Some people were extremely lucky and ended up with parents and caregivers who ensured that all of their needs were met. These were the kids who were given solid foundations upon which to build their lives, including certain key experiences that are essential for building characteristics that help see a person through life successfully. Those who didn’t have great families, however, often lacked these essential cornerstone experiences. If you fall into this category and missed out on the following 9 childhood experiences, you may be compensating for their lack now that you’re a mature adult.
1. Consistent safety and security.
A child who experiences security is one who can sleep soundly, knowing that they’re safe, instead of being hypervigilant about being attacked in their beds. Similarly, they may know that they can always turn towards their parents or caregivers because they’ve always been there for them and always will be. In contrast, those who had uncertain and tough upbringings end up experiencing far more insecurity and anxiety in adulthood.
This may manifest as neediness with your partner or friends because you’re subconsciously demanding what you didn’t receive as a child. Additionally, according to Psychology Today, you may have extreme difficulty dealing with any kind of stress and may be prone to getting flustered at the slightest provocation.
Alternatively, if you experienced physical or emotional neglect or abuse as a child, you may have closed yourself off emotionally and take care of all your needs on your own. Since you learned early on in life that the only person who’d provide you with your needs is yourself, you don’t allow others the opportunity to disappoint you, and you rarely get stressed because you don’t permit yourself to feel much of anything at all.
2. Sufficient nourishment.
If you didn’t receive enough healthy nourishment as a child, which may have resulted in stunted physical development, you may now be hyper-focused on eating as healthily as possible. You may choose organic foods and cook everything from scratch, and take a wide variety of vitamins and supplements to compensate for the lack you experienced early on in life. This is the route that I took, and I place enormous emphasis on high-quality nutrient density to compensate for the malnourishment I experienced for years.
Alternatively, if there were foods that you were denied as a child for various reasons — such as your parents not being able to afford them or insisting that they were unhealthy — you may indulge in them now to compensate. For example, you might always have ice cream in the freezer because you never had the chance to enjoy it as a child, or you have pizza a couple of times a week. You might also be prone to overeating after years of being forced to restrict your diet by overly strict parents.
3. Affection that met your needs.
People who lacked affection from their caregivers as children end up experiencing several physical and mental health issues once they reach maturity. Lack of regular affection and nurturing appears to result in lower immune function, as well as cognitive impairment, slower language learning, and higher rates of anxiety and depression.
Furthermore, those who didn’t receive much affection as children end up with an insecure attachment to others as they mature. If you fall into this category, you may have been promiscuous in adolescence or created unhealthy attachments to teachers or your friends’ parents in order to get the secure affection you lacked when you were younger.
Alternatively, if you received unwanted affection as a child and felt like you had no control over what was inflicted upon you, you may now shy away from it or otherwise take intense control over whom you allow to touch you. You may also experience severe anger if relatives insist on hugging or kissing your children without their consent.
4. Adventure.
If you’ve ever noticed kids on playgrounds, they often shriek at the experience of going down a slide or jumping into a ball pit for the first time, but then, once they realize that their fear was unfounded, they’re eager to experience that kind of sensory seeking again. Adventure is an integral part of human development, and a lack thereof can make someone overly fearful and risk-averse.
One way that adults can compensate for a lack of personal adventure that often comes from an overly sheltered childhood is to help the kids in their lives experience it for themselves. For example, you may have built an amazing treehouse in your backyard for your own kids and have sleepovers out there, telling ghost stories and learning about the constellations.
Alternatively, you do the opposite and try to prevent others from having adventures because you’re afraid, and to justify your parents’ restrictive behavior by insisting that they were trying to “keep you safe”, not being controlling.
5. A well-rounded education.
Not everyone was fortunate enough to have a balanced education in childhood. We’re not just talking about classroom learning here, but also the skills that parents and elders from previous generations would have taught kids from an early age onward. These include how to use tools, build (and smother) fires, cook simple meals, and other basic adulting skills that will be needed in later life.
If you feel you lacked education in your youth, you may now learn voraciously and have chosen to study or try out just about everything you can get your hands (and brain) on. You may love to learn new things, take up new hobbies, and have several degrees or online courses on the go. Alternatively, you could have gone down the route of being immediately dismissive of education, defensively arguing that if you don’t know it, it isn’t important.
6. Play for the sake of play.
Many people grew up in households where play was discouraged in favor of “productive” or “useful” pastimes such as sports, music lessons, language classes, and so on. Playtime was considered a waste of time and was mocked and derided instead of encouraged.
If you grew up in an environment such as this, you might be nurturing your inner child now by playing games and doing art solely because they make you happy, rather than only doing hobbies that can be monetized. Of course, there’s also the potential that you may go overboard with your joyful endeavors — regressing into childhood and eschewing any adult responsibility in favor of pleasure and playtime.
7. Creative expression.
Many people who were denied the freedom of creative expression as children end up as very angry adults. Furthermore, they often don’t value anything artistic or creative because they have so much resentment for their own inability to make these things as kids.
A shield excuse for this anger and resentment is that it doesn’t produce any money, therefore, it’s a worthless pursuit.
The other side of this coin is that you might devote as much time as possible to creativity yet still feel frustration because of your formative conditioning. There are often mental blocks to creativity if formative conditioning undervalued these endeavors.
8. Imaginative escapism.
If you were yelled at for daydreaming or playing pretend when you were a child, then your overcompensation in adulthood may take a few different forms. For example, you may love to lose yourself in fantasy books and films, or you may have taken to LARPing, getting involved in historical re-creation (like the SCA), or creating elaborate costumes for comic or sci-fi conventions.
It’s fine to wander in this realm as long as you don’t get lost in it, especially if it’s associated with anything serious, such as weapons training. It’s important not to get a false idea of one’s capabilities: being great at Airsoft doesn’t make someone a trained soldier.
9. Celebrating milestones.
When you think back to birthday parties you experienced as a child, you may feel that yours were severely lacking in comparison to your friends’ McDonald’s birthday extravaganzas and bursting loot bags. As a result, you may go overboard with celebrating your own birthday now, insisting that everyone lavish attention and gifts upon you, and possibly going on a trip or booking time off work to celebrate “you”.
In contrast, you may have decided that since your birthday wasn’t worth celebrating before, it certainly isn’t worth any effort now. You may now hate your birthday and not celebrate at all, getting upset if anyone bothers to mention it because of the ill feelings it brings up.
Final thoughts…
There’s nothing wrong with experiencing childlike wonder at times, but there’s a massive difference between nurturing your inner child and behaving in a childish manner. It’s great to play games during downtime and eat ice cream for dinner occasionally, as long as these things are done with the conscious awareness of adulthood, rather than regressing to a prepubescent state. Childhood happened a long time ago, and it’s up to you as an adult to ensure that your own needs are met, rather than weaponizing victimhood and blaming personal shortcomings on the adults who failed you.
