Overcoming the Effects of Childhood Emotional Invalidation or Neglect

For many adults who experienced emotional invalidation or neglect, they often experience a sense of emptiness, a disconnect from their own feelings, difficulty in being emotionally vulnerable in their relationships and the feeling that there is something wrong with them even if things often look great on the outside.

For the child, however, this invalidation or neglect isn’t often perceived because they don’t know anything is missing.  Oftentimes, these children are brought up in homes where they are loved and cared for very much.  It’s tricky because emotional validation and neglect is marked by the absence of emotional response from their parents or caretakers and children may not notice this.

So, what is childhood emotional invalidation or neglect exactly? It occurs when parents/caretakers fail to adequately respond to their children’s emotions in certain ways which can include:

1. Failing to recognize their children’s emotions: This often occurs when parents or caregivers are uneasy with their children’s feelings, a discomfort that is typically passed down through the generations. 
2. Lack of mirroring: If a parent or caretaker is unable to connect with their own feelings, they cannot mirror those feelings to their children.  This can leave the child feeling confused, uncomfortable and even ashamed when they experience feelings that haven’t been mirrored.
3. Feeling Fixing: If a parent/caretaker is uncomfortable with certain feelings that are coming up with the child, they will often engage with feeling fixing.  This can look like:
   1. A parent telling the child they shouldn’t feel a certain way
   2. Offering a toy, favorite food or other distraction in hopes to change the way the child feels
   3. Shaming a child in an attempt to get the child to suppress their feelings, examples include saying things like “big boys don’t cry” or “how dare you get angry with me!”
   4. Telling the child that we are going to have a “happy night” when they are feeling anything but happy

Unlike abuse or trauma, which are actions committed against a child, emotional neglect is defined by what isn’t done—parents or caretakers not recognizing, validating, or discussing their child’s feelings. This type of neglect is often invisible, going unnoticed by outsiders and often undetected by the child themselves. This can lead to the child growing up lacking the connections and validation of their own feelings which is needed for a healthy, emotionally enriched life full of deep connections with others.

When parents notice, name, express concern for, and discuss their child’s feelings, they are imparting crucial life skills. These skills enable the child to be emotionally aware and communicative, laying the groundwork for a fulfilling and emotionally connected adulthood. Conversely, when parents fail to engage with their child’s emotions, the child learns to ignore or suppress their feelings. This can result in various challenges in adulthood, such as discomfort with emotions, a pervasive sense of emptiness, and feelings of shame or inadequacy.

Here are some of the ways this can show up:

1. Challenges in Forming Adult Relationships – Individuals who grew up without having their emotions validated, acknowledged, and accepted often struggle to express their feelings to others, hindering emotional intimacy.
2. Feelings of unexplained emptiness – Our emotions connect us to our true selves. When we feel “empty,” it often means we are not in tune with our feelings.
3. Addictions and Compulsions: In childhood, we often learn that certain feelings are unwelcome or inappropriate. As a result, we develop methods to suppress, ignore, or block these emotions. To cope, we might turn to substances or compulsive behaviors, which can be effective at first. However, over time, these coping mechanisms can become problems in and of themselves and they are merely masking the underlying issue.
4. A pervasive feeling that something is wrong with us or that we are flawed in some unnamed way.

The great news is that the effects of childhood emotional invalidation or neglect can be reversed.  Emotional awareness and expression are skills that can be learned and refined.  We can learn to accept the full rainbow of our feelings and actually learn to welcome all them in.  

To start reversing the impact of Childhood Emotional Neglect, you can begin by paying more attention to your feelings and learning to sit with, versus fix, whatever feelings are coming up. There are many resources that can help us to understand, recognize, process and allow our feelings.   It can be as simple as looking for a feelings chart online to start learning to identify what we are feeling in any given moment.  We can also practice doing a body scan.  Our feelings are a biological response that live in the body.  Scanning the body for different sensations can be very powerful.  Do you feel heaviness, warmth, sharp pain, tightness etc.?  Where do you feel these sensations in the body?  You can even go further and try to identify the sensation as a feeling.  Lastly, you can take notice of your reactions to certain feelings.  Do you notice that you go into isolation whenever you feel sad or that you criticize yourself if you are experiencing anger?  Taking notice is the first step to teaching yourself that you can try sitting with the feeling instead of hiding or berating yourself when you have them.  

This journey involves giving yourself the emotional care, attention and validation that was missing during your childhood. By doing so, you start the path towards healing and an emotionally enriched, awakened and fulfilling life. We highly recommend working with a Somatic Coach or Therapist while working through Childhood Emotional Neglect or Invalidation.