What does a lack of parental love lead to? Problems of unloved children

According to psychologists, it is not so easy to independently determine that the true cause of trouble was the indifference of parents. Even if a person subconsciously feels that he was not loved in childhood, then most often he refuses to believe in it! That is why the first step towards getting rid of the dislike complex is the awareness and acceptance of the existing problem, writes Fabiosa.ru.

What are the consequences for the children of indifferent parents as they grow up? Is it possible to recognize such a person and how to help him?

Psychologists have named 10 key signs of unloved children.

1. Basic distrust of people

Screaming, scandals and frequent changes of scenery have an extremely negative effect on the development of a sense of trust. If the child did not have a stable and favorable emotional environment (primarily in the parental family), then most likely it will be very difficult for him to learn to trust people. And this, in turn, guarantees difficulties in personal life.

2. Complicated love relationships

An adult who suffered from a lack of love as a child will continue in his personal life to strive for what he is accustomed to: toxic people and dependent relationships. Many unloved children, having matured, "get sick" with unhappy love. A woman may initially choose an object that is too difficult for herself (for example, a married man) and suffer with it all her life. Men, on the other hand, tend to change sexual partners: in this way they try to make sure that they are worthy of love over and over again.

3. Inability to manage emotions

As children grow older, they learn to interpret other people's emotions and express their own feelings through words and gestures. An unloved child may never learn to control fear and understand their negative emotions. Consequently, he will never gain resistance to emotional pressure.

4. Fear of making a mistake

Children who are raised by indifferent parents often have serious problems understanding feelings. dignity. This usually manifests itself in the form of indecision and a strong fear of making a mistake.

5. Eternal children

Those who were not loved in childhood, as a rule, are not going to grow up. They seem to decide to remain children for life: they believe that everyone around them owes them something, behave terribly, act up, suffer from addictions, refuse to work, do not start a family, etc.

6. Tendency to depression and increased anxiety

Unloved people in childhood often have mental health problems. Most often, the emotional coldness of parents comes around to their grown-up children with depressive states and chronic anxiety.

7. Heightened vulnerability

People who have not received enough love and attention from loved ones are constantly haunted by the fear of rejection. Like self-doubt, this phobia indicates that in childhood a person felt unloved and unwanted.

8. Low self-esteem

The former "unloved child" is indecisive and terribly afraid to do important choice. Often such people are ready to do hard work for a penny, because they are sure that they do not deserve more.

9. Life away from the "family nest"

Since contact with parents is painful for adults who were not loved in childhood, they tend to avoid contact with their closest relatives. Usually such people try to leave to live in another city or at least rent an apartment as soon as possible.

10. Problems with your own children

There is a high degree of probability that a "disliked" mother (or father) will be indifferent to her child, copying the behavior of her parents. But the opposite is also possible, when a son or daughter begins to over-indulge. Naturally, such distortions in education quickly lead to big problems.

Nature itself conceived that for personal growth and proper development, any child needs parental love. But all children are different. Feeling an acute lack of warmth and affection from their parents, some will suffer in silence, while others begin to cause trouble with bad behavior, trying to attract at least negative attention to themselves.

Unfortunately, many unresolved problems are taken by unloved children into adulthood. Therefore, if you notice the above signs in yourself, it is better to seek help from a specialist. And, of course, try to give your child as much love and attention as possible!

Did you have enough parental love as a child? How are your relationships going now?

What behavior or character traits say that a person was not loved in childhood? In this collection, you will find seven key signs of unloved 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 rule to share love with children every day -

Angela Oswalt, MA in Sociology, Natalie Statts-Reiss, MD, and Mark Dombek, MD.

Photo source: polskieradio.pl

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 psychologist in New York, explains the connection between early childhood and adulthood as follows:

Despite the assertion that childhood is unique for each of us, we can draw quite accurate and reliable conclusions about the effect it has on our entire later life. These conclusions help you understand how your childhood 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? Seven main features:

1. Failure to trust

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.

Photo source: hindustantimes.com

2. Low emotional intelligence

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.

3. Strong fear of mistakes

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 did not receive enough parental love and affection. They're just afraid they won't succeed.

4. Tendency to toxic personal relationships

growing up human brain passes mainly through associations 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.

