25/03/2022
♦️Overcoming childhood neglect as a parent and helping our children too♦️
♦️The following information is taken from different online resources
A child’s perception of neglect is important. When a child perceives they’re being neglected emotionally, they are twice as likely to develop the psychiatric disorder at age 15, including the development of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety symptoms, panic disorder, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emotionally neglected adolescents are more likely to have poor academic performance, substance abuse, risky sexual activity, and su***de attempts.
Emotional neglect is often transgenerational 5 . Parents who have been neglected by their parents tend to adopt similar parenting styles when raising their children.
🪧17 SIGNS OF EMOTIONALLY NEGLECTFUL PARENTS
📍1: Speak with a cold and unfriendly tone
📍2:Unresponsive to the child’s feelings
📍3:Dismiss the child’s emotions
📍4:Don't talk to the child very much
📍5:Spend little time with the child and make them feel they are unwanted
📍6:Less positive feedback or praise
📍7:Express less affection
📍8:Show less positive social interactions
📍9:Disengaged and uninvolved in the child’s life
📍10:Lack of interest in children’s activities
📍11:Persistently find fault with their child
📍12:Ignore the child’s cues for help in problem-solving tasks
📍13:Offer no encouragement when the child fails a task
📍14:Verbally aggressive discipline
📍15:Addicted to substance misuse
📍16:Show depressive symptoms
📍17: Suffered from emotional neglect themselves in their childhood
SIGNS OF CHILD EMOTIONAL NEGLECT IN CHILDREN
😓1: Show passive, withdrawn, and aggressive behavior patterns with their parents
😓2: Suffer from child development delay, failure to thrive
😓3: Negativity during parent-child interactions and anger towards the parent
😓4:Significantly less positive social interaction
😓5:Delay in language development
😓6:During free play, anger towards the parent
😓7:Avoid interactions with other children
😓8:Poor peer relationships
😓9:Disruptive and impulsive behavior, including aggression, hostility, and oppositional
😓10:Lower cognitive functioning
😓11:Low self-esteem and self-compassion
😓12:Shame, humiliation, self-blame, and feelings of worthlessness
😓13:Attention problems
😓14:Higher rates of dissociation
😓15:More behavioral issues, including conduct disorder symptoms
😓16:Less emotional knowledge, difficulty recognizing angry faces
😓17:Symptoms of depressive disorder
😓18:Symptoms of anxiety disorder
In severe cases, the child develops symptoms resembling autism, such as stereotypical rocking and self-soothing
Note that whether a child is emotionally neglected needs to be evaluated by qualified specialists.
✅10 Strategies For Coping With Your Childhood Emotional Neglect
✅1. Deeply acknowledge the way Emotional Neglect happened in your family and how it’s affected you.
✅2. Accept that your emotions are blocked off, but they are still there, waiting for you.
Your child’s brain protected you by walling off your emotions, but it could not make them go away completely. Today you can still access them. By accepting that they exist, you’ll be able to learn how to listen to them, use them and manage them.
✅3. Pay attention to your feelings.
This is probably the single most powerful thing you can do to cope with your CEN. It’s a way to do the opposite of what your parents taught you, start to honor your feelings, and reach across the wall to the richness, color, and connection that lies on the other side: your emotions. Paying attention to your feelings will allow you to begin to use them as they are meant to be used.
✅4. Practice sitting with negative feelings to increase your tolerance.
Learning how to sit with strong or painful feelings is one of the main early building blocks to learning all of the emotional skills. Sitting with negative feelings will put you in control of yourself.
✅5. Keep an ongoing list of your Likes and Dislikes.
Pay attention and take special notes as you go through your day. Write down everything you can find that you either do or do not like. It can be small, medium, or large, but nothing is too small to make the list. Knowing these things about yourself will set you up to be able to make yourself happier.
✅6. Develop and practice compassion for yourself.
As a person with CEN, you are probably far kinder to others than you are to yourself. Try to accept that as a human being, you have the same rights that you allow everyone else. You will make mistakes, you will make poor decisions, and you will fail. And you should not be any harsher on yourself for those things than you would be on a friend whom you love. Practicing self-compassion will build your self-love.
✅7. Become aware of the feeling of anger when it happens in your body.
Of all the emotions, anger is the one that, when blocked off instead of expressed and managed, will consume you. Becoming aware of your anger will immediately start to soothe and empower you.
✅8. Read a book on assertiveness.
Learning how to be assertive is the counterpart to becoming aware of your anger. Being assertive is a way to get other people to hear what you feel, hear and need. Learning assertiveness will make other people value you more.
✅9. Share your CEN story with someone close to you.
There is something about sharing your CEN story that allows you to own it and take it seriously. Telling someone about your CEN will help you feel less burdened and alone.
✅10 Look for the effects of CEN on your primary relationships.
Has your Childhood Emotional Neglect played out in your marriage? Affected the way you’ve parented your children? Made you feel uncomfortable with your parents? Looking for the effects of CEN in your relationships will open the door to the people you love.
✅Actively seeking enjoyment
A Duke University study by Hanson, et al. (2015) found that emotionally neglected kids go into adolescence with an important structure in their brains under-developed. It's the ventral striatum, which is the area of the brain that registers feelings of reward. If your ventral striatum is a bit undeveloped, never fear. You can develop it now! This habit is rather fun to work on too. To cultivate this habit pay close attention to what you like, love, and enjoy. Then actively ask for it, plan it, and structure it into your life. Your brain can change and you can make it happen.
✅Overriding your impulses
Living your life disconnected from your feelings can leave your emotions unstructured, unprocessed, unmanaged, and unruly. Your emotions may drive you to make decisions you shouldn't make or make mistakes you will regret. And, when you do make a mistake, you are probably very harsh on yourself. The habit of overriding your impulses involves forcing yourself to do things you don't want to do and stopping yourself from doing things you shouldn't do. Purposely overriding your feelings in making certain choices trains your brain to be controllable
✅Self-talk
Self-talk is a remarkable coping technique. This habit is well worth your time to cultivate and practice. It involves talking yourself through a painful moment, a scary challenge, or a difficult situation. You can repeat a mantra that you need to absorb, remind yourself what you're capable of, or challenge negative thoughts. The possibilities are endless and must be tailored specifically to you. Here are some examples:
You can do this.
You are important and you matter.
You deserve to get your needs met just as much as anyone.
Speak up. Say it now.
Saying no (an expression of boundaries)
Saying, No is difficult for emotionally neglected folks. For you, it feels wrong, it feels selfish, and you assume you must justify yourself. But none of that is true. Saying no is your right under any circumstances, and the more you do it, the easier it will become. As you say, No, I cant help you with that. No, I'm not available. No, I don't want that, it starts to help you set your boundaries with people and it gives you the space to focus more on yourself, which is exactly where your focus must be to heal.
