Lack of attention and love: how childhood psychological trauma affects a person's future
As is commonly believed in psychology, all problems come from childhood - and if you look at it, it is so. The personality of the child begins to form even before birth, when the baby begins to understand whether they expect him with joy, whether they talk to him, whether they love him. Immediately after birth, the child loses his usual degree of physical closeness with his mother, which can only be fully compensated by the warmth of the mother's body and close emotional contact. As children grow older, they constantly need kisses, affectionate words, praise, hugs, and other manifestations of love and support. But alas, such a picture is not formed in every family.
Unloved children grow up and start families of their own, and history repeats itself. Therefore, the conversation is relevant for all ages - which of us has not received conflicts and unconstructive criticism from the family nest? Someone's parents were too busy, someone went through a divorce, and the birth of younger children in the family often takes away the amount of attention they need from the first-born. So, let's talk about what are the consequences of the "lack of love" complex, and how it can be overcome if childhood has long been left behind.
There is no need to think that only children from single-parent families, or those from disadvantaged families, feel the lack of parental love. Sometimes these are children from large families, where everyone simply does not have enough attention and love. But very often, children from seemingly good and wealthy families suffer. Why ask you?
Because, such parents are firmly convinced that others judge them only by their children. Therefore, they are bought only branded items, forced to learn to read at the age of 3, and at the age of 5 to know at least one foreign language, etc. Thus, if the child is a genius and dressed like a needle, then the parents are cool !! These children often grow up within limits. After all, the children of rich parents should be the strongest, smartest and generally the best, because they themselves always strive to be ahead! Very often, without noticing it, we attribute to children our personal goals and ambitions. Parents believe that they should give their child everything that they themselves dreamed of in childhood, and what they lacked so much. The opinion of the child himself on this matter is not even discussed! Better it will be 100 cars, or a new video game, than a quiet evening and a bedtime story.
Very often, children feel like a burden, or a source of your irritability. After all, because of them, parents disappear at work .. it's so expensive, clothes, toys, education .. yes, this is your way to express love. But not the best. And what about our phrase, spoken from exhaustion with ardor? “Take it, just shut up”, “Don’t touch Mom, I’m so tired”, “How much more do these backbiters need?” do not add warmth to our relationship, and deeply hurt the child's psyche. After reading this, many may immediately object: “No, this is definitely not about me. I really love my child!” You can’t argue with this, and no one is going to. The fact that all parents love their children and want only the best for them cannot be questioned at all. Our inattention and unwillingness to understand our children destroys their childhood and adult life.
We touch every facet of their lives.
The mechanism of trust in the world
How confident a baby is in the love and care of his parents depends on his entire subsequent life: whether he will become successful or join the ranks of losers, whether he will feel at ease in life or he will have to live in a world full of threats, whether it will be easy cope with anxiety or build a massive psychological defense against everyone and everything, whether he can create strong and trusting relationships, or will rush “out of the fire and into the fire” in a futile search for a partner who can make up for his lack of parental love.
All this is very simply explained: up to five years, mother and father for the child are identified with the whole world, and their attitude towards the little person is transferred to him, giving or, on the contrary, taking away a reliable mechanism of self-preservation and confidence in his place under the sun. What happens if this normal mechanism is suddenly disrupted?
complexes
First of all, self-esteem suffers - since initially the child evaluates himself not independently, but through the words and actions of his parents. With the development of the ability to think logically, the situation does not improve - low self-esteem is spurred on by the rhetorical question "even if my parents do not love me, no one will." Strengthening in the subconscious, this fear makes a person vulnerable and deeply vulnerable, forcing him to hide in a psychological "shell".
Having not received confirmation of his need and importance for the world from the closest people, a person subconsciously begins to strive ... for death. Failures and illnesses will fall on him, and instead of a full-fledged colorful life, he will devote all his strength to the fight against imaginary windmills, avoiding difficulties and fears - but he could take everything from life and pinch off all the tidbits! Often diseases become a continuation of a child's protest of a lack of care - remembering how during a cold the world, although not for long, but still began to revolve around the patient, the subconscious mind can lead a person to chronic diseases. And he will carry the perception of an unloved child through his whole life, endlessly stepping on the same rake.
