Ten-year-old Jasmine lies alone on her bed, glad to be sequestered behind the closed doors of her room.It could happen, she whispers quietly to herself. In her mind shes reliving the fantasy thats helped her to get her through her life so far: her father answers the doorbell and a kind, well-dressed couple explains to him that Jasmine was accidentally sent home with the wrong family at birth, and that she actually belongs to them. They then take her back to their home, where she feels loved, nurtured and cared for

Jasmine doesnt know it, but this is only the beginning of her struggle. She will spend the next twenty years wishing that she had different parents, and feeling guilty about it.

After all, her parents are basically good people. They work hard, and Jasmine has a house, food, clothing and toys. She goes to school every day, and does her homework every afternoon. She has friends at school, and plays soccer. By all accounts, she is a very lucky child.

But despite Jasmines luck, and even though her parents love her, even at age ten she knows, deep down, that she is alone in this world.

How could a ten-year old know this? Why would she feel this way? The answer is as simple as it is complicated:

Jasmine is being raised by parents with low emotional intelligence. She is growing up with Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).

Emotional Intelligence: The ability to identify, assess and control ones own emotions, the emotions of others, and those of groups (as described by Daniel Goleman).

Childhood Emotional Neglect: A parent’s failure to respond enough to the child’s emotional needs.

When you are raised by parents who lack emotional awareness andskills, you struggle for good reasons:

1. Since your parents dont know how to identify their own emotions, they dont speak the language of emotion in your childhood home.

So instead of saying, You look upset Sweetie. Did something happen at school today?, your parents absent-mindedly say, So how was school?

When your grandmother passes away, your family marches through the funeral acting like its no big deal.

When your prom date stands you up, your family shows their support by making an effort to never speak of it. Or they tease you about it relentlessly, never seeming to notice or care how very mortified you are.

The Result: You dont learn how to be self-aware. You dont learn that your feelings are real or important. You dont learn how to feel, sit with, talk about or express emotions.

2. Since your parents are not good at managing and controlling their own emotions, they are not able to teach you how to manage and control your own.

So when you get in trouble at school for calling your teacher a jerk, your parents do not ask you what was going on or why you lost your temper that way. They dont explain to you how you could have handled that situation differently. Instead, they ground you or they yell at you or they blame it on your teacher, letting you off the hook.

The Result: You dont learn how to control or manage your feelings or how to manage difficult situations.

3. Since your parents dont understand emotions, they give you many wrong messages about yourself and the world through their words and behavior.

So your parents act as if youre lazy because they havent noticed that its your anxiety that holds you back from doing things.

Your siblings call you crybaby and treat you as if youre weak because you cried for days after your beloved cat was run over by a car.

The Result: You go forward into adulthood with the wrong voices in your head. Youre lazy, Youre weak, say The Voices of Low Emotional Intelligence at every opportunity.

All of these results leave you struggling, baffled and confused. You are out of touch with your true self (your emotional self), you see yourself through the eyes of people who never really knew you, and you have great difficulty handling situations that are stressful, conflictual or difficult.

You are living the life of Childhood Emotional Neglect.

Is it too late for Jasmine? Is it too late for you? What can be done if you grew up this way?

Fortunately, it is not too late for Jasmine or for you. There are things that you can do:

  • Learn everything you can about emotion. Start your own Emotion Training Program. Pay attention to what you feel, when and why. Start observing others feelings and behavior. Listen to how other people express their emotions, and start practicing yourself. Think about who in your life right now can teach you. Your wife, your husband, your sibling or friend? Practice talking about your feelings with someone you trust.
  • Talk back to those false messages in your head. When that voice from your childhood speaks, stop listening. Instead, take it on. Replace that voice with your own. The voice that knows you and has compassion for what you didnt get from your parents. Im not lazy, I have anxiety and Im trying my best to face it. Im not weak. My emotions make me stronger.

As an adult, Jasmine must stop fantasizing about a solution knocking on her door. The reality is, she must now learn these skills on her own.

Hopefully she will see that she missed out on some vital building blocks, simply because her parents did not know. Hopefully she will realize that she has emotions, and will learn how to value and hear and manage and speak them. Hopefully she will start beating down those Voices of Low Emotional Intelligence.

Hopefully she will learn who she really is. And dare to be it.

If you identify with Jasmine, you can learn more about whether you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect.Take the Emotional Neglect Test. It’s free.