There are children and adults who come for help who talk painfully about always feeling invisible. While no overt neglect may occur in some families, the absence of loving can dry up the wellspring of love that resides in every child's heart. The love relationship is not only broken by the presence of ridicule, scoldings, dismissiveness, physical punishment, etc, but also by the absence of warmth, listening, affection, understanding, tenderness, compassion, fun, support, encouragement and joy.

It is possible to evaluate loving in terms of either 'not what to do' or 'what to do'.įinally, the duration of the neglectful behaviour is answered by 'how long has this neglect being going on?' - weeks, months, years? Clearly, the more frequent, intense, enduring and long-lasting the blocks, the more children have to hide their true selves behind massive defensive walls. Whether parent or psychologist, there is not anyone who does not bring unresolved emotional baggage into their role, and this inevitably limits the expansiveness of the love and care children need for their holistic development. Those in the helping professions can only bring their clients to the same level of development they have reached themselves. Parents can only love children to the extent that they love themselves.

Some of these parents may still remain unhealthily enmeshed with their family of origin to the detriment of their own marriages and nuclear families. Or they have been addicted to work or perfectionism, have deep fears of failure and rejection and are highly concerned about how other people view them. Many parents who bring distressed children and adolescents for help claim angrily: 'We have done everything for them.'īut this can be a protective illusion, as in reality these parents, albeit unwittingly, have been cross, irritable, judgmental or projected their own needs and ways onto their children.

When we say we have been loving it is important to check what we mean by such a declaration. However, such non-possessive warmth is rare. Unconditional love corresponds to the deepest longing not only of children, but of every adult. There is only one kind of love and that is unconditional love.

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