Four Subtle Signs of Childhood Emotional Neglect

In this video, Dr. Jonice Webb continues her series on Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) by breaking down four (4) subtle things you may have missed growing up in an emotionally neglectful home: not being asked enough questions about your feelings, limited emotion vocabulary, avoidance of emotional expression, and not having your character reflected to you by a parent. You'll learn how each gap shows up in adulthood, and simple practices you can start using now to build these skills for yourself.

Transcript

Hello, Dr. Denise Webb here, Clinical psychologist. Welcome to my video series on emotional neglect. Today I'm going to talk about the four subtle things that you may have missed growing up in an emotionally neglectful family. And believe me, They are very important things. In a minute, I'm going to tell you how you can give these things to yourself now. But first, I want to talk for just a minute about what makes childhood emotional neglect so subtle and so difficult to remember. For people who even who grew up with a lot of it, It can be really difficult to remember that you grew up this way. And the reason is because. It happens in the background. It happens by what your parents fail to do for you. Rather than what your parents do to you. Your parents could treat you well and be trying their very best and love you and still fail to respond to your emotional needs enough. And that is the definition of childhood emotional neglect. And it is the reason because it dwells in what doesn't happen for you versus dwelling in what does happen to you. We remember things that happen to us. We tend not to remember things that don't happen for us. So there are some major things that fail to happen for you as you are growing up in an emotionally neglectful family. And the first one is emotionally neglected children are not asked very many questions. For example, Questions like, How are you feeling right now? What are you feeling right now? You look sad. Why are you sad? You look hurt. Did what I just said hurt your feelings? You seem angry. Are you angry? So these are questions that are actually directly about emotions, But questions of all kinds. If a child is not asked enough questions about even Aside from their emotions, What they think, What they want. What they need. Questions that direct their attention inward and also give them the message that their feelings, Their thoughts, Their needs matter. Someone, An adult in their life, Is interested in what they want, What they feel, What they need. And this is not a material thing. I know lots of families. Who don't have much in the way of material things to give their kids. But who give them this rich, Rich, Important resource that prepares them for life. And it is an important key. Too. Raising a child that feels connected with their inner self. So when you don't get asked enough questions, It's really hard to know. As an adult, What you want, Feel, And need. You've learned to focus outward as opposed to inward, And you haven't been given those tools that help you identify what you really, Who you are inside yourself. The second thing that emotionally neglected kids miss out on is the use of emotion words in their childhood home. We all learn language starting at about age one or even before. Just by hearing people around us talk and by people speaking to us. And we learn words and our vocabulary just grows and grows. As we grow up because we're learning, Taking in all these words. If your family is emotionally neglectful, They're probably not using very many emotion words, If any. But a lot of emotionally neglectful families will use one or two emotion words. And just apply them to all emotions like it might be stress or it might be. Mad. But if there's very little subtle variations of emotion words, Like, For example, Using words like sparkling, Or liberated, Or defensive, Or despairing, Or depleted, As opposed to just saying, I'm tired, Or I'm stressed. Or I'm mad. Emotion words are very important for children to learn so that they will be able to later on, All through their entire lives, Be able to put words to what they are feeling. And so when your emotion vocabulary is very limited, It severely limits your ability to emotionally communicate with other people and even with yourself. As you grow into adulthood and beyond. The third thing missing. In an emotionally neglectful family is emotional expression, Which is a little bit different than emotion words. Emotional expression is the freedom and the comfort. Of talking about things that actually involve feelings. So it could be things like. . . Um painful or uncomfortable, Conflictual sorts of topics. So, For example, If there's a death in the family, I know emotionally neglectful families who have skirted talking about a very, Very important loss. And the kids just. . . Think, Okay, We're not supposed to talk about this. And this is what they learn. And this is a very harmful message because talking about things is the main way we connect with people. And also the main way we work through our emotions is by talking about them. So families that avoid talking about major events that are emotional. Families that avoid talking about problems. Especially if they are serious problems. In a lot of families, The more serious the issue, The less likely they are to talk about it. What does this teach you as a child? Don't talk about emotional things. Don't talk about conflict. And that leaves you feeling very alone and isolated inside as you grow into adulthood, And you miss learning all those skills about how to talk about those things, Which is another thing. The next thing that you don't get growing up in an emotionally neglectful family is yourself. The ability to see yourself reflected in your parents' eyes. This is how children learn about themselves. What's their true nature? You know, How do I know if I'm a child, Anything about myself? You look at your parents, You see yourself in their eyes, They give you feedback, You know, You're really good at math, We need to work on your spelling would be a really basic one. But things like, You know, You're so kind hearted, But boy, You have a quick temper. Do you remember your parents saying anything like that to you? Or, You know, You really are loyal to your friends. I see that in you and it's a wonderful quality. Like those kinds of things, Both strengths and weaknesses, Your character, Your personality, All of those things, Really need to be reflected back to a child so that they get a sense of who they truly are. And if you didn't receive that, You may have trouble figuring out who you are as an adult. And now I want to talk about how you can give these things to yourself now. You absolutely can. It is very possible. I've seen many people do it. And one of the main ways to work on this is to ask yourself what you want on a daily basis. Really just tune into yourself and ask yourself, What do I want? Or what do I need? Or what do I feel? Even, What do I think? Really, This requires you to tune into yourself. And touch base with yourself. Very importantly, Observe yourself. On an emotional level. And when you do this, You get. . . Sense of who you are and it's sort of a data collection process. So you're just collecting information and putting it all together and somehow inside when you pay more attention to all of these questions, You start to feel seeable and knowable. And like a real person, So you feel more valid in the world. And because you know yourself better, You can make better choices for yourself. So I invite you to please. Leave. Your comments below this video about whether you feel like childhood emotional neglect happened to you and which of these items you feel like you may have missed out on in your childhood and how it's affecting you now. I would like to hear any of that from you. In my next video, I'm going to show you how emotional neglect can make it quite difficult to to recognize your emotions and even know when you're having a feeling. This is a prime emotion skill, And we're going to talk about it in the next video. So I'll look forward to seeing you then.

