When you tell a child that their feelings aren’t “really how they feel” or that they don’t matter. The child will learn to stop expressing their feelings. When you lay the burdens of your adult problems on your child, you are stealing their adolescents, you are making them grow up way before their time. When you judge them with harsh words and punish them with belts or fists, you are breaking their spirit. That spirit is the very beginning of their self discovery and without it they will wander through life never knowing who they are. When you ignore a child’s plea for help or belittle their fears, they will no longer speak of such things, just endure. When you don’t celebrate their victories they will believe they are not deserving of celebration. When you don’t meet their needs and the child is required to “fend for themselves” they will learn that they can trust and depend on no one. The very age that most believe “doesn’t matter”, is the very age where the most damage is done. The children will carry these lessons through life and it will effect every aspect of their being …. It will make them believe they are not deserving of love. That their feeling and thoughts do not matter. They will live a life of limitations that you helped create. They will never even discover who they are because their light was snuffed so long ago. You are promoting generational trauma and condemning them to a life of misery and not the one designed. For the rest of their lives they will carry these lessons and it will infect every relationship they have like a metastasized cancer, slowly killing each one and the child will blame themselves. They will repeat patterns and choices of which are never good for the child , because the child has no idea – even as an adult – that they aren’t an awful person and the lies they were taught in their childhood aren’t the truth. Those who see and choose to try and unwinded the narrative of their life will fight a giant uphill battle. They will face demons and fears all to learn that they aren’t the person they were told they were. But it takes so much time to untangle the destruction of a child’s “self” caused by a wreck less parent. Many give up and many just quit. So be aware of your words, actions and thoughts. Don’t project your own parents same mistakes upon your children.
Lola Trying 