If the child was destined to become an optimist, this type of temperament is unlikely to remain unchanged without a sufficient amount of support from the closest people. A person will not be able to trust people - even those with whom he creates a family - and he will solve all problems only on his own, sometimes taking on an unbearable burden without any need. An unloved child living inside will never allow you to feel satisfaction from your life, forcing a person to fight with the whole world and with himself, proving his importance by any means - and at the same time, deep inside, not believing in it.
Sometimes a child, not receiving affection, begins to demand it by any available means - to attract attention to himself by not the most laudable deeds. If the parents do not come to their senses in time and reward the child with punishment instead of love, a serious conflict will be born in his soul. Knowing that punishment is followed by a soothing caress, a person gets used to pleasure through negativity.
In addition to internal conflicts, the problem is also transferred to the physical plane - if the child lacked affectionate touches, he does not love his body, does not care about his appearance and health, often reaching asceticism. In adolescence, “wars with a mirror” begin - an unloved teenager, making excessive demands on himself, sees himself as one big accumulation of shortcomings. This gives rise to either depression or obsession with the need for fundamental changes - to correct the shape of the nose, and so on. In any case, nothing good will come of such an attitude towards yourself.
Obesity due to stress
An important point is the property of a person to seize stress. Now imagine that for an unloved child who is afraid of the whole world, life is a continuous and hopeless stress! There is a food addiction, which actually pursues only one goal - albeit not for long, but still feel the security in the form of well-fed well-being and the illusion of emotional warmth. It turns out something like "by bread alone man lives." Eating deep discomfort turns into a stable habit, which in some cases leads to severe obesity and already a purely physical inability to stop. And only a harmonious emotional life, in which anxiety and love are balanced, keeps the appetite for food under the control of a person - he "eats to live", and not vice versa.
Personal life
Disliked children carry the unfortunate scenario of their parents into adulthood, and most often unconsciously connect their lives with people who have the same shortcomings that are expressed in their mother or father. This is how single mothers, people suffering from unrequited love, families with domestic tyranny or alcoholism come into the world. Often, a disliked person begins to resist the scenario received, trying to change everything exactly the opposite - but in this unsuccessful attempt to escape, in fact, all his actions are somehow connected with a bitter childhood experience. This, in turn, is the main reason for the appearance of overzealous "ideal" parents, forcing children to become exhausted from overprotection.
As for the intimate relationships of unloved people, due to the inability to express their feelings through ordinary close communication, they completely concentrate on sex. But the problem is that sex itself cannot give the love that a person subconsciously seeks - and he rushes from partner to partner, often looking for revelations in non-standard bed comforts. The only thing that can put an end to the flashing of more and more new faces in an intimate chronicle is a partner who understands the depth of the problem and will be able to “warm up” a person with his love. In this case, trust comes, as well as an understanding that the bedroom is just an addition to real feelings, and affection can also be shown in other ways.
How to fix the situation?
A “dysfunctional childhood” is not a one-way ticket, although serious rehabilitation and help is required. Half the success is knowing your problems and accepting them.
Remember your childhood, try to attract the best from it to your family. If your life is falling apart due to severe psychological problems and is affecting your children, then perhaps the best option would be psychological help. Break the circle, you have to, you don’t want to pass on your complexes and fears to children?
If you really want to know who your baby is for you, answer one question for yourself: why did I have a child? And it is precisely “for what”, and not “why” !! Be honest, at least to yourself. For what? May be:
For procreation;
Everyone gives birth, and I decided (without purpose);
I did not plan, but it just so happened (without a goal);
To create a complete family?
As a means to keep a loved one
You can’t count all the options, each of us has his own.
Now, given your goal, try to imagine what kind of child you will have? What do you focus on in the process of education? And now you still require something from your children?! And why? Is it for you or your child?
Try to listen to your children and understand them. Whims, inattention, and irritability can only be a signal of a lack of your love. And remember, your children's ticket to a happy future lies through your heart, and your desire to recognize the problem and fight it. 
