If you have children, it is more than likely that you do not conceive the fact that you do not love them. A child is loved more than life itself, so it is difficult to understand how a father or a mother they may be capable of not loving their little ones with their whole being. The reality is that this, although not common, can happen.

The Parental love

Parental love improves the well-being and development of children. This love nurtures and supports the evolution of children, shapes their personality. A harmful relationship for a child could never be classified as a love relationship, rather, they are defined as toxic relationships that cause emotional pain and that will not allow them to develop well.

Parental love must be warm : a smile or a friendly look that conveys empathy and good humor, physical affection, respectful and considerate treatment, sensitivity… Parents’ love for their children should always be sincere! Parents who feel connected with their children have the ability to adjust the intensity and emotional tone of their responses to match their child’s feeling state and needs.

During infancy, the harmonized interactions between a baby and his mother (or primary caregiver) are especially important because they provide the necessary environment for the baby to learn to regulate emotions and develop empathy.

There are parents who have toxic relationships with their children and who believe that they really love them, when they are only hurting them emotionally. These parents tend to always do the best they can for their children but were unable to see their child as someone independent of them, capable of meeting their needs. No matter how well-intentioned, many people Unfortunately, they are not prepared for the task of raising children.

Why are there parents who do not love their children?

On the other hand, we can find fathers and mothers who do not they love their children. That they should have thought about having children before, because there is no child in the world who does not deserve to be loved with all their hearts by their parents. Children are loved from the core, from the depths of their being… And when this is not the case, the little ones grow up with a lack of affection that will harm them throughout their lives.

Possible reasons

Next we are going to talk about some possible reasons that can cause the absence of love from parents towards their children.

Negative image of oneself

There are parents who have a negative image of themselves and they transmit this to their children. They are not capable of loving themselves and therefore cannot love others. Nor can they transmit love and tenderness. They tend to project their negative feelings onto others… especially their children.

Emotional immaturity

There are also parents who are immature and think that their children are an unwanted dependency burden. They believe that responsibility is a threat and are even capable of feeling resentment towards their offspring.

They don’t accept love

There are people who don’t accept love and even less with children. If these parents were hurt emotionally as children and received no love, they will have trouble accepting love and intimacy from their little ones. Faced with the emotional pain that it causes them, parents will unconsciously distance themselves from their children, causing their little ones the same pain that they suffered because they are not able to cut the toxic pattern.

Unresolved traumas of parents

There are parents who have unresolved traumas in their lives and are not able to connect emotionally with their children. They may reject or overcompensate for those traumas. Neither reaction is appropriate nor constructive for the child. For example, a parent who cannot bear to be reminded of his own childhood because of the sadness he feels, may be vindictive or uncompromising with his children when they cry.

Another parent can suppress their children’s pain in the opposite way: comforting and protecting them excessively. In any case, the child is always more expendable than the defense system of the children. fathers. The more self-protective a person is, the more they will put their defenses on the child and progressively fail to perceive the child correctly and will not promote healthy development.

Death anxiety

There is parents who reject their children because it reminds them that time passes and that they age with the passing of the years. This makes them feel great anxiety about death. It can cause tension and resentment defensive and self-protective of feelings and have behaviors that can be harmful to their children.

Hunger of love

Parents may have a primitive and unsatisfied hunger for love and care from parents since their childhood and concentrate these strong desires on their children. They confuse the feelings of longing and possession they have towards their offspring with feelings of true love. Children do not feel safe or understood by their parents and what looks like “love” is actually a toxic bond that they drain children instead of nurturing them emotionally. Children will feel smothered in any future attachment relationships.