Reviews

I got messages such as “how could you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?” I tried not to pass these messages on my daughters, but I don’t think I’ve been as clear or as consistent with some of my messages as I should’ve been. I’ve always made a point of telling them how proud I am of them. I’m pointing out what they’re good at mostly because I didn’t want to be the kind of parents I had. My parents were very “emotionally absent“ they are both youngest children, and both used to being spoiled and petted, which was not a good combination.

Very interesting! I think I got none of these but my parents were both very traumatized war children themselves. I don't know if they even could ne their own feelings. And in this context it is quite astonishing how well they did in raising 4 children with very limited means. They showed their love for us in various ways but verbally, not so much. Maybe it is alao cultural: In Germany it is much less common than I experienced this in the US to shower children with I love you and such. Not in our generation at least. This has changed though.
I.still grew up to be aware of my feelings and to be able to express them. I think books. Song lyrics and poetry may have been helpful and also a very tight circle of friends.

I am almost 62 years old. I have known inherently for some years, not a long time, that I didn’t get what I needed emotionally when I was growing up, not because my parents didn’t love me, but because they didn’t have the capacity to give me this emotional support. So I have been dealing with the consequences of this for all my life, not knowing why I did the things I did or said the things I said or made the decisions I made. This was so insightful to me, and I am looking forward to your next video. Thank you.

What do I want?
What do I need?
What do I think?
What do I feel?

Great way to discover your own emotions and feelings.

Thank you so much for providing me a healthy and helpful framework to view and make sense of my experiences. 🙏🙏

I learned early how to make a room feel less treacherous by disappearing from it. How to read the weather in a face and the feel of the surrounding air, and how to swallow the question before it reached my lips.
No one had to tell me I was not enough or too much.
Cruelty and silence taught me.
So I became fluent in the language of the careful child, the easy child,
the one who needed nothing
because needing was a language no one answered.
And yet, I survived. Not untouched, but blessed to be carrying a small, stubborn ember of hope through all those years of cold, teaching me that being unseen was not the same as being unworthy and that the deep laughter, playfulness, and occasional tears I now enjoy in my small circle of intimate friends is the sound of my heart finally learning that it is allowed to take up space.