Understanding Child Development

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A child's behavior is driven by their emotions, so helping them manage feelings comes first.

Small shifts in how you answer your child's feelings can keep emotional neglect from passing down.

You don't have to parent perfectly, only well enough, to raise an emotionally healthy child.

As we all swim together through the murky sea of parenting, I offer you some clear answers: three goals to keep in mind at all times, and exactly how to achieve them.

If you've made many parenting mistakes, rest assured: you are not alone.

Let's face it: parenting is hard. For most of us, doing it right means facing our own demons. Because no one is exposed to our flaws, blind spots, or unresolved issues as much as the children who depend on us. As a psychologist who has specialized in childhood emotional neglect for decades, I have seen how easily this happens.

Unfortunately, all those unresolved problems often transfer automatically from ourselves to our children, unless we make a conscious effort to stop them. This is made more or less difficult for us parents by our own childhoods.

The Subtle but Dramatic Impact of Childhood Emotional Neglect

If you grew up with parents who subtly discouraged or discounted your feelings (childhood emotional neglect), for example, then you'll have a natural inclination, outside of your awareness, to do the same with your children. This is why emotional neglect is so rampant in today's world. It transfers, unchecked and unnoticed, from one generation to the next.

This natural transfer process is aided by one simple fact: in today's world, we are all focused primarily on how our children behave. We don't want them to get in trouble at school or irritate others, right?

Although it's very........

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