Child Neglect Is Devastating to the Sense of Self |
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Neglect is understudied, yet it is the most common form of maltreatment.
Neglect should not be confused with poverty.
Children who have experienced neglect have high rates of suicidal ideation and illicit drug use.
Young children often think they are neglected because of something bad about themselves.
Neglect is the most commonly reported type of child maltreatment, affecting more than one in seven U.S. children at some point in their lives, and yet it is the least studied type of childhood adversity (Vanderminden et al, 2019). It is associated with a wide range of long-term negative health, mental health, and developmental outcomes. Some studies have found that quality of life in adulthood was lower for those who experienced emotional abuse and neglect than for those who were physically or sexually abused (Lippert & Nemeroff, 2023; Strathearn et al., 2020).
Neglect is often confused or conflated with poverty, sometimes leading to inappropriate child welfare interventions or child removals when the problem is a parent with financial or housing difficulties rather than a matter of intentional or unthinking neglect. Severe neglect and growing up in extreme poverty are both associated with disruptions to brain maturation and delays in cognitive development (Smith, 2025), but the dynamics and effects of child neglect are........