This can involve hitting, kicking, pulling hair, burning, shaking, pushing, biting, tugging, locking someone in, or exposing someone to cold, heat, poisoning, suffocation, or similar acts.

Physical abuse can result in visible injuries such as bruises, wounds, broken bones, or brain injuries.

But it can also leave invisible scars.

It can create mental health issues, trauma, difficulties in feeling secure, forming relationships, feeling sexually safe, or understanding one's own worth.

Self-image can be deeply and long-lastingly damaged.

🛑 Psychological Abuse

Psychological abuse occurs when someone makes another person feel worthless, unwanted, wrong, afraid, or alone.

This can happen through rejection, ostracism, silent treatment, criticism, threats, mockery, derogatory nicknames, accusations, blaming, or repeated belittling.

Examples might include calling a child stupid, ugly, or disgusting, threatening to leave the child, locking them in, preventing them from meeting friends, ignoring them when they speak, or telling the child they are lying when they recount their experience.

Psychological abuse damages self-esteem, security, attachment, and sense of worth.

It affects relationships, decisions, emotions, and quality of life.

🛑 Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of psychological violence.

It means that someone tries to make you doubt yourself, your memories, and your perception of reality.

This can happen through denial, excuses, distortion, or by others being told lies about you, so that you are left alone with your experience.

Examples:

“That never happened.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“You're too sensitive.”

“You're making it up.”

“You remember wrong.”

Gaslighting is a serious form of psychological manipulation and can make you lose your grip on what is true, who you are, and your right to feel and react.

🛑 When Children Witness Violence

If a child sees or hears violence at home, even if the violence is not directed directly at the child, the child is deeply affected.

A child who witnesses violence or abuse between adults is a victim of crime.

Violence in the immediate environment can affect a child's brain, self-esteem, and sense of security.

It can create stress, anxiety, sleep difficulties, introversion, or aggression.

The child may have difficulty trusting adults, expressing emotions, and understanding what is normal in close relationships.

🛑 Psychological Abuse and Consequences

Psychological abuse disrupts a child's emotional and intellectual development.

Brain functions are negatively affected, self-esteem is damaged, and social skills can be impacted.

The child may have difficulty forming secure and close relationships later in life.

This can lead to a distorted self-image, where the child struggles to understand their own worth, set healthy boundaries, and make wise decisions without being driven by fear.

The fundamental sense of security in the body, the feeling of being worthy of love and having the right to exist, becomes difficult to find.

But it can be repaired.

With security, presence, and support from adults who see, protect, and properly guide the child, healing can begin to occur.

🛑 The Child's Indirect Exposure

Children are strongly affected even if they don't witness the violence themselves.

Just the knowledge that something is wrong, that a parent is suffering or being mistreated, affects the child's inner world.

If a parent stays in a violent or abusive environment for the children's sake, hoping that the children will avoid direct exposure, the children are still affected.

They may learn that it is okay to treat a parent badly.

They may normalize a harmful pattern and risk ending up in destructive relationships themselves later in life.

Even if the children don't know exactly what is happening, they are affected by the psychological strain the parent is experiencing.

When a parent's mental health deteriorates, the children can lose their most important security, a present, warm, and healthy adult.

Setting boundaries and leaving a destructive or violent environment is not just a brave choice.

It is a right and an act of love towards the children.

📜 Chapter 6, Section 1 of the Parental Code

Children have the right to care, security, and a good upbringing. Children shall be treated with respect for their person and individuality and shall not be subjected to corporal punishment or other degrading treatment.

Law 1983:47

💔 Sexual Abuse of Children

Sexual abuse is one of the most serious and deeply traumatizing abuses a child can be subjected to.

It is a violation that harms the child on many levels: physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and often even religiously.

The security the child should have felt regarding intimacy, bodily integrity, and trust in adults is disturbed.

Instead, deep wounds can be created in the body and the child's inner world.

Many children develop post-traumatic stress, dissociation, anxiety, depression, or self-harming behavior as a way to survive the unbearable.

The body can carry memories that the child has no words for.

Shame, guilt, and fear often silence the child's voice.

🚫 Sexual Acts Against Children According to Swedish Law

Sexual acts forced upon a child, or an adult, by another person constitute a serious violation of personal integrity.

According to Swedish law, sexual acts with children under 15 are prohibited, regardless of whether the child appears to consent or not.

A child can never consent to sexual acts with an adult.

The responsibility always lies with the adult.

Examples of sexual acts against children can include:

♡ verbal sexual allusions

♡ exposing oneself to the child

♡ showing pornographic material

♡ watching pornography with the child

♡ sexually suggestive caresses

♡ completed intercourse

All these actions are criminal, regardless of whether the child becomes silent, confused, or does not object.

Sexual harassment means that someone does or says something sexually offensive to you against your will.

This can include, for example:

♡ sending images with sexual content

♡ making unwanted sexual suggestions

♡ groping, caressing, or touching you sexually when you have said no

♡ violating your bodily or sexual integrity in any other way

📜 Legal basis: Chapter 6 of the Criminal Code.

This chapter regulates sexual offenses, including sexual abuse of children, rape of children, and sexual harassment.

