Emotional abuse: It is the neglect or the maltreatment of the children. ‘neglect' is difficult to define exactly since it may involve a disregard of the physical, emotional, moral or social needs of the children . Physical neglect has been defined as “ failure to provide the essential for normal life, such as food, clothing, shelter, care and supervision, and protection from assault”. Emotional neglect includes both the lack of expressed love and affection and deliberate withholding of contact and approval. Moral neglect includes exposure to situations (alcoholism, obscenity, illicit sex relations) that present a pattern of moral conduct at variance with the norms of society. Society neglect includes failure to train or discipline a child (Kratcoski, 1979:120). Thus, emotional neglect or maltreatment may be described as negligent treatment of a child under the specific age prescribed by for the children by the given society (18 for girls and 16 for boys in India) by a person who is responsible for the child's upbringing, care and welfare is harmed or threatened thereby. This definition characterizes ‘omission' not ‘commission' as abuse. Emotional maltreatment of child includes blaming, belittling, rejecting, constantly treating siblings unequally, and persistent lack of concern by the parent/caretaker for the child's welfare. Emotional maltreatment is rarely manifested in physical signs. According to WHO, Emotional abuse is also known as verbal abuse, mental abuse, and psychological maltreatment. It includes acts or the failures to act by parents or caretakers that have caused or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental trauma. This can include parents/caretakers using extreme and/or bizarre forms of punishment, such as confinement in a closet or dark room or being tied to a chair for long periods of time or threatening or terrorizing a child. Less severe acts, but no less damaging, are belittling or rejecting treatment, using derogatory terms to describe the child, habitual tendency to blame the child or make him/her a scapegoat. The behavioural characteristics of emotional maltreatment are habit disorders (biting, thumb-sucking), conduct disorders (destructiveness, cruelty, stealing), neurotic traits (sleep disorders, inhibition of play), psycho-neurotic reaction (hysteria, phobias, obsession), behavior extremes (appearing overly complaint, extremely passive or aggressive, very demanding or undemanding), lag in emotional and intellectual development, and attempted suicide.

According to the national report on child abuse by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2007, every second child reported facing emotional abuse. Equal percentage of both girls and boys reported facing emotional abuse. In 83% of the cases parents were the abusers. 48.4% of girls wished they were boys.

Besides above mentioned three types of child abuse, we can also refer to social abuse of children, like kidnapping children and forcing them to beg in streets.