5. Feeling insecure and attached

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?

6. Tendency to depression

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 two of the 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.

Photo source: dvdselect.ru

7. Over-sensitivity

We have all heard advice not to take many of the words of others too close to heart. All in all, it's pretty useful 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 maybe 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:

Educational museums in Minsk, where you should definitely visit with children

Having received less love and affection in childhood, in adulthood such people suffer from complexes and experience certain difficulties in relationships. Today we decided to tell in more detail what difficulties adults with the unloved child syndrome experience - perhaps one of you will recognize yourself in them and understand the reason for your failures.

Dislike Syndrome

The need for maternal love is inherent in us by nature - without the love and care of the mother, the child simply cannot survive. In the modern world, children, of course, do not die from a lack of love, but they acquire complexes and psychological problems, which give them a lot of discomfort not only in childhood, but also interfere with building harmonious relationships in adulthood. Not only abandoned children who grew up without parents suffer from the unloved child syndrome - often in the most prosperous, at first glance, families, children do not receive the attention they need.

There can be many reasons for this - parents love the child, but are restrained in emotions or are too busy and they try to “recoup” live communication expensive things and toys, or maybe they just can’t share their attention and love in equal shares on all their children. As a result, the child feels discomfort and seeks to attract attention, often with bad behavior - often such children are hyperactive, capricious, suffer from nervous disorders, show lower school performance than their peers, they are more withdrawn, nervous and anxious - all this , as a rule, only worsens the situation, provoking parents to discontent, condemnation and criticism.

Sexual relations

Growing up, unloved children are not able to build harmonious relationships with the opposite sex, without even thinking about choosing a partner who has similar features to his parents. If a mother or father hurt a child, then subconsciously he will expect the same from his lover. The feeling of discomfort, familiar from childhood, attracts such a person, over and over again forcing them to make mistakes in choosing a partner.

At the same time, he himself will consider that he is simply “unlucky” in love. Feelings of uselessness and rejection cause the fear of being alone, this encourages those who are not loved all the time to look for new relationships, as a confirmation of their own importance. Unloved children in adulthood most often underestimate the depth of their wounds, accepting their personal experience for the norm.

Complexes and low self-esteem

Criticism and comparison with others leads to self-doubt - even talented and successful disliked children consider their own achievements to be accidental, and abilities unworthy of attention. In compliments and praises, such people seem to have some kind of catch, because they themselves do not believe that they are worth something. Disliked children and adults do not know how to refuse, it is difficult for them to defend personal boundaries, because they are too blurry - especially for children who were often subjected to severe criticism and corporal punishment, in such conditions it is difficult for a child to form a clear understanding of boundaries.

Guilt

Criticism creates a sense of guilt - unloved children are practically told that they are not good enough to be loved. As a result, such people grow up with the consciousness that they are “bad” and that they themselves are to blame for all problems in relations with others. For example, a partner may be bad mood and to remain silent or sharply express their dissatisfaction with something - in both cases, an adult unloved in childhood will look for the reasons for such behavior loved one in itself.

inertia

The limitless possibilities and prospects that life provides to each of us, an unloved child, seem open to everyone except himself. Such people consider themselves unworthy of the best, they do not dream, do not make plans and do not take the initiative. Dislike in childhood is manifested in most adults by a lack of interest in life, because they know in advance that nothing good will definitely await them.

Inability to love

Adults unloved in childhood do not love themselves, do not understand how love should be manifested, and therefore are not able to love others. This practically deprives them of the chances for happiness in their personal lives. It seems to them that they need to fight for love, they need to earn it somehow, they will have to pay for it ... Even if, over time, an unloved adult suspects that such a relationship has nothing to do with love, it will be difficult for him to realize what love is, because for not having an example of a healthy relationship.

Having discovered that the lack of love in childhood negatively affects your adult life, do not rush to get upset, admit it to yourself - this is already a big step towards getting rid of the consequences of dislike! However, in advanced cases, understanding alone may not be enough; for complete healing, it is worth contacting a specialist.

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 a 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 school. 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 the inner pain on the physical level: go to Gym, and, as it should, beat a pear, or simply fluff a pillow at home with all your might, 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.