Invisible Force, Part 2
When my children were young, my son got to go into these fun play rooms for various types of therapy while I waited in the lobby with my daughter. Sometimes the therapist would allow her to go into the room with them to play. I was always so grateful when they did this. Not because I got some free time to myself (though it was nice!) but because it would keep her from feeling excluded.
On one occasion, she finally asked, “Why can’t I go play in the rooms?”
How do you explain to a very young child that their sibling needed extra help on things that she did naturally?
No matter what I said or how in tune I may have been to her feelings, she still internalized that she didn’t get to do something fun and her brother did. It was quite possible that she began to internalize that something was wrong with her or she wasn’t loved as much or wasn’t as important as her brother.
Our childhood perceptions, and ultimate inner vows, get buried in our subconscious and will eventually affect our lives and relationships as adults.
I have told her many times that she will someday need to go back into her memories and heal from her childhood wounds. The more I help her to understand that now, the more likely she will not pass on generational bad habits. We don’t recognize these habits or behaviors as unhealthy because that is all we know.
Because it’s (emotional neglect) invisible, insidious, and easily passes from generation to generation, it’s extremely unlikely and difficult to stop unless you become explicitly aware of it. Jonice Webb, Running on Empty
In Jonice Webb’s, Running on Empty she gives us 12 types of parents that can typically fail to fill their child’s emotional tank, and it is possible to have traits from one or more categories. As I read through them, not only did I see my parents but I also saw myself. So two things:
1) Give yourself some grace as a parent. I had to do that for myself. We all operate out of our brokenness, but the good news is that we can start to become aware of what we are not giving our children and change.
2) This is not meant to dishonor our parents. They only knew what they learned from their parents and so forth. It’s about identifying areas in our own life that were affected by Childhood Emotional Neglect so that we can heal and not continue any behaviors into the next generation.
12 types that contribute to an empty emotional tank
Type 1 : The Narcissistic Parent
Narcissus, a handsome man from Greek mythology, fell in love with his own image. He was loved by all but rejected all. No one was good enough for him. This type of parenting demands perfection and no embarrassment because their children are really not separate beings, they are a reflection of the parent. “The needs of the child are defined by the needs of the parent, and the child who tries to express his needs is often accused of being selfish or inconsiderate.” They lack the ability to empathize or care about their child’s feelings.
Type 2: The Authoritarian Parent
These parents are considered extremely strict, restrictive and sticklers for following the rules. The feelings of the child is not of importance. Adherence to the rules, complete obedience and no questioning of the rules are expected of their children. “Many authoritarian parents tend to equate the child’s obedience with love. In other words, if the child quietly and thoroughly obeys the parent, the parent feels loved.”
Type 3: The Permissive Parent
“The path of least resistance” is what these parents long for, whether it is because they want their children to be happy or they just don’t want to have deal with conflict. Regardless of the reason, the children are not provided with boundaries, structures or limits and are often left on their own to deal with life.
Type 4: The The Bereaved Parent: Divorced or Widowed
“Bereaved parents are often just desperately trying to cope. It is not easy to have a parent who is grieving.” Many times the child’s feelings are not considered because the parent is so overwhelmed with their own grief and doesn’t know how to deal with it. They tend to go into survival mode, and the child is left on their own to deal with his grief.
Type 5: The Addicted Parent
An addicted parent can be addicted to a wide range of things and/or behaviors. When Jonice talks about an addicted parent, she is referring to those that are functional. What typically harms the children of this type of parent is “they are behaving like two people. And the child cannot always predict which side of her addicted parent is going to show up.” The child will typically grow up with high anxiety because of the unpredictability in the home.
Type 6: The Depressed Parent
The depressed parents have little energy or ability to focus on parenting. They do not have much emotional bandwidth to freely give to their child. “In school, children of depressed parents are more likely to be perceived as troublemakers…they do not know how to self-soothe and may turn to drugs and alcohol.” This happens because good behavior typically doesn’t get noticed and bad behavior does because it has to be dealt with.
Type 7: The Workaholic Parent
Workaholics typically work long hours, and their job is a high priority. Unfortunately it is the children who suffer because they do not get much time to interact with their parent. “By putting their work first, workaholics convey the message to their children that their feelings and needs are of lesser importance (damaging their children’s self-worth).”
Type 8: The Parent with a Special Needs Family Member
Jonice recognizes that this one category does not deserve to be in this list because these parents are dealt a situation through no fault of their own. However, research has shown that regardless of how much these parents check in on their children and make sure they are doing ok, the perceptions of the children still impact them. Many times they are asked to help out or take on a lot of responsibilities. These parents tend to “subconsciously minimize their child’s distress…and burden him with a maturity of which he is not really capable.”
Type 9: The Achievement/Perfection Focused Parent
These types of parents can be very similar to the Narcissistic Parent, but can have various reasons for why they push their children to succeed. Not all of these type of parents can be neglectful. “A healthy AP parent is supporting her child to achieve what the child wants. An unhealthy AP parent is pressuring her child to achieve what the parent wants.”
Type 10: The Sociopathic Parent
Jonice refers to the more subtle sociopath and not the extreme sociopath that you may think of, like Hannibal Lecter. These type of parents fly under the radar. They are your typical neighbor, PTA member or co-worker. Sociopaths feel no quilt and do not show empathy. Therefore, a child’s feelings are worthless. This parent “appears to purposely hurt you and then proceeds normally as if they did nothing wrong, and as if you should not be hurt.”
Type 11: Child as Parent
“This type of parent actually allows, encourages or forces his child to behave as if he is a parent, not a child.” Many of the other types of parents lends itself to the child as parent dynamic, i.e. Special Needs, Depressed. Sometimes hardships out of the control of the parents require them to rely heavily on their children, and this does not necessarily mean the children are emotionally neglected. Despite the hardship, some parents stay in tune with their child’s feelings and are able to provide him with emotional care and acknowledgement.
Type 12: The Well-Meaning-but-Neglected-Themselves Parents
“To love your child is a very different thing from being in tune with your child. For healthy development, loving a child just isn’t enough.” These parents are well-intentioned and typically love their child very much, but because of their own emotional neglect knowing how to be in tune with their child’s feelings is a foreign behavior. They never learned it themselves or realized its importance.
Please read Jonice Webb’s book Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect to find out more information and to learn practical steps to begin healing. Her book was life changing for me and my husband. I believe it can be life changing for others as well.
One of the main reasons we have a hard time being in tune with our children’s emotions is because we are not aware of our own emotions. So, I would like to give some immediate steps that Jonice gives in her book to help us start recognizing and valuing our emotions. It is called the IAAA Steps.
Identify – Identify the feeling you are experiencing.
Accept – Accept your feeling for what it is. No judgment.
Attribute – Be curious about the reasoning behind your emotion. What is the cause?
Act – Is there an action that needs to take place because of the emotion? If there is do it, appropriately.
Jonice also gives information on common themes found in adults dealing with Childhood Emotional Neglect as well as more practical steps to heal. Again, I highly recommend this book.
God’s grace continues to overwhelm my heart as I walk this transformational journey. I’m not perfect in my parenting, but I’m starting to feel better about it because I have come to realize that my relationship and emotional connection with my children is more important than appearances, rules, performance and even my need for sleep! Do they really need to talk right when I’m going to bed?! Yes, they do. And yes, I will!
“Let us examine our ways and test them and let us return to the Lord.” Lamentations 3:40
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Lord, open our hearts and eyes to see the wounds that we may have caused or that was done to us. Forgive us. Heal us. Help us to change. Create in us a pure heart and renew our wounded spirit. Amen.
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