What Happens To Us When We Have Not Received Love In Childhood?

Not showing love to your children during childhood can cause them later to suffer from emotional deficiencies and to be unable to have empathy. 

Attachment is the basis of our development and an indisputable source of satisfaction in life. But what happens when we haven’t received love in childhood? This seems to be the source of some behavioral problems.

When we are born, we should all enjoy the protection and security that only motherly love can provide. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, which can lead to serious consequences. These will manifest themselves years later in our behavior and in our relationships with others.

The consequences of a lack of love during childhood

Lack of love in childhood can have unimaginable consequences in adulthood. We will discuss this below.

1. Indifference towards the suffering of others

Given the little affection received during childhood, it is possible that some people find it difficult to connect with what other people are feeling. This trait is referred to as “insensitive behavior” or “limited prosocial emotions”.

In this sense, studies such as the one conducted by the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan investigated how lack of affection in the early years of life has effects at ages 10-12 and even at age 20.

More precisely, these authors observe that  this deficiency has a later link with a lesser empathy  in children and adolescents whose parents were not very close, even aggressive in their education.

More recent studies also highlight how the quality of parent-child interactions is associated with a better understanding of the feelings  of others. This makes it easier to build positive relationships with others. This is what a study carried out by several researchers from the Dutch universities of Tilburg and Utrecht underlines.

Such results therefore focus on the consequences we experience if, for various reasons, we did not receive love during childhood.

However, early intervention is possible in many cases. There are programs aimed at helping parents cope with certain problems (financial, personal, etc.) and teaching them healthier modes of communication.

In addition, as the last cited publication points out,  relationships with peers represent an important support. These are also a clear opportunity to train in empathy and generate positive interpersonal bonds.

2. Difficulty expressing feelings and forming relationships 

Based on the above, we see that a lack of love during childhood is sometimes the start of a chain of future generations with problems.

A person who did not receive affection from his parents can repeat the same pattern with his children. In other words, if we were not loved in childhood,  we run the risk of reproducing, without realizing it, this same pattern.

Let us remember that affection in childhood is the “motor” which animates the altruistic capacities of the human being. As we grow older, the results of the quality of love we received in our first years of life appear.

It therefore seems difficult to ignore how these unmet childhood needs manifest themselves later in adulthood. Unconsciously, the protagonists of this situation aspire to fill this void, which determines their behavior and their way of relating to others.

In fact, research like that of Professor Adam J. Rock and his team provides relevant evidence in this direction. These authors discovered how different attachment styles (secure, anxious, or avoidant) have to do with the behavior we have in social interactions.

The importance of feeling loved during childhood

As we have just seen, showing love to your children is very important for different reasons. The humanization of people is possible thanks to the love received during childhood.

Indeed, the affection felt in the early years is largely linked to the development of future interpersonal skills. So if we want to prevent children from growing up with such deficiencies, it is necessary to give them the affection they deserve.

And if at some point, as parents, we need help, let us not hesitate to ask for it. Early intervention, social support and psychological counseling in these cases are, of course, useful strategies to consider.