Some people find it difficult to be sincere, open up to others, and, accordingly, build some kind of close relationship. Why is this happening? There may be several reasons, but one of them is that a person was simply not loved in childhood.
Every child wants to feel loved. Love is not for some merit, but just like that. He also needs to understand that accept it the way it is. This is the function of the mother - to give the child a sense of security, reliability, and that he is not alone, and he is loved. But, unfortunately, not every woman copes with such a task. Sometimes mothers are simply unable to love. They may have some kind of psychological trauma of their own, a serious illness, or simply an evil and despotic character. This will make the child suffer.
Causes of dislike of the child and its consequences in adulthood
Sometimes mom just doesn't know how to love. Because the child feels abandoned, a real split occurs inside him. He does not receive emotional support from his mother, which is why he is forced to constantly feel mortal fear. After all, he understands that he himself will not be able to survive, and he needs the support of his mother, but she is not. Accordingly, the child is constantly in danger and in such cases begins to feel depressed and unhappy. Since children cannot resist their parents, they most often accumulate their resentment and anger somewhere inside themselves, or they manifest it in the form of poor studies, refusal to go to kindergarten, constant tantrums in supermarkets, etc. The bottom line is that such an attitude of “dislike” will not pass without a trace, and its consequences will certainly make themselves felt in the future.
On the one hand, during the internal split of the child, heartache, which does not disappear with age, but remains forever. As a result, an already matured child may be afraid to open up to people, build any kind of trusting relationship, and generally open up to someone, since he could not do this with his mother or father. He did not trust them, could not rely on them, and, most importantly, felt that they did not love him. And if the person who gave birth to him and raised him did not love him, then how can he believe that someone completely alien will love him? ..
On the other hand, the child still tries to deserve love and recognition their mother or father. It doesn’t matter how old he is, he may even have already created his own family, but old grievances still live in him, and the need for the love of mother and father is also present. The worst thing is that the children's attempts to get this recognition and the love of their parent are doomed to failure in advance, since, most likely, his mother does not even suspect that she did something wrong, and may not understand what she requires from her. already an adult child. As a result, a person, not getting what he wants, begins to condemn and blame himself for the current situation. After all, if he was good, then he would be loved.
It would seem that everything is clear, the parents themselves did not know how give love to a child so they didn't do it. You have to accept it, let it go and move on with your life. But on an emotional level, everything is much more complicated, since the child cannot and does not want to let go of resentment, he wants to receive what he was not given at the appropriate time.
So how do you go on with an unloved child?
It is possible to solve the problem, although this will require a lot of effort and time. You need to do the following:
- discover the problem. Often the problem can be seen by everyone around, except for its owner. Wives may complain that their husbands are mother's sons, laugh at work, that a person is very dependent on the opinion of his parents, etc. The main thing is that the person himself realizes his “strange” dependence on the opinion of his mother or father, grandmother or grandfather ... Only then can one begin to work on solving the problem;
- work with pain and resentment. One of the options for working with these feelings is the following technique: write on a piece of paper what exactly you feel offended about, and how you would like your parents to react in those cases. This way you will understand exactly what you need and why you are still in pain. You may even be able to understand the reaction of the parents to the situation at that moment, which will also help to let go of the resentment;
- physical manifestation of pain and resentment. You can try to reduce inner pain on a physical level: go to the gym and beat a pear properly, or just beat a pillow with all your might at home, tear paper to shreds, etc. Most importantly, during the process, try to experience those emotions that have been sitting inside you for a long time, and let them out. You will see, it will become much easier for you.
Naturally, in order to completely solve the problem, you should definitely ask for help to a psychotherapist or psychologist. He will tell you how to work with your inner child, and how to live on, letting go of past grievances.
What behavior or character traits say that a person was not loved in childhood? In our compilation, you will find seven key signs of undernourished children.
“In addition to the physical need for food, water, shelter and basic hygiene, children also need emotional support, love and care. Those who are responsible for children (whether their own or others) should make it a point to share love with children every day.” — Angela Oswalt, MA Sociology, Natalie Statts-Reiss, MD, and Mark Dombek, MD.
brain of a child
Early childhood is a period of frequent and rapid changes in brain structure. Childhood and the period up to six or seven years is the time when complex connections between neurons are most quickly formed in the child's brain.
