Contents:
- Medical Video: Riding the Roller coaster Emotional Intelligence and Emotion Regulation in Adolescence
- What happens if parents ignore the child's emotional development
- Parenting parents are closely related to neglecting children's emotional development
- What are the consequences if parents ignore the child's emotional development?
- What can parents do to prevent it childhood emotional neglect?
- How to minimize the impact of childhood emotional neglect
Medical Video: Riding the Roller coaster Emotional Intelligence and Emotion Regulation in Adolescence
Family is the first social environment for a person who can influence his growth and give an impact that continues until he is an adult. But unfortunately, at this time more and more parents are only concerned with physical development and academic intelligence, regardless of children's emotional development. So, what happens if a child grows up without mature emotional development?
What happens if parents ignore the child's emotional development
The tendency of parents to ignore the emotional development of children at the age of growth and development can trigger a child's mental health condition called childhood emotional neglect (CEN). CEN is an emotional disorder that is difficult for parents or immediate family to recognize. But this can be better known when the child is growing up, which is characterized by difficulty understanding emotions, expressing feelings, difficulty communicating, and establishing social relationships with other people. CEN is even more recognizable by third parties outside the child's social environment, because the person feels a contrasting difference from how to behave and communicate from someone who experiences CEN.
Parenting parents are closely related to neglecting children's emotional development
A clinical psychologist, Dr. Jonice Webb describes CEN as an impact of parents who fail to meet the child's emotional needs. This happens when the parent does not show the appropriate response when the child is angry or sad, and instead scolded him when he was trying to get the attention of parents.
CEN does not always emerge from hard / abusive parenting, or indifferent parents, but rather parenting with bad parent-child communication relationships. Parenting authoritarian, perfectionist, and selfish impressions that only focus on parents' desires for children will tend to suppress children's emotional development so that he too isolates himself - by not showing his emotions to his parents and even other people.
The stagnation of a child's emotional maturity can also be caused by a lack of closeness between children and parents, either because parents are too busy, divorced, sick, or (one or both) have died. Even if viewed from the material side and academic intelligence, the child has got everything he needs and wants, but without the emotional closeness gained from spending time together, the child will still learn to suppress his emotions as he grows up because he feels he does not have someone to share.
What are the consequences if parents ignore the child's emotional development?
Although everyone who experiences CEN has different backgrounds and problems, they have the same pattern of characteristics, including:
- Too hard on yourself - marked by always feeling angry and disappointed in himself or having a standard that is too high to fulfill in his life. They also tend to feel inferior and criticize themselves without being exhausted to be compared with others.
- Lack of ownership - children who suffer from CEN are more likely to feel that they are not fit in any social circle, be it family or friends. They also tend to be uncomfortable with the social environment and tend to distance themselves from the closest people.
- Feel proud to do various things by yourself - As a result they have difficulty accepting or asking for help from others.
- Often feel dissatisfied - they tend to feel there is something wrong with themselves all the time, consequently they also find it difficult to recognize what they really need and make plans for their lives.
- It's hard to understand your own feelings - they often feel angry or sad without knowing clear causes and have difficulty calming themselves when they are angry or sad.
- Depression - depression in CEN children arises from the accumulation of his inability to express emotions well so he feels lonely and also constantly blames himself. Namown by harboring negative feelings alone, this means that the child does not have effective adaptability to solve problems and obtain social support to overcome the problems he is facing.
What can parents do to prevent it childhood emotional neglect?
Here are some things parents can do to maintain emotional health and build children's emotional abilities, including:
- When children feel sad or angry, don't convince their children that everything will be okay. Help them understand their feelings by asking what happened and helping them overcome feelings of anger or sadness by showing what they should do.
- Help your child get used to conveying what makes him upset or sad, so you as parents can more easily provide assistance to children.
- Show sympathy by asking about the problem he is experiencing and make sure that you will always be ready to help him.
- Help the child to accept the situation and try to forgive an event and other people's behavior that makes him upset or angry.
How to minimize the impact of childhood emotional neglect
The first step to reduce the impact of CEN on your life and emotional condition is to be aware of the problem being experienced. Besides that, understand that you are not alone. Having confusion in expressing emotions can happen to anyone.
Get to know your true nature. For example, recognize what you like, don't like, things you fear or make you angry, etc. Do this objectively and not assess the situation that causes it to be deeper. Then identify what you need to calm down in certain stressful situations.
Reset your beliefs and views about things that make you feel anxious, angry, sad or scared. This is needed to improve the way you respond to those emotions by doing better problem solving.
Help yourself to build emotional intelligence by always understanding the emotional state and being aware of what needs to be done. And remember minimizing the impact of CEN is a process of self-improvement and emotional condition of someone who needs time and effort.
