When home becomes the most dangerous place

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When home becomes the most dangerous place

Dr Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Anh, Program Manager of Psychology at RMIT Vietnam, shares insights into the psychological impacts of child abuse and potential solutions to strengthen child protection in Vietnam.

Lasting scars of child abuse

Children's brains are under rapid, active construction, especially the brain area responsible for behavioral control and emotional regulation. In this period, the caregiving environment shapes that construction profoundly.

When a child experiences repeated abuse or neglect, the body responds the same way as it would do to any severe threat: it becomes flooded with stress hormones. A mechanism of “fight, flight, or freeze” will be activated to protect the body from danger. If the threat is constant (when the person causing fear is also the parent who is the only source of food and comfort), the stress becomes toxic stress, and the brain adapts to survive a world that feels permanently dangerous.

The consequences reshape the brain. The area governing fight-or-flight overdevelops, while the regions responsible for emotional regulation, cognitive thinking and judgement are stunted. The cognitive centre becomes less prepared for academic success, and the area governing risks and consequences is poorly developed.

Research published by the American Academy of Pediatrics confirms that significant cognitive delays and educational failure are seen for both abuse and neglect during childhood and adulthood. Physical abuse is associated with externalising behaviour problems and delinquency. Emotional abuse is connected to psychosis and serious mental health disorders. Neglect is linked to impaired emotional processing that persists into middle age. Child maltreatment, particularly emotional abuse and neglect, is associated with a wide range of long-term adverse health and developmental outcomes.

Repeated abuse and neglect can have lasting impacts on a child’s emotional wellbeing and cognitive development. (Image: Pexels)

For the youngest victims, the damage is especially severe. Children neglected over the first four years of life show a progressive decline in cognitive functioning, associated with measurably reduced head circumference.

Perhaps the most damaging consequence of all is what abuse does to a child's capacity to develop trust and emotional connection. Child maltreatment has been found to disrupt the normal process of emotional development. Children who should be learning that the world is safe, that adults can be relied upon, that they themselves are worthy of love, learn the opposite instead.

When absorbed in the earliest years, this experience can persist for a lifetime if left unaddressed. Yet this is not a counsel of hopelessness: with timely support, recovery is possible. That is precisely why early intervention is not optional; it is urgent.

Building stronger protection

According to the former Vietnam's Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, more than 2,000 cases of serious child abuse and maltreatment are reported each year, mostly by someone known and trusted by the victims, and in the two years prior to 2022, 120 children had died from physical abuse. Several systems are urgently needed.

A trusted, accessible reporting system. The child protection helpline (111) exists, but the awareness of it and people’s confidence in its responsiveness are uneven. Every year, the helpline receives around 300,000 calls, a figure that signals both demand and the need for genuine capacity to respond meaningfully to every alert.

Mandatory reporting frameworks. Countries with strong child protection records require certain professionals, including teachers, healthcare workers, social workers, and police, to report suspected abuse. Vietnam's framework for mandating and supporting such reporting could be substantially strengthened, with clear protocols and legal protection for reporters.

Community-based social work. Families in crisis need someone to reach out to before the situation becomes acute. Trained and locally-based community social workers, who can identify vulnerable families and connect them with support, represent one of the most evidence-backed investments a society can make in child safety.

Accessible mental health and parenting support. Many parents who go on to abuse their children are struggling with burden, burnout in life, untreated trauma, depression, or have simply never encountered non-violent parenting models. Therefore, when they do not know what to do with their anger or stress, they transfer it to the child violently. Widely available, non-stigmatising mental health services and parenting education, particularly for young parents in high-stress circumstances, are essential preventive tools.

Quality alternative care. For children who cannot safely remain with their families, there must be well-funded, well-supervised foster care and residential options that prioritise wellbeing over administrative convenience.

Child rights education from the earliest years. Children need to learn, in age-appropriate ways, that their bodies belong to them, that certain adult behaviours are wrong, and that there are safe adults they can talk to. Schools and community groups have a powerful role to play here.

Learning from global approaches

Decades of research across many nations have revealed what works and what does not.

The Nordic model: prevention as the foundation. Countries like Norway, Sweden and Finland have built child welfare systems rooted in early support rather than reactive investigation. Norway's systemic approach stresses prevention, early intervention and support. Approximately 80 percent of children in its child welfare system receive some form of supportive services rather than simply being subjected to investigation or removal. The philosophy is that families in difficulty should be helped before harm occurs. This requires sustained investment in universal services, including health visiting, parenting programs, school-based support that reach families before crises develop.

Mandatory reporting paired with genuine support. The United Kingdom, Australia and Canada all have mandatory reporting laws, but the most effective systems combine reporting requirements with real support services for families identified as struggling, not just investigation and potential removal.

Inter-agency cooperation. Effective child protection requires health, education, social services, police and communities to share information and coordinate responsibility. Siloed responses miss children who fall between agencies. Vietnam could benefit from structured inter-agency protocols to ensure no child slips through gaps between departments.

Child protection is most effective when treated as a social responsibility rather than a private family matter. (Image: Pexels)

A consistent lesson across all effective systems, as cross-national research shows, is that child protection is most effective when treated as a social responsibility rather than a private family matter. A remarkable degree of consensus has emerged across countries: invest upstream, build community trust, train and resource frontline workers, and treat every child's safety as a shared obligation, not a residual concern.

Conclusion

Is it possible to have a society where neighbours feel both empowered and obligated to speak up, where struggling parents can reach for help without shame, where social workers have the training and resources to act, and where children grow up knowing that their safety matters, not as a private concern, but as a public commitment?

The answer is yes. That society is possible. It requires political will, sustained investment, and a cultural shift in how we understand the relationship between children, families, and community responsibility.

The children who have already been harmed cannot be protected retroactively. But there are children in difficult situations right now, in every city and province in Vietnam, who can be reached in time. That is the work that lies ahead.

Story: Dr Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Anh, Program Manager, Psychology, School of Science, Engineering & Technology, RMIT University Vietnam

If you are concerned about a child's safety, call Vietnam's child protection helpline: 111 (Free · Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week)

In the next article, RMIT academics will explore how social media can help improve awareness, early intervention and prevention of child abuse in Vietnam.

Media Release

Science and technology

18 May 2026

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