What Neglect Teaches Children

Parents who neglect their child,

will have an adult child who neglects themselves.

Parents who neglect their child’s emotional needs,

will have an adult child who neglects his/her own feelings

over other people’s all time, because she was taught that

that’s how she is supposed to manage her emotions and feelings,

if she’s feeling too much, if she’s feeling any kind of intense emotion,

sadness, grief, anger…she is supposed to ignore that. Or live with the feeling, but never express it.

Parents who neglect their child’s physical needs

will have an adult child who neglects his/her own physical needs

The adult child will have a hard time prioritizing doctors appointments,

important meetings, important dates and things.

Parents who neglect teaching their child about love,

about relationships, and what relatioships are supposed to look like

will have an adult child who puts herself with the same kinds of people

that will neglect her emotional and physical needs, just like they did.

The adult child will be depressed, internalize everything, become sad

Eventually, she will completely give up on everything.

Eventually, that wounded child will feel unimportant

Like she has no purpose, like it doesn’t matter how old she gets,

Those families over there, visit each other, accept each other,

enjoy each other’s company. She sees those families and wishes

She could be a part of that. But she has been neglected.

She hasn’t understood how to take care of herself,

she’s been so sad and so beaten down that she has just

let these things happen to her.

Parents that neglect their children’s needs.

Emotional or otherwise,

End up hurting their children

in the worst ways.

A lot of parents don’t realize when they are

being neglectful or hurtful. A lot of parents

grew in different times in different ways

But a parent MUST accept that the way they were raised

is not the way they will raise their child, because

they are not living in the same time, the same things

they were taught, no longer apply, or they realize those things

hurt them when they were a kid, so they would avoid doing

that to their own child, because they don’t want to hurt them.

But in parents that neglect their child,

that doesn’t work. They just can’t deal.

They themselves don’t know how to deal

with these things and these emotions

because they were never taught how by THEIR parents

Parents who neglect their children

wonder why their adult children are taking

such a long, long time to find their way,

why things just haven’t settled for them yet

it’s because I was neglected.

It’s because no matter what happens, no matter

what I do, it will not change their neglect

It will not make them care about me

the way I need. The only thing it does

is make me sick, and sad, and depressed

The only thing it does, is make me miserable

And lonely and wish that I know HOW to parent myself

Because quite frankly I DON’T and I know it

Parents who neglect their children

Do so much more damage, that we have to spend

the rest of our lives cleaning that up,

and we never have time to have lives

or families of our own, because we are too busy

picking up the shattered, broken pieces of ourselves

that were left behind a long time ago…