When children feel rejected by their parents, they tend to become more anxious and insecure. Over time, they start to have low self-esteem, chronic self-doubt and depression. They even develop hostility and aggression toward others. This doesn't end in childhood and the emotional pain lingers into adulthood.
Whether intentional or not, the effects of rejection in childhood may include fear of intimacy, distrust, anxiety and depression, and people-pleasing behaviors. Feelings of confusion and emotional pain from rejection may lead to attachment challenges, ineffective coping mechanisms, or an overall sense of loneliness.
Parental rejection is, according to Rhoner, the absence or the significant withdrawal of warmth, affection or love from parents toward their children. Rohner's framework proposes three dimensions of parental rejection: a) hostility and aggression; b) indifference and negligence and, c) indifferenciated rejection.
Social rejection increases anger, anxiety, depression, jealousy and sadness. It reduces performance on difficult intellectual tasks, and can also contribute to aggression and poor impulse control, as DeWall explains in a recent review (Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2011).
Trauma: Long-term rejection or rejection that results in extreme feelings may contribute to trauma and can have serious psychological consequences. For example, children who feel consistently rejected by their parents may find it difficult to succeed at school and in relationships with their peers.
Fear of rejection is caused by complex post-traumatic stress disorder that began in childhood. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition that forms when children are abused or otherwise traumatized during their formative years.
Being rejected by a dismissive or a distant parent can have negative effects which lasts a lifetime, if without therapy. Recent studies have shown that the emotional pain caused by parental rejection activates the same area of the brain that physical pain does.
Emotionally absent or cold mothers can be unresponsive to their children's needs. They may act distracted and uninterested during interactions, or they could actively reject any attempts of the child to get close. They may continue acting this way with adult children.
Sometimes it's an act of survival for a mother to reject, abandon, and even cull their own offspring. Natural selection has favoured mothers that provide a great deal of care for their young because, in mammals, the cost of reproduction is relatively high.
The Dismissing Parent
Treats child's feelings as unimportant, trivial. Disengages from or ignores the child's feelings. Wants the child's negative emotions to disappear quickly. Sees the child's emotions as a demand to fix things. Minimizes the child's feelings, downplaying the events that led to the emotion.
Results. Higher vulnerable attachment, rejection sensitivity, and lower social support were found to be significant predictors of PTSD symptoms (f2 = 0.75). The relationships from vulnerable attachment to PTSD were mediated by rejection sensitivity and perceived social support.
“When a person's first attachment experience is being unloved, this can create difficulty in closeness and intimacy, creating continuous feelings of anxiety and avoidance of creating deep meaningful relationships as an adult,” says Nancy Paloma Collins, LMFT in Newport Beach, California.
For example, a child might initially be rejected by peers in preschool for aggressive, bossy behavior. Because he is rejected by his peers, these peers then identify him as someone to automatically exclude and to also be the target of victimization.
Research demonstrates that children who are socially withdrawn and who do experience peer rejection and exclusion are likely to become more socially withdrawn over time (Oh et al., 2008). Thus, exclusionary behavior can reinforce shy and withdrawn personality traits that are already present.
A toxic mother creates a negative home environment where unhealthy interactions and relationships damage a child's sense of self and their views of relationships with others. Over time, it increases the risk of poor development in the child's self-control, emotional regulation, social relations, etc1.
If your daughter feels unloved, she may suffer from several emotional problems. Symptoms can include depression, anxiety, self-harm, and more. These feelings are often the result of the way her parents treated her during her childhood.
The mother wound is the cultural trauma that is carried by a mother – along with any dysfunctional coping mechanisms that have been used to process that pain – and inherited by her children (with daughters generally bearing the brunt of this burden).
Increased risk of depression / mental health problems. more impulsive and less self-control. increased tendency for self-isolation. difficulty forming lasting bonds.
Invalidation happens when parents start addressing it wrongly, destroying a child's concept of it and forming a kind of emotional invalidation. If you're one of them growing up, you've started hiding these emotions because your parents made it clear that it's wrong to feel that way.
When parents are disappointed by their kids, it's because they hold a set of expectations that do not fit the choice the child is making. While parents are responsible for how they treat their child, the child is responsible for how they adjust to it.
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is when a person feels intense emotional pain related to rejection. The word “dysphoria” comes from an ancient Greek word that describes a strong — if not overwhelming — feeling of pain or discomfort.
“Symptoms of abandonment trauma can include extreme insecurity or anxiety within a relationship, obsessive or intrusive thoughts of being abandoned, and also debilitating self-esteem or self regard.” When children feel abandoned, it can leave them feeling frightened and unsafe.
Emotional abuse happens when a child is repeatedly made to feel worthless, unloved, alone or scared. Also known as psychological or verbal abuse, it is the most common form of child abuse. It can include constant rejection, hostility, teasing, bullying, yelling, criticism and exposure to family violence.