Hi,
Dr.
Denise Webb here,
Clinical psychologist.
Welcome to my video on emotional neglect.
Today I'm going to talk about what if you were raised with emotional neglect from your parents.
I will give you 17 signs to look for in order to figure out if this could have happened to you and so you can see it in your own family.
In a moment,
I'm going to give you those 17 signs.
But first,
I want to start with how emotional neglect actually happens in a family.
So what does it take for a parent to emotionally neglect their child?
Well,
Surprisingly,
It takes literally nothing.
Emotional neglect in families tends to happen kind of organically.
It just passes down silently and invisibly from one generation to the next.
All it takes to become emotionally neglectful parents.
To grow up in a family that doesn't understand the importance of feelings and emotional support.
And then when you become a parent.
You really can't give your children what you didn't get from your own parents.
And what you've never received yourself.
So many people naturally assume that emotionally neglectful parents must be abusive or mean in some way,
And definitely some are.
But one of the most surprising things about emotional neglect is that the parents are often good and loving people.
Many are trying their best to raise their child well.
But they simply,
As I said,
Cannot give their children what they never received themselves,
Emotional awareness.
Emotional attunement and emotional validation.
So since the picture of emotionally neglectful parents can be so mixed and confusing,
It can be difficult to see the traits in your own parents.
For help,
I'm going to.
Divide the different kinds of emotionally neglectful parents,
Of which there are many,
Into three different categories,
Which I think will help you understand and think about yourself.
And I do encourage you to think about your own family as I describe them.
So type 1 is what I think is the biggest category and they are the well-meaning but neglected themselves parents.
I call them the WMBNT.
So there are a few different kinds of this type of parent.
Achievement perfection parents.
The parents who get so caught up in encouraging a child's talent or academics that they lose the emotion piece and just kind of skip over it or miss it.
The second type of well-meaning are many workaholic parents.
Workaholic parents could be working many jobs or working very hard in order to succeed,
In order to provide for their families and to set an example for their kids.
Which makes them well-meaning.
And permissive parents are parents who are more like a friend to their child instead of a parent and may fail to set the limits that the kid needs.
There are a variety of different ways that well-meaning parents can accidentally neutralize their children's emotions and can fail to set enough limits or deliver enough consequences.
They can work long hours.
You know,
By accident.
View material wealth as a form of parental love.
Instead of emotional health as a form of or emotional attention as a form of parental love.
So what makes these parents qualify for well-meaning status?
They think they're doing what's best for their children.
They're acting out of love.
And not out of selfishness or self-interest.
Most are simply raising their children the way they themselves were raised.
As an adult you'll probably remember that your well-meaning parents gave you And how much they gave you but you can't recall what they failed to give you that emotional piece So as an adult you end up blaming yourself for what's not right in your adult life and you feel guilt for the seemingly rational way,
Irrational way that you sometimes feel towards your well-meaning parents.
And you may also struggle with the lack of.
Skills,
Emotion skills.
Unless you've managed to teach them to yourself.
So the signs that you were raised by well-meaning but neglected themselves parents.
You might feel confused about your feelings and confused about your parents.
You may feel guilty for being angry at them.
You may not look forward to being with your parents.
Your parents may seem,
You might feel like they just don't know the real you as you are today.
And you may know that your parents love you,
But you may not necessarily be able to feel that.
Type 2 parents are struggling parents.
And some types of struggling parents are parents who are caring for a special needs family member.
Parents who are bereaved or divorced or widowed.
Parents who can't handle parenthood.
Themselves for whatever reason and end up putting one child in charge of the other children.
Which is never good.
Or depressed parents or parents who are struggling with some kind of emotional problems themselves.
So struggling parents emotionally neglect their child because they're so taken up with coping,
That there's little time or energy left over to notice what their child is feeling or struggling with.
Whether bereaved,
Hurting,
Depressed.
Or,
Um.
.
.
Struggling in some other way,
These parents would likely parent much more attentively if only they had the bandwidth to do so.
But these parents can't give what they don't have.
They didn't notice your feelings enough and they didn't respond to your feelings enough.
Although the reasons for the failure are actually irrelevant,
You may not have realized this yet.
You look back and see struggling parent who loved you and tried hard and you find it impossible to hold them accountable for having failed you emotionally.
Children of struggling parents often grow up to be self-sufficient to the degree that extreme and to blame themselves for their adult struggles.
So the signs that you were raised by struggling,
Emotionally neglectful parents are you have great empathy towards your parents and a strong wish to help and take care of them.
You're grateful for all that your parents have done for you and you can't understand why you sometimes feel an inexplicable anger toward them.
You have an excessive focus on taking care of other people's needs.
Often to your own detriment.
The third type of emotionally neglectful parents are the self-involved parents.
These are the narcissistic,
The authoritarian,
The addicted or the sociopathic parent.
So this category stands out from the other two for two very important reasons.
First,
Self-involved parents are not necessarily motivated by what's best for their child.
They are instead motivated to gain something for themselves.
And the second is that many parents in this category can be quite harsh.
In ways that do damage to the child on top of the emotional neglect.
So the narcissistic parent wants his child to help him feel special.
The authoritarian parent wants respect at all costs.
And the addicted parent may not be selfish at heart,
But due to their addiction,
They're driven by a need for the substance of their choice.
The sociopathic parent wants really only two things,
Power and control.
So not surprisingly,
Category three is the most difficult one for most children to accept.
No one wants to believe that their parents were and are out for themselves.
Size to look for to see if you were raised by the cell phone.
Focused parents.
You often feel anxious before seeing your parents.
You often find yourself hurt when you're with your parents.
It's not unusual for you to get physically sick right before,
During,
Or after seeing your parents.
You have significant anger at your parents.
Your relationship with them feels false.
It's hard to predict.
Whether your parents will have a loving or rejecting way towards you from one moment to the next.
Sometimes your parents seem to be playing games with you or manipulating you or maybe even trying to purposely hurt you.
So let's talk about what to do.
You have types one well-meaning but neglected themselves or two struggling parents you might actually be able to talk with your parents about emotional neglect.
But no matter which type of parents you have,
The key to healing is to focus on yourself,
Not your parents.
Your feelings,
Your needs,
Your wants,
And your voice.
After a lifetime of wondering what's wrong.
Now you can move forward and repair.
If you learned something helpful or useful in this video,
Please do let me know in the comments below.
I love to hear from you.
And in my next video,
I'll be talking about another interesting topic.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
See you soon.
