8 Signs Your Emotions Were Ignored During Childhood

We’ve all felt neglected from time to time. Maybe your friends are busy with work, or perhaps your romantic partner did not give you the time or attention you hoped they would. However, these day-to-day squabbles are nothing compared to the seriousness of the long-term emotional neglect some children experience in their own homes. And the consequences of this mistreatment won't end when they move out, either. In most cases, the effects linger long after they've left their childhood home. 

Of course, hostile parenting comes in all shapes and sizes. One recent study reports that parents who are verbally abusive to their kids have the potential to quite literally to shrink the size of their children’s brains. Yet another study finds that overbearing “helicopter parents” can end up causing shorter lifespans for their children. But regardless of what it looks like, many of these bad examples of parenting all have one thing in common — ignoring the child's emotional needs.

Researchers also note that one of the best predictors of a teenager’s willingness to obey their parents was how much trust and autonomy that parent awarded to the teen. This indicates that trust and emotional validation go hand-in-hand with one another and are crucial determining factors for the quality of the parent-child relationship. However, what happens when the child's emotional needs are ignored rather than validated? How does this emotional neglect affect the child, both while they are still in the abusive or neglectful situation and for the rest of their life?

To answer all of these questions and more, EdNews sat down with Michael Menard, the inventor-turned-writer who details his experience growing up in an abusive home as the second-oldest of fourteen children and the work he has done in the decades since then to heal, grow, and forgive. Menard’s expertise on trauma (and how it is normalized to the people who experience it) has been captured in his upcoming book, “The Kite That Couldn't Fly: And Other May Avenue Stories.”

In his conversation with EdNews, Menard addresses eight signs that a person's emotions were ignored as a child.

1. Depression

Spending the formative years of childhood with a lack of emotional support can cause significant damage to a person's mental health for years to come. When a child is not equipped to understand their feelings, work through them, and move forward, they may retreat inward and struggle with emotional repression and loneliness. Without the tools they need to manage the ups and downs of life, a child who was emotionally neglected may develop depression that requires proper treatment to address the root of the problem.

2. Battling An Eating Disorder

Emotional trauma takes an undeniable physical toll on the body, and in some cases, this may manifest in disordered eating habits or a diagnosed eating disorder. Whether this manifests in undereating, overeating, or any other disordered behaviors surrounding food, an emotionally neglectful background heightens the risk of a troubled relationship with eating. While these disorders can touch anyone regardless of age, gender, or background, they are particularly prevalent in young girls and those with a history of trauma.

3. Emotional Unavailability

When children grow up without the necessary space for their emotions, they are likely to struggle with sharing their burdens in adulthood. Suppose a parent allows their child to believe their feelings are burdensome, inconvenient, or unimportant. These sentiments become the inner monologue that will follow them into their family life, friendships, and relationships. Similarly, if healthy bonds were not modeled in the home, the neglected child may struggle to build and maintain open, honest, and emotionally vulnerable relationships with others.

4. Poor Self-Esteem

For most of us, the thoughts, opinions, and words of the people closest to us resonate most deeply. From the very beginning of childhood, we look for affirmations from our parents or caregivers to assure us that we are good, worthy, and loved. In the absence of such reassurance, an emotionally neglected child is highly likely to struggle with low self-esteem. Every negative thought or comment becomes a tightly held insecurity, while every compliment is disregarded as lies or flattery. A child with this type of trauma is likely to carry the belief that they are deeply personally flawed despite any evidence to the contrary.

5. Feelings Of Emptiness

Years of waiting for your needs and desires to be met would leave anyone struggling with feelings of emptiness. For the emotionally neglected child, these feelings may have never been resolved. As an adult, this sense of longing for something more, something different, something better may persist, regardless of how otherwise happy and satisfying life may be. This can look like frequently changing jobs, relationships, hobbies, or locations in an attempt to meet that longing.

6. Difficulties With Self-Discipline

If emotional needs aren't being met, other areas are likely slipping through the cracks. Self-discipline is a principle typically taught to children by their parents, and those who were emotionally neglected likely missed this important lesson. This can lead to struggling at work or school, needing more self-hygiene or care, and failing to make or achieve goals set for them. Without an intrinsic sense of self-discipline, the neglected child can struggle to stay on a path toward personal success, regardless of how badly they may want to.

7. Anger & Aggression

When a child's emotions are consistently ignored, this can naturally lead to pent-up frustration and outbursts. Whether this begins before leaving the home or stays dormant until adulthood, emotions are meant to be felt and will likely come to the surface eventually. Unfortunately, if the proper tools for working through anger haven't been taught, this may lead to imitating learned patterns of aggression. Developing healthy coping mechanisms not present in childhood is necessary for learning proper conflict resolution and conduct when approaching anger.

8. Trust Issues

Difficulty with trusting others is often a tell-tale sign of childhood neglect and abuse. These children are made to feel that their emotions are unimportant, irrational, or irrelevant, which tends to build a natural lack of trust in others. Even when interacting with genuinely interested and engaged people, a neglected child may struggle to understand or believe that they want to be with or around them. But when parents repeatedly break the trust of the child through abuse or neglect, it is easy to see how a child could develop trust issues after growing up in this kind of environment.

For more on the effects of emotional neglect in childhood and beyond, check out Menard's upcoming book, “The Kite That Couldn't Fly: And Other May Avenue Stories.” Available now for pre-order and releasing on June 1, Menard tells his own complex story of growing up in an abusive and neglectful household while weaving in expert research on the topic of childhood trauma. It's a must-read for anyone interested in continuing the conversation on the impacts of neglect in childhood and beyond.

Have you experienced any of these signs of emotional neglect? How do you feel now as an adult, reflecting on your childhood experiences? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!   

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Note: This article was not paid for nor sponsored. EdNews is not connected to nor partnered with any of the brands or people mentioned and receives no compensation for its recommendations.