The Development Of Childhood Self Importance

Have you ever stood with a group of people and felt no one was paying attention to you? Like you were invisible?

Most of us have, and a similar thing happens to us as children. It’s called our psychological visibility.

Child Development & Psychological visibility

Psychological visibility simply refers to how visible you feel, and how well you feel you are understood by other people.

For example, if I smiled at you and you smiled back and said “hello” I would feel visible and understood.

However if I smiled at you and instead of smiling back you either ignored me, or laughed in my face, I would feel invisible and misunderstood.

Psychological visibility is therefore created by receiving an appropriate and expected response.

If this response is inappropriate, or absent altogether, psychological invisibility is created instead.

Importance Of Visibility During Childhood Development              

Every child has a natural desire to be seen, heard, understood and responded to appropriately by their parents. As a result children will go to great lengths to make themselves seen.

This is a very important need during child development, and is one of the main reasons they look to their parents after having done something.

They want to be seen. To be noticed. To be acknowledged that they are there. To be visible.

Psychological Invisibility During Childhood development

Sometimes parents reject their child’s desire to be seen, heard and understood. If this becomes the norm during that child’s development, there will be a strong chance that they will grow up not feeling very special or important.

Maybe as a child when they came running into the kitchen full of joy, they were angrily told to shut up and go away.

Or perhaps as a teenager, they confided in a parent about the pain they felt that a relationship had ended. Instead of receiving comfort and understanding, they were simply told “not to worry about it” and “things like this happen”.

Throughout the child’s life, they constantly craved to be seen and understood by their parents. To be visible. Instead they were made to feel ignored and misunderstood. Invisible.

Effects Of Positive Childhood Development On Adult Life

The amount of psychological visibility or invisibility you during your childhood development, has a massive influence on the type of adult you became.

If for most of the time you were made to feel visible, then most likely you will grow into a confident adult who expects to be seen, heard and understood by other people.

These are the type of personalities who can easily go speak in front of a large number of people, and enjoy being the center of attention. They feel they are important, and that other people want to hear what they have to say.

Effects Of Negative Childhood Development On In Adult Life

However if during your child development you were predominantly made to feel invisible as a child, there is a good chance you will grow up into a shy and withdrawn adult, who lacks self esteem and confidence. How much you have these traits will depend on how often you were made to feel invisible.

This type of adult has the mentality that they are not worth listening to, and that nobody is really interested in what they have to say anyway.

Consequently they tend to speak quietly, and usually only when they are spoken to. They keep their head down, and don’t make a fuss.

Essentially these people have carried over a subconscious limiting belief system they acquired during their child development from their parents, and applied it to their adult working and social life.

Even though they are no longer with their parents, their subconscious still believes that they are “invisible” and as a result, causes them to act in an “invisible” way.

So What’s The Solution?

Like all subconscious limiting beliefs, removing limiting belief systems can be extremely difficult. Especially if you have had this belief all your life.

Most of the beliefs that hold back success in peoples lives, stem from a subconscious belief that they are not worthy or good enough to achieve, have or do something.

Consequently this leads to self sabotage, just as they are close to happiness or success.

If you can convince the subconscious that you are worthy of success and happiness, eventually it will adopt that new belief system and act out the program in your life.

This can be done through various mind reprogramming techniques, but even just being aware of what is going on in your life, and where it originates from, can prove to be a massive advantage.

If you know that you act a certain way because of things that happened to you in your childhood development, you can confront those memories and act a different way.

For example, it is very common for people who are made to feel invisible to do extravagant things to make then feel visible again.

Often they will dress up in outrageous outfits, wear brightly coloured clothes or do wild things. All of these are designed to draw attention to themselves, and by doing so fulfill their need to be visible.

The Benefits Of Feeling Important

If you are able to increase the amount of self importance you feel for yourself, even if it is just a little bit, you will be taking a big step forward.

Once you start to feel more visible in the world, you will start acting in ways that demand and expect visibility from others.

Since being visible is one of our most basic needs that we carry over from childhood, by feeling more visible virtually everything about you will seem better.

As a result, your self esteem, confidence and the amount of happiness and success you achieve in life will also increase.

So from today start making an effort to see yourself as an important and worthy individual. It is helpful to use affirmations throughout the day to support this, such as saying “I am worthy of…” or “I deserve this” etc…

This will help to gradually create and reinforce a subconscious belief that you do deserve to be happy and successful, and that you want to live your life being visible, rather invisible and hidden in the shadows.