The Foundations Of Assertiveness Are Laid In Childhood
Assertiveness refers to the ability to assert our rights appropriately and always respecting others. Knowing how to say “no”, for example, is a clear example of healthy assertiveness. However, what happens so that it does not settle as it should? Where is the problem?
The answer lies in one of the most important stages of our life: childhood. If since childhood our parents carry out a poor emotional education, in the future we will have serious difficulties to be assertive, recognize our rights and defend them with enough force so that no one violates them.
Emotional neglect in childhood
What do we understand by emotional neglect? Failure to respond to the emotional needs that every child has. For example, surely on more than one occasion we have thought that the fact that a child cries because he has lost his toy is silly and we laugh at him. This will cause him to learn to hide his emotions for fear of making a fool of himself.
Phrases such as “it’s not that big of a deal” or “you cry over nonsense” are thrown without thinking by adults towards children without being aware of the terrible foundations that are laying them. The little ones will understand that their reactions are not adequate and will learn to contain and repress them. However, this is not all. There are many more consequences that will take shape as children reach adulthood.
One of these consequences is that these little people, now grown up, will not be able to recognize their emotions and feelings and, what is even worse, will not be able to express them properly. This will cause them to adopt two very extreme positions towards others, that is, they may choose to allow other people to step on them or they may show extraordinary aggressiveness.
But, perhaps one of the worst results of parental emotional neglect is the formation of poor self-esteem. These little ones, in future adults, will believe that they do not deserve to be loved, so they will live unsatisfactory relationships that they will never feel worthy of, feeling unhappy and suffering a lot for thinking that they can leave at any time.
The second of the bases is to teach children to recognize what they feel, discern the emotion that has been present and understand it, in order to manage it better. Failure to do this will cause serious emotional management problems in the not too distant future.
The third of all is to communicate with the children and know how to ask the right questions so that they themselves gain security. Some of these questions may be “what do you think, how do you feel, what do you need or what do you want to say?”
Meeting the emotional needs of the little ones will help them discover what they feel and what they need. But, in addition, it will allow them to be aware that their emotions and their needs are important, that no one has to trample them and that they can freely express what they feel because they deserve to be respected by others.
If they do not learn all this from a young age, based on the education their parents have given them, when they grow up they will have serious safety and self-esteem problems. They will not consider it true that they deserve to be treated well or loved by others, and all of this can lead to self-destructive behaviors and constant self-sabotage.
