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Relationships
How Absent Parents Hurt Their Children
In ways unseen, neglect fuels narcissism, attachment disorders, and anxiety.
Posted October 7, 2024 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Key points
- Inattentive/disengaged parenting has particularly negative outcomes for children.
- Children need to be consistently loved and celebrated as they are and to be seen as valuable and worthy.
- Children who live witih inattentive/disengaged parents often become distant and disengaged in relationships.
- Kind, loving adults can help break the isolation and distance and provide alternate models of connection.
Doug is the CEO of a tech startup, on call 24-7. Even at the dinner table, he’s answering texts from his subordinates. His two elementary-age children, Josh and Sarah, have noticed he’s never really “there,” but their mother, Jane, instructs them that they must not bother him, since he is a very important person.
Then she reminds the nanny to keep the children in line. This is usually said as she’s rushing out the door to her various volunteer positions—at the church, at the Junior League, and at whatever gala event can rope her into a leadership position. In fact, both parents seem to find most of their lives exist outside of the house, rather than in it.
The parents are not necessarily ill-intentioned. They love their children, but their focus is elsewhere. Both Josh and Sarah love their nanny, Mara, but she’s leaving in the fall for a different job, and they’re both feeling a deep sense of loss that neither of them has the words to voice. Josh, starved for attention, becomes a pleaser, a practically perfect teacher’s pet and an easy target for manipulators. Sarah decides that negative attention is better than no attention at all and delights in finding ways to get herself kicked out of school.
Doug and Jane have adopted the inattentive/disengaged parent position, a type of parenting that has particularly negative outcomes for children. Popular media often depicts such parents as on the edge of poverty or suffering from addiction, depression, or serious mental illness. However, this damaging parenting position can be adopted by people of all walks of life.
The Inattentive/Disengaged Parent
There are two critical features of this parenting style: lack of involvement and criticism or lack of regard (not seen as valuable).
The most obvious, defining feature of the inattentive parent is lack of involvement. The characteristic can take a variety of forms, ranging from extreme neglect (i.e., parents who leave their child alone for hours, even days on end, which can eventually draw the attention of child protective services) to parents who are in the home but not actually engaged with their children (i.e., Mom or Dad is online with business all day, and the children are functionally alone, required to fend for themselves).
The second feature of the inattentive parent involves excessive criticism and/or lack of positive regard. It can take a variety of forms, ranging from screaming at or berating the child ("You're a horrible daughter") to more subtle forms of criticism ("You certainly don't put in the effort or play like the soccer players who make the select team"). The lack of positive regard also covers a continuum, from more clear verbal statements ("Oh well, we wouldn't expect anything better from Bobby") to a lack of attention (not showing up at the game or not recognizing the child's efforts when the game is over).
The Psychological Consequences of Inattention and Disengagement
The psychological consequences of inattention and neglect are profound. Children need to be consistently loved and celebrated as they are, and they need to be seen as valuable and worthy. They also need someone to show care and concern by spending time with them, especially through unstructured time.
The parent who adopts an inattentive/disengaged position essentially starves the child of this needed psychological sustenance. Unfortunately, this parental position establishes for the child a dysfunctional model of love and relationships. If a person experiences a childhood barren of enough love and attention, they can develop an absence of drive for connection. This often results in a lonely and solitary life.
The negative impact on the child from inattentive/disengaged parenting: The child grows to be distant and disengaged (most notably from relationships) and is at risk for developing emotional problems.
Children of those who adopt an inattentive/disengaged parenting posture react in different ways. While one child seeks attention through either positive or negative behaviors, a second type of child becomes resigned to loneliness and retreats into solitary activities.
A third type of child accepts the barrenness in the family home and looks outside of it for relationships. Such a child often fares better in life, especially if kind, loving adults can help break the isolation and distance and provide alternate models of connection. It's impossible to overemphasize the impact a loving teacher or caregiver can have on a neglected child’s life. Even growing up in the shadow of damaging parenting, there is always hope for positive development and healthy resilience.
The behavior of the inattentive/disengaged parent can fuel emotional disturbance in different forms. These include narcissism, attachment disorders, and anxiety.
How Does Narcissism Arise?
Nothing damages a person's self-concept more thoroughly than neglect. The child feels invisible and unloved, spurring the child to continually fill a bucket that contains a gaping hole. There aren't enough blue ribbons, first-place trophies, or surface-level relationships to fill that bucket, because the basic foundation is lacking. Still, the child often grasps at such things. Narcissistic tendencies and traits arise, which, unaddressed, can turn into a full-blown narcissistic disorder in adulthood.
How Does Neglect Fuel Attachment Disorder?
The child's model of love and relationships is profoundly influenced by neglect. Children learn that care and affection are not to be expected. They learn that love is not only conditional but also beyond their reach. They learn to not rely on others, as their early experiences interfere with trust. Caution most often drives their interpersonal relationships, or they can withdraw from human connection completely.
How Does Neglect Turn into Anxiety?
Neglect overwhelms the child's ability to cope. The child's world is marked by unpredictability and uncertainty. A lack of steady support from the parent leaves the child alone and often frightened. Anxiety is a common response to such early life experience. The world is experienced as threatening, and anxiety can thrive.
Overcoming Neglect
A loving adult, whether a parent, caregiver, or teacher, can help to reset the baseline of such a child, but it's important to understand that there is a time commitment involved. In other words, there's no quick fix for a child who is hurting on this level. Luckily, there is hope—as long as the issue is addressed in childhood.
The best kinds of parents are not perfect, but they invest consistent love and time in their relationship with their child.
A version of this blog post was first published on drmaryannlittle.com.
