Originally Posted on: Psychology Today
By: Dr. Jonice Webb Ph. D.
KEY POINTS
- Emotional neglect from childhood teaches people to ignore, minimize, or even be ashamed of their feelings as adults.
- Current research establishes the importance of feelings when used effectively.
- People can overcome the effects of childhood emotional neglect. One strategy is to give themselves what their parents did not.
In the life of an adult, emotional neglect from childhood can feel like a cloud hanging over you, coloring your world gray.
But in a child’s life, when emotional neglect is actively happening, it can feel like an ordinary, everyday experience.
I know this because I have talked with scores of people who grew up in emotionally neglectful households. I have listened as they describe what they struggle with today, and I have also heard them describe their childhoods.
What Is Childhood Emotional Neglect?
What exactly is childhood emotional neglect? It happens when your parents do not respond enough to your feelings as they raise you. So, in this way, childhood emotional neglect is actually an absence of response. It’s not an action that your parents commit, it’s something your parents (often unknowingly) omit. Childhood emotional neglect does not happen to the child, like abuse or trauma. Instead, it’s something that fails to happen for the child, like emotional awareness, emotional validation, and emotional discussion.
So what does emotional neglect look like in the life of a child? I often describe it as the background in the family picture. It flies under the radar to the outside observer, the family, and probably the child. It might look like absolutely nothing. How can you possibly know that something is missing if you are a child?
How can you know that your parents are supposed to:
- Notice that you are feeling something.
- Make an effort to identify what you are feeling.
- Show interest and concern about your feelings.
- Talk with you about your feelings.
When parents take these steps with their children, they teach their children how to notice when they feel something and identify what that feeling is. They teach the child to be interested and concerned about their feelings and how to talk about those feelings. So they teach their child vital life skills that set the child up to live an emotionally aware, emotionally enriched, emotionally connected life.
But, sadly, the opposite is also true. If your parents don’t notice, name, show interest in, or talk with you about your feelings, you don’t get that emotional training course that every child needs. And, in addition, an even more harmful thing occurs.
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