Maybe. Frankly, I think signs of physical and financial abuse are often missed as well until they become impossible to ignore.

There are indicator signs of emotional abuse

*Lack of confidence and self-esteem
"Difficulties controlling emotions
*Extreme behaviour, like becoming overly demanding, aggressive, having outbursts, or becoming passive
*Difficulties making and maintaining relationships
*Behaviour that is inappropriately infantile or adult-like
*Persistent running away from home or being missing from school
*Anxiety, unhappiness or withdrawal
*Having few or no friends
Seeming to be isolated from parents/family
*Lack social skills
*Self-harm or attempts at suicide
*Babies or toddlers might not have a close relationship or bond with their parent(s)
*Babies or toddles might be overly affectionate with strangers

Those are not hard to notice if you spend enough time around an emotionally abused kid. Many of them are things that, low grade, many kids to through as a part of growing up.

So is the problem truly that emotional abuse is hard to spot or is it that there's not an effective grading system and that not enough time is being spent with troubled kids to determine if emotional abuse is present?

I suspect it's the latter. That's not the fault of the social workers, it's a systemic failure of priorities made by the government.

I could always tell amongst Urchling's friends because they never wantes to go home. It's like our house was a magical land to them. Some of them wanted to spend more time with me than they did Urchling. There was a desperation to them.

And then you'd meet the parents and they'd say things. They were acting. The kids' eyes would go down. Desperarion would turn to resignation.

No offense. It wasn't hard to spot.

There's just less of a standard for removal than physical abuse or neglect. And for a reason. Where are you going to put all these kids? Who's going to take care of them? Lot of times, removal is equally as catastrophic and is emotionally abusive as well. So you're going to save them from emotional abuse by emotionally abusing them via forced separation?

Don't get me wrong. I completely agree that this one is a tougher nut to crack; I just disagree that it's because it's harder to spot.

Is it harder to assess to make a best decision for how to handle ? Yes.

Is it harder to get grips on due to lack of time to make an evaluation? Yes.

Is it harder to treat systemically? Yes.

Is it harder to spot? Not really.