There are many reasons why a parent might feel unable to feel love for their new child, but all are remediable. The most likely reason for detachment from a child is postpartum depression. For many parents, detachment is a consequence of the defenses they developed to endure their own suboptimal childhood.
If you look closely, you may realize that disliking your child is more about you than them—because it has to do with your reaction to their behavior. Sometimes, as parents, we are triggered by memories of our own childhood, causing feelings of inadequacy, fear, or anxiety. We then project those feelings onto our kids.
Feeling disconnected from your child is a usual part of parenting. Although it leaves you questioning your abilities, with some time and effort, you can work on restoring your connection. Excess screen time, neglecting your own needs, and replacing quality time with material things can contribute to the disconnect.
What is Depleted Mother Syndrome (DMS)? In a nutshell, Depleted Mother Syndrome (DMS) occurs when demands on the mother increase, and her resources decrease. As a result of this imbalance, the mother's emotional sensitivity to both internal, and external triggers becomes heightened.
Parents have unresolved trauma in their own lives.
For example, a parent who cannot bear to be reminded of his own childhood sadness may be vindictive or punishing to his children when they cry. Another parent may suppress her children's pain in just the opposite way—by over-comforting and over-protecting them.
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.
Report Ad. Without a parent's love, children feel rejected. Parental rejection is experienced as cold, unaffectionate, hostile, aggressive, indifferent, neglected, or lack of care.
What Is An Emotionally Unavailable Parent. Emotionally unavailable parents are physically present but emotionally detached. They keep an emotional distance from their children, interacting with them only when necessary, and they remain uninvolved in their lives.
What Is Mom Burnout? Moms experiencing mom burnout often report feeling intense exhaustion and disengagement or depersonalization related to parenting, such as simply “going through the motions,” rather than feeling present or engaged with their children's lives.
Parents of children with an avoidant attachment tend to be emotionally unavailable or unresponsive to them a good deal of the time. They disregard or ignore their children's needs, and can be especially rejecting when their child is hurt or sick.
“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.
There is increasing evidence from the fields of development psychology, neurobiology and animal epigenetic studies that neglect, parental inconsistency and a lack of love can lead to long-term mental health problems as well as to reduced overall potential and happiness.
The period that a baby uses to select a primary attachment figure stretches from 2 to over 12 months, with most infants making up their minds in the period between 3 and 7 months.
Maternal separation anxiety is a construct that describes a mother's experience of worry, sadness, or guilt during short-term separations from her child.
All these struggles as a parent are completely normal. Every parent has had “I should have” done that or this better. It is common to struggle as a parent and most parents can feel a sense of failure during those challenging times.
Abandonment issues happen when a parent or caregiver does not provide the child with consistent warm or attentive interactions, leaving them feeling chronic stress and fear. The experiences that happen during a child's development will often continue into adulthood.
Typically, emotionally immature parents get to be that way because of unaddressed issues from their childhood. They may themselves have been raised by people who were emotionally unavailable, or they may have suffered stress, distress, or trauma that was never properly addressed.
An emotionally absent mother may fail to develop the kind of satisfying attachment bonds in her children that make sustaining ordinary relationships possible. Such children may come to grow up with a complicated sense of emotional absence in themselves.
Unfortunately, it is something children today experience too. If your children are not touched, they can get into a deficit state that can lead to negative mental health as well as show up as psychosomatic symptoms. These symptoms could include a headache, abdominal pain, anxiety, and sadness, to name a few.
We all assume that parental love is a given, but that's a myth. Parents who don't love their children are more common than we think. If you grew up with one of those parents, you went through unimaginable pain. Every child has a vital need for a genuine, loving connection with the parents (especially the mother).
Detached: The parent exhibits distant, cool, and mechanical behaviors, suggesting that they're avoiding emotional connection. Problematic or disturbed: The parent lacks basic-level care and interaction. There may be signs of hostility and intrusiveness.