The final formation of brain neurons is approximately 80% completed by the age of four. In other words, by the fourth year of life, the brain of a future adult is eight tenths ready.
Many scientists believe that about 95% of a person's behavior is determined by his subconscious. When is the "programming" of this subconscious?
From birth to six years of age.
Why is it important?
Our brain is responsible for everything (or almost everything) that we think, say and do. If a child receives insufficient care and attention in the first years of life - this affects the development of his brain, and as a result, the structures responsible for the emotions of the child remain underdeveloped.
The relationship between factors affecting brain development in childhood and adult personality traits is no longer in doubt today.
Peg Streep, a New York psychologist, explains the connection between early childhood and adulthood as follows:
“Despite the assertion that childhood is unique to each of us, we can draw quite accurate and reliable conclusions about the effect it has on our entire later life. These conclusions help to understand how childhood has shaped your personality and behavior patterns.
A quote from a psychologist makes you think: what behavior or character traits say that this person was not loved in childhood?
Therefore, we have prepared seven main features:
To develop the ability to trust at an individual level, a stable positive environment is necessary. That is why it is extremely important that children are surrounded by at least relatively stable and balanced people. Tantrums, screaming and frequent changes of scenery negatively affect the development of a sense of trust. Children need to feel safe and receive positive emotional support from those around them.
If our children do not have a stable and supportive emotional environment (primarily in the family), then it will probably be difficult for him to trust anyone. And this, in turn, guarantees difficulties in personal relationships.
Children learn to interpret emotions mainly through words and gestures. Both play an important role in the development of the child. Words and gestures help you express your feelings, control fear, understand negative emotions, and build resilience to emotional pressure.
Without the ability to correctly interpret their emotional state, a child may not fully develop an important quality for life - emotional intelligence.
Children growing up in indifferent environments have serious problems with the development of self-esteem. At the same time, a motivating and loving environment contributes to the development of endurance and self-confidence.
A child who was not loved as a child will most likely lack self-confidence as an adult. As a rule, this manifests itself in the form of an excessive fear of making a mistake. Many successful people are unable to realize their full potential only “thanks” to the fact that in childhood they received insufficient parental love and affection. They're just afraid they won't succeed.
The maturation of the human brain takes place mainly through association and pattern recognition. In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, pattern recognition is defined as "the cognitive process that correlates information received from the outside world with information obtained from memory."
As for personal relationships, a child who suffered from a lack of love, becoming an adult, will strive for what is familiar to him, that is, for toxic people.
Almost any professional working in the field of psychiatry will agree that a positive environment outside the family can compensate for a negative environment in the family.
However, in reality, everything is much more complicated.
After all, if a child cannot trust the people who helped him to be born and who should be responsible for his safety, how can he force himself to trust anyone at all?
Unloved children often suffer from mental health problems as they grow up.
As a rule, depression and anxiety arise from: a) emotional indifference in childhood, and b) the inevitable complications caused by this indifference that surface in later life.
Depression and chronic anxiety are the two most common mental illnesses in the world. And the likelihood of getting sick with them in adulthood is much greater if there were serious problems in his family when he was a child.
We have all heard advice not to take many of the words of others too close to heart. All in all, this is pretty good advice. People trying to cope with their problems often project them onto others. If we don't take all of these people's words personally, it can help us understand them - and perhaps even help us deal with these problems.
However, for those who did not receive love and attention from loved ones in childhood, it is not easy to follow this advice. These people are constantly oppressed by the fear of being rejected, and together with self-doubt, this proves that in childhood they felt unwanted and unloved.
“Oh, how sensitive we are” ... We most often hear this phrase from bullies and fans of emotional violence. She, as a rule, only adds fuel to the fire that burns the already painfully sensitive psyche of their victim.
A few last words
We all have our own way of showing our children how much we love them, and only through this, we can lay a solid foundation for their future lives.
In an article titled “Love and Care in Early Childhood,” written by three well-known child psychologists, experts offer the following advice:
– Make showing love and affection to your children your top priority every day.