It doesn't matter if the perpetrator is an outsider, a close relative, family member, or parent.

The abuse is equally serious regardless.

💔 When Abuse or Maltreatment Occurs at Home

When the abuser is a parent or someone close to the child, the trauma is intensified.

The child's perception of security, trust, and protection becomes distorted.

An inner chaos is created where the person the child might love is also the one causing harm.

If the other parent does not act to protect the child, or turns a blind eye, it constitutes a double betrayal.

The child is left alone in a situation no human being should have to bear.

Therefore, it is crucial that the protective parent acts, out of both love and responsibility.

🫂 How Should a Protective Parent Act?

If you as a parent suspect that your child is being or has been sexually abused, it is your duty to act.

The child's protection must come first.

This means you should:

♡ report the suspicions to the Social Services and, if necessary, the Police

♡ break contact between the child and the suspected perpetrator

♡ seek support from professionals, preferably specialists in child trauma and legal processes

♡ never question the child's experience or force narratives

📜 According to Chapter 14, Section 1 of the Social Services Act, adults have a duty to report concerns about children to the social services.

On Healing, Dissociation, and Silence

Children who have been sexually abused often carry a deep and silent pain.

Many dare not speak, out of fear, loyalty, guilt, or because they lack the words.

It is common for children to dissociate, meaning they disconnect themselves from their body and the present moment, to survive within the unbearable.

Bessel van der Kolk describes in The Body Keeps the Score how traumatized children need safety in their body and environment before they can begin to process anything.

Children need adults who do not threaten, pressure, or demand words, but instead signal safety.

They need to be allowed to play, move, and express themselves freely, as the body carries memories.

Judith Herman describes in Trauma and Recovery that the child should not be pressured to understand, forgive, or tell.

The child needs:

♡ to be believed

♡ to feel control

♡ to be protected

♡ not to be held responsible

Recovery is about re-establishing safety, power, and self-image.

🚫 You must never hit a child

📜 Chapter 6, Section 1 of the Parental Code states that children have the right to care, security, and a good upbringing.

Children shall be treated with respect for their person and individuality and shall never be subjected to corporal punishment or other degrading treatment.

Hitting a child is a violation of the law.

It harms the child's self-esteem, security, and health, both psychologically and physically.

There are no excuses, no explanations, and no exceptions.

Children have the right to feel safe, loved, and protected.

To raise a child with love, boundaries, and presence is a duty.

Never through fear, violence, or abuse of power.

❤️‍🩹 Psychological Abuse is Serious

Psychological abuse can be at least as serious as physical abuse.

The injuries may not be visible on the outside, but they leave deep internal scars.

Psychological abuse breaks down self-esteem, security, and the child's sense of worth.

It is serious and must not be minimized or excused.

⚖️ Children's Rights in School

All children have the right to a school free from bullying, violence, and harassment.

School should be a safe environment where children are given the opportunity to develop, both emotionally and intellectually, without fear.

If a child is suffering in school, a report can be made to the School Inspectorate.

The school has a duty to work preventively, provide support, and report back to guardians.

Even breaks are part of a child's right. They are rest periods for the brain, so that the child can cope with the rest of the school day.

Even if the child has a secure home environment, bullying or physical violence at school can leave deep internal scars.

Therefore, it is crucial that both parents and school staff fully advocate for the child.

Children need to know their worth, and that what is happening is not their fault.

If the school fails, it is important to clearly communicate that what the child is being subjected to is wrong.

Even if not everything can be stopped immediately, clear adults make a big difference.

The child then receives a healthy and empowering internal image that it is the situation and the environment that are wrong, not the child itself.

When you as a parent stand up for the child, confirm the child's feelings, and articulate what is unjust, you build self-esteem, courage, and self-respect.

You show the child that it is not okay to be treated badly.

This can bear fruit throughout life.

⚖️ Right Support in School When Grades Are Not Enough

If a child does not achieve a passing grade in one or more subjects, the school has a legal obligation to investigate the child's need for special support.

This investigation should be conducted as soon as difficulties are noticed.

The school should not wait until development talks or the end of the term.

If the school does not conduct such an investigation, despite the child clearly not meeting the goals, you as a guardian can turn to the School Inspectorate.

It is advisable to attach documentation, such as saved tests, evaluations, or results.

The School Inspectorate can then request that the school carry out a pedagogical investigation.

Such an investigation can lead to the establishment of an action program.

If the child still isn't getting the support they need, or if the school refuses to draw up an action plan after an investigation, you have the right to appeal the school's decision to the National Agency for Education's Appeals Board.

For parents of children with neuropsychiatric conditions, such as ADHD, autism, or similar, the organization Right to Education: A school for ALL can be an important source of support.

They offer knowledge, guidance, and opportunities to share experiences regarding rights in school.

📞 You can also call BRIS adult helpline: 077–150 50 50 for advice and support concerning children and young people's well-being.

They are there for you as an adult and can guide you to the right authority.

💛 The best thing we can do for our children is to accept the help that is available.

There are organizations and people who dedicate their lives to making the world a better place for children.

It is a gift and a resource for all of us.

Jenny Jahn
💫 Medium, healer & Oneness in Örebro and Sweden