Now that I see what my parents didn’t give me, how do I continue to interact with them?

Should I tell my parents how they failed me?

If I talk to my parents about childhood emotional neglect, won’t it make them feel bad?

How do I handle the pain that I feel now, as an adult, each time my parents treat my feelings like they don’t matter?

If you were raised by parents who were not tuned in enough to your emotional needs, you have probably experienced the effects of this failure over and over in your adult life. Once you realize how deeply you have been affected by childhood emotional neglect, it can become quite difficult to interact with the parents who neglected you.

One of the most frequent questions that I am asked by people who grew up with childhood emotional neglect is, “Should I talk to my parents about it?”

This is not an easy question to answer because no two childhoods are the same. In fact, the number of possible answers is as infinite as the many ways that childhood emotional neglect can happen. It can be healing when an adult child and parent come to a mutual understanding of how an emotional failure happened and why, and how it affected everyone involved. This, however, can be a complicated business, difficult, and even risky.

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to include your parents in your recovery. As an adult, you can identify what you didn’t get and begin giving it to yourself. Many people do this successfully without ever including their parents.

That said, you may feel a wish or need to reach some understanding with them. If so, one extremely important factor to consider is the type of emotionally neglectful parents that you have.

The 3 Main Categories of Emotionally Neglectful Parents

1. Self-centered, Abusive, or Multiple-Failure Parents: These parents expect their child to fulfill their needs, rather than the other way around. They may not have treated you with the physical and emotional care and protection that a child needs from a parent.
2. Struggling: These parents may mean well, but they are struggling in their own lives. They may be struggling financially, emotionally, or with the caretaking of a sick family member or child.
3. WMBNT or Well-Meaning-But-Neglected-Themselves: These parents love their children and give them everything they can. But they are not able to give their child enough emotional responsiveness and validation because they didn’t receive it in their own childhoods. They may be simply “emotion blind.”

Parents who are in the last two categories stand a better chance of getting past their initial hurt, guilt, or defensiveness to have a productive conversation. If your parents fall into the self-centered or abusive category, see the section called “Self-centered, Abusive, or Multiple-failure Parents” below.

5 Ways to Talk With Your Emotionally Neglectful Parents

1. Ask about their childhoods. Learning about your parents’ upbringing may help you understand how their emotional blind spots developed. This understanding can reduce the sting of their behavior, whether or not you talk with them.
2. Try to find compassion. Often, seeing how your parents were affected by their own upbringing can soften anger and frustration.
3. Anticipate and prepare. Think about how each parent might respond to the topic of childhood emotional neglect. Will they feel guilty, confused, defensive, or angry? Is one more open than the other?
4. If possible, take a chance. If you feel there is a potential for positive results and healing, I suggest that you take a chance and talk about it.
5. Talk with compassion and awareness. Choose a calm moment. Speak in person if possible. Frame this as a discovery about yourself, not an accusation. Explain how invisible and easy it is for emotional neglect to happen, even in loving families. Share what you are doing to heal, and emphasize that your goal is to move forward and feel closer.

Self-centered, Abusive, or Multiple Failure Parents

If you have parents who fall into one of these categories, the situation is more complex. Unless they have changed, they may not be able to understand emotional neglect or respond in a healthy way.

For you, there is one guiding principle. Make your decision based solely upon your own needs. If you think it may strengthen you or help you, even if it creates distance, then do it. If not, then do not. You are not obligated to take your parents’ needs and preferences into account. On this, it’s all about you.

Parents who were abusive to you as a child, either verbally, emotionally, physically, or sexually, are also, by definition, emotionally neglectful. If they had been emotionally attuned to you enough, they would not have been able to treat you this way.

If your parents were/are abusive in any way, then it may be of more value to talk with them about the abuse than about the neglect, since abuse is far more visible and tangible than childhood emotional neglect. Because childhood emotional neglect can be so imperceptible and hides beneath abuse, it will be very difficult and unlikely for abusive parents to ever grasp the concept.

Unless your parents have done meaningful work to change, they may not be able to hear you now any more than they could when you were a child.

So, ask yourself, “What is likely to happen if you bring this up?” Will they dismiss you, become angry, or turn it against you?“

If so, your energy may be better spent focusing on your own healing.

If you do decide to talk with them, you must be prepared to protect yourself emotionally. You will need enough strength not to be harmed by their reaction. This is not easy, especially when you were raised this way.

The Takeaway

You do not need to talk to your parents to heal from childhood emotional neglect. You can do this work on your own. Understanding your parents and developing compassion for them may help ease your pain. In some cases, sharing this understanding can improve your relationship.

But this decision is deeply personal. It depends on who your parents are and what you need. There is no single right answer. Only the one that supports your healing.

The original version of this post appears on emotionalneglect.com.

© Jonice Webb, Ph.D.