– Praise children as often as possible (but praise must be earned, for example, a child helps you around the house or brought good grades in a diary).
– Try to always maintain a positive attitude towards life and emotional maturity in order to create a healthy environment for children.
– Remember, if you are a parent or caregiver who constantly feels overwhelmed, irritable, depressed or sad, this can negatively affect the development of the child.
Don't be afraid to seek professional help if you feel like you can't handle it on your own.
Article translation - 7 Behaviors People Who Were Unloved As Children Display In Their Adult Lives via Kluber
Children are very sensitive from birth and are able to feel the love of their parents, its lack or absence. After all, not all parents are equally capable of loving their baby, someone does not have a soul in their children, some treat them with coldness and put their own meaning into the words “love your child”.
The love and relationship of a mother with a child arises in the prenatal period, so from now on you need to talk to the baby affectionately and already love him. When born, parental love is necessary for the psychological and physical development of the baby, and this is a proven fact, because the need for love and affection is laid in us by nature.
But not all parents, for certain reasons, are able to give love in full and in the way their baby needs. Often mom and dad express their feelings by giving a child toys, gifts, expensive clothes, as if trying to give all the best, instead of talking, reading a book, playing, caressing. Such children are dressed, shod and have everything except the main attention and warmth.
Parents should express their love, take an interest in the affairs of the child, kiss, hug and talk about their feelings for him. Of course, the characters of all children 
different, someone is in dire need of attention, and someone is content with little, so parents should devote as much care and time as is required for their children, no matter how many of them there are in the family.
Often, children in large families feel the lack of love., there children are not loved equally, everyone is differently, although they say the opposite. Children always feel this, you can’t deceive them, and they suffer a lot, worry, not finding an answer and a reason.
There are also families in which an unwanted child is born and he is completely deprived of parental love.. The kid is aware and feels the attitude towards himself, even if he is provided with good care and normal living conditions. Some parents are simply stingy with feelings, they raise children, providing everything necessary because it is necessary so that people do not condemn, without thinking that perhaps children do not have enough of their warmth and affection.
How does the absence of parental love affect a child's life?
In no case can one expect that the child will outgrow, forgive and understand everything, on the contrary, all the consequences of dislike pass into adulthood, acquiring negative additional factors affecting the character, relationships in the family and in society:
Statistics have shown that people who were deprived of love and attention in childhood are prone to suicide or, conversely, to sadism and violence against others.
When giving birth to a child, parents must understand that no values can compare with their warmth and love for him. Only by giving all of yourself without a trace, sparing neither feelings nor time, you can raise a happy, confident, successful and grateful person who is able to give his love and care to relatives, friends and the whole world.
P.S. Sincerely, the administration of the site.
Similar content
Unloved children grow up and start families of their own, and history repeats itself. Therefore, the conversation is relevant for all ages - which of us has not received conflicts and unconstructive criticism from the family nest? Someone's parents were too busy, someone went through a divorce, and the birth of younger children in the family often takes away the amount of attention they need from the first-born. So, let's talk about what are the consequences of the "lack of love" complex, and how it can be overcome if childhood has long been left behind.
The mechanism of trust in the world
How confident a baby is in the love and care of his parents depends on his entire subsequent life: whether he will become successful or join the ranks of losers, whether he will feel at ease in life or he will have to live in a world full of threats, whether it will be easy cope with anxiety or build a massive psychological defense against everyone and everything, whether he can create strong and trusting relationships, or will rush “out of the fire and into the fire” in a futile search for a partner who can make up for his lack of parental love.
All this is very simply explained: up to five years, mother and father for the child are identified with the whole world, and their attitude towards the little person is transferred to him, giving or, on the contrary, taking away a reliable mechanism of self-preservation and confidence in his place under the sun. What happens if this normal mechanism is suddenly disrupted?
complexes
First of all, self-esteem suffers - since initially the child evaluates himself not independently, but through the words and actions of his parents. With the development of the ability to think logically, the situation does not improve - low self-esteem is spurred on by the rhetorical question "even if my parents do not love me, no one will." Strengthening in the subconscious, this fear makes a person vulnerable and deeply vulnerable, forcing him to hide in a psychological "shell".
