Three Reasons Why the Silent Treatment is Damaging to Children

Children do not learn love from what their parents say, they learn it from what their parents do. When a child grows up in a home where one caregiver uses the silent treatment as punishment, they absorb the emotional energy of the household long before they understand the words. I am defining the silent treatment as the withdrawal of communication and emotional connection, typically for over twenty-four hours, paired with hostile energy and without repair once the period of silence ceases. The person who utilizes the silent treatment returns to the relationship without discussing why he or she used the silent treatment and expects everything to go back to normal. This is not a communication style; it is a form of dominance, emotional abandonment, and psychological control which can shape future generations. These are three reasons why the silent treatment is damaging to children.

1. The Silent Treatment Signals Danger and Thereby Causes Anxiety

Trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes that "children learn to regulate themselves and their emotions by watching their caregivers," meaning that when a parent withdraws in anger, the child experiences that withdrawal as danger because humans depend on connection for survival. This can easily lead to anxiety, hypervigilance, and other mental health issues as the child's system is constantly in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode.

2. The Silent Treatment Normalizes the Domination Dynamic

When a parent uses silence as punishment, a child quietly learns: comply or be punished. They learn that love requires dominance and obedience, not mutual respect. They learn that the person with more power can disappear, while the person with less power must chase, appease, or shrink to restore connection. Psychologist Dr. Steven Stosny explains that emotional abandonment activates the same neural pathways as physical pain, and children, whose brains are still developing, are especially vulnerable. Over time, they may internalize beliefs like: "My feelings don't matter," "I must earn affection," or "It is normal for people I love to ignore me", or they may think that domination and subordination are love.

3. Children May Repeat the Negative Cycle in Their Own Relationships

If unaddressed, these children often repeat the cycle in adulthood. They may tolerate emotional neglect in relationships or unconsciously inflict it themselves. Children live what they learn and psychologists such as Dr. Harville Hendrix have noted that children often grow up to marry or partner with a person who has the same personality traits as their most contentious caregiver in an attempt to finally get the love, acceptance, and validation that they longed for in their childhood. This is trauma repetition. Many spiritual teachers have warned that the negative dynamics often get worse until the cycle is broken.

This is why breaking the cycle is essential. If your children grew up with emotional abandonment, they need support to heal. That support may include therapy, mindfulness, somatic practices, Tai Chi, and or other modalities that calm the nervous system and teach emotional regulation.

Children cannot rewrite the past, but with intention and support, they can rewrite their future. Emotional abuse may pass through families, but so can emotional safety, tenderness, presence, and love. The cycle ends when someone decides: "My children will inherit healing, not abandonment." Please consider joining the Soaring Sisters community on Skool for free access to the globally acclaimed silent treatment recovery book Silenced to Soaring: Heal from Chronic Silent Treatments, Toxic Relationships, and Abuse and to participate in weekly support, accountability, and mastermind groups for mothers who are determined to heal and create amazing lives for themselves and their children.

Ama K. Karikari, Esq. is author of an empowerment workbook for mothers entitled Silenced to Soaring: Heal from Chronic Silent Treatments, Toxic Relationships, and Abuse. She also runs Sister Soaring Circles, online peer group coaching programs for women overcoming abuse to live their most empowered lives. Learn more at amakkarikari.com.