10 Seemingly Normal Things Even Good Parents Do That Can Accidentally Make Kids Feel Unwanted
Marina Demidiuk | ShutterstockEven with the very best intentions, parents are capable of making their kids feel unwanted. These mistakes are often small and totally unintentional, but they can have a big impact over time.
Kids build their sense of self-worth around how their parents treat them. Parenting from a place of care and respect makes kids feel loved, which gives them confidence to take on the world. But all of that can be undermined if parents don't pay close attention to these behaviors.
Even good parents sometimes do these things that can make their kids feel unwanted:
1. Minimizing their concerns
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Parents might not mean to invalidate their kids, but brushing aside their worries or calling them trivial makes kids feel like they don't matter.
It can be a tricky balance to strike, knowing that minimizing kids' concerns is harmful, yet overemphasizing them can also be damaging.
Being protective is a natural part of caring for kids, but sometimes, ignoring that instinct is the best thing parents can do. According to the Child Mind Institute, helping kids overcome anxiety requires letting them feel it. By swooping in and removing the cause of their kids' stress, parents inadvertently instill learned helplessness and erode their confidence.
Acknowledging their anxiety is essential, but so is encouraging kids to face their fears. Parents can listen, help their kids find solutions, and show love without indulging every conversation that lasts two hours about a minor concern.
When parents show their kids how to tolerate anxiety, they give them the gift of self-trust. Part of being a successful adult is knowing that they can navigate discomfort and come out stronger on the other side.
2. Yelling when they make mistakes
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There are certain situations where a raised voice is how a parent shields their kid from danger, like chasing a ball into a busy street. Other than these moments, yelling at them makes them feel rejected on a fundamental level.
As parenting coach Mia Von Scha points out, "The parental home is the place where children can experiment, learn, and explore, trying out different emotions, behaviors, attitudes, and character traits in a safe and loving space."
Von Scha shares that the underlying goal of parenting is "providing a safe space for mistakes to be learned from and messes to be cleaned up... We empower our children by letting them figure things out as they go."
While love and anger can absolutely exist at the same time, communicating by yelling doesn't actually help them learn how to not make mistakes in the future. Worse, it can make them feel unsafe and unwanted.
3. Zoning out on their phones
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When parents spend too much time on their phones, it unintentionally makes kids feel unwanted and unimportant. Parents can't be expected to be "on" all the time and scrolling on their phones can be a welcome distraction from the stresses of daily life. But there's a right time to zone out, and it's generally not while hanging out with kids.
No matter how old kids are, they still need to know their parents find them interesting. Parents might not care about the same things their kids care about, but putting their phones away and listening to their kids rattle off every dinosaur fact they've ever learned makes them feel appreciated.
Quality time should be just that. Staring at a screen keeps parents from fully connecting with their kids, which is the most valuable thing they can do.
4. Overworking
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Overworking parents can often make a kid feel unwanted, totally unintentionally. This is a tough one to negotiate, as most parents need to work in order to provide.
The hours they devote to work are for a higher purpose: Keeping a roof over their heads and putting food on the table. Working outside the home means that parents get caught in the continuous struggle of figuring out what to focus their energy on.
The shift from working in an office to working from home gives parents more flexibility, but it also blurs the lines between their professional and personal lives. Young kids, especially, don't understand why their parents won't play with them when they're sitting right there.
The trick is figuring out how to not overdo it. When parents learn to set boundaries with work, whenever possible, their kids learn that they have value to their parents. Enough value, at least, to be worth their parents being home in time to read a book or play a game before bed.
5. Refusing to apologize when they're wrong
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Parents put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect, which is impossible to achieve. When they do mess up, they worry that admitting they were wrong will make their kids lose respect for them. In reality, not acknowledging mistakes causes kids to internalize the idea they're always wrong and question their parents' love.
When parents apologize authentically, kids learn a few lessons. First, they learn that their instinct that something was wrong was real and that they can trust their gut feelings and judgments.
Second, parental apologies model for the child what a genuine apology looks like. Kids learn how to give one and how to spot a disingenuous one.
When people don't offer their kids apologies, they take away an opportunity to connect on an even deeper level, which can make a child feel unimportant.
6. Asking only surface-level questions
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The chaos of raising kids means that certain details fall through the cracks. Remembering that one kid refuses to eat sandwiches with crust and the other only eats crusts, while keeping track of the carpool schedule, the grocery list, and every other essential piece of family information, can feel overwhelming.
In the rush of after-school activities, it's easy for parents to ask only surface-level questions. Their kids might only offer noncommittal one-word answers every time their parents ask about their day, but that is partly because their parents aren't asking questions the kids actually care to talk about.
Kids need to feel secure, seen, and cared for, and being asked questions that show their parents' interest helps them feel all these things. Questions like, "What was the happiest part of your day?" or "What is the most fun you've ever had?" go so much further than just, "How was school?"
7. Dismissing their dreams
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Parents prioritize their kids' happiness by allowing them to envision how their lives might unfold. By giving their kids the opportunity to pursue their passions, parents reveal the depth of their love.
Psychologist Dr. Sheryl Ziegler notes that being supportive doesn't mean giving kids carte blanche to do whatever they want; rather, "it means you validate their feelings, encourage them, and get creative when what they want is not something you can provide or think is best for them."
"You can be supportive of their desires without compromising what you think is best. Listening, validating, and then creating a plan (or plan B) together is key to letting your child know you support them," she shared. "You will raise a child who knows they're loved, understands their place in the world and feels secure at any given time."
8. Being short-tempered and easy to anger
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It's unrealistic to expect parents to never lose their cool, but being chronically short-tempered only elevates tension within a family. Having a patient approach to parenting is crucial to kids' development. Staying level-headed is hard, but channeling an inner calm helps parents co-regulate their kids' emotions.
Parents are models for how their kids enter the world. Offering kids patience as they learn who they want to be is an act of unconditional love.
9. Not acknowledging their wins
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Not every little thing deserves a trophy, but when parents tell their kids how proud they are, they reinforce how important it is to show up and try their hardest. Instead of focusing on shallow praise, experts suggest encouraging them to see the value of both successes and failures.
Parents who disregard their kids' victories make them feel unimportant, leaving them to wonder how they can access their parents' affection. When they focus too much on a child's mistakes and ignore their wins, a kid can feel unloved and may even start acting up in order to get attention/
Celebrating kids for being themselves, as well as their efforts and resilinece, is a way for parents to share how much love they feel.
10. Avoiding hard conversations
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Avoiding hard conversations is the easy way out, and with how hard parents work these days, who can blame them for taking it? Wading through the murky waters of their innermost feelings without a map isn't the easiest thing for parents or kid, but it's a key part of connecting on a deeper level and helping kids access and express their emotions.
Sidestepping uncomfortable topics solely because they're uncomfortable teaches kids to be avoidant. They'll inevitably come to equate vulnerability with weakness, which will hold them back from making meaningful relationships as they grow up.
Having tough conversations is challenging for everyone, but when it comes to parent-child relationships, it's essential to practice. Try and try and try until it comes easily. Your kids' self-esteem is worth it.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