Having not received confirmation of his need and importance for the world from the closest people, a person subconsciously begins to strive ... for death. Failures and illnesses will fall on him, and instead of a full-fledged colorful life, he will devote all his strength to the fight against imaginary windmills, avoiding difficulties and fears - but he could take everything from life and pinch off all the tidbits! Often, diseases become a continuation of a child's protest of a lack of care - remembering how during a cold the world, although for a short time, nevertheless began to revolve around the patient, the subconscious mind can lead a person to chronic diseases. And he will carry the perception of an unloved child through his whole life, endlessly stepping on the same rake.
If the child was destined to become an optimist, this type of temperament is unlikely to remain unchanged without a sufficient amount of support from the closest people. A person will not be able to trust people - even those with whom he creates a family - and he will solve all problems only on his own, sometimes taking on an overwhelming burden without any need. An unloved child living inside will never allow you to feel satisfaction from your life, forcing a person to fight with the whole world and with himself, proving his importance by any means - and at the same time, deep inside, not believing in it.
Sometimes a child, not receiving affection, begins to demand it by any available means - to attract attention to himself by not the most laudable deeds. If the parents do not come to their senses in time and reward the child with punishment instead of love, a serious conflict will be born in his soul. Knowing that punishment is followed by a soothing caress, a person gets used to pleasure through negativity.
In addition to internal conflicts, the problem is also transferred to the physical plane - if the child lacked affectionate touches, he does not love his body, does not care about his appearance and health, often reaching asceticism. In adolescence, “wars with a mirror” begin - an unloved teenager, making excessive demands on himself, sees himself as one big accumulation of shortcomings. This gives rise to either depression or obsession with the need for fundamental changes - to correct the shape of the nose, and so on. In any case, nothing good will come of such an attitude towards yourself (remember poor Michael Jackson, or Pamela catching up with him ...)
Binge eating
An important point is the ability of a person to seize stress. Now imagine that for an unloved child who is afraid of the whole world, life is a continuous and hopeless stress! There is a food addiction, which actually pursues only one goal - albeit for a short time, but still feel the security in the form of well-fed well-being and the illusion of emotional warmth. It turns out something like "by bread alone man lives." Eating deep discomfort turns into a stable habit, which in some cases leads to severe obesity and already a purely physical inability to stop. And only a harmonious emotional life, in which anxiety and love are balanced, keeps the appetite for food under the control of a person - he "eats to live", and not vice versa.
Personal life
Disliked children carry the unfortunate scenario of their parents into adulthood, and most often unconsciously connect their lives with people who have the same shortcomings that are expressed in their mother or father. This is how single mothers, people suffering from unrequited love, families with domestic tyranny or alcoholism come into the world. It is not uncommon for a disliked person to oppose the resulting scenario, trying to change everything exactly the opposite – but in this unsuccessful attempt to escape, in fact, all his actions are somehow connected with a bitter childhood experience. This, in turn, is the main reason for the appearance of overzealous "ideal" parents, forcing children to become exhausted from overprotection.
As for the intimate relationships of unloved people, due to the inability to express their feelings through ordinary close communication, they completely concentrate on sex. But the problem is that sex itself cannot give the love that a person is subconsciously looking for - and he rushes from partner to partner, often looking for revelations in non-standard bed comforts. The only thing that can put an end to the flashing of more and more new faces in an intimate chronicle is a partner who understands the depth of the problem and will be able to “warm up” a person with his love. In this case, trust comes, as well as the understanding that the bedroom is just an addition to real feelings, and affection can also be shown in other ways.
How to fix the situation?
A “dysfunctional childhood” is not a one-way ticket, although serious rehabilitation and help is required. Half the success is knowing your problems and accepting them. It is worth remembering more often all the good moments spent with your parents. And it doesn’t hurt to figure out why everything turned out this way - most likely, the parents themselves became a victim of such a scenario, so they themselves may need love (at least their own children, if not their parents). You just need to try to trust people - and soon the world will begin to reciprocate, because it is not at all as bad as it seems to unloved children ...