For children, psychological abuse can be just as harmful to their physical, emotional, and mental health as physical abuse, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). And being able to recognize this form of child abuse is one of the hardest challenges.

Harriet MacMillan, MD, a psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences and pediatrics professor at McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and the Offord Centre for Child Studies, reported in the journal Pediatrics that psychological abuse can include exploiting, belittling, terrorizing or denigrating a child, being emotionally unresponsive, or corrupting to a point of risking a child's well being.

MacMillan, who holds the David R. (Dan) Offord Chair in Child Studies at McMaster, is one of three authors of the position statement, She said: "We are talking about extremes and the likelihood of harm, or risk of harm, resulting from the kinds of behavior that make a child feel worthless, unloved, or unwanted."

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Don't you mean "The Effects of Psychological Abuse On Children"? Or am I missing an intended pun here? These days I have the impression that people don't bother to check their spelling, and I see "principal" when the context calls for "principle," "affects" when "effects" was meant, and a whole bunch of similar sounding/looking words are used alternately as if the difference in meanings didn't matter. Is it my training as a professional writer that makes me notice these things or have people become sloppier in their writing with time?