US Army Psychologist, Oyinkansola Alabi, on Childhood Rejection: ‘Don’t Expect Abandoned Children to Seek You Out in Adulthood’

Oyinkansola Alabi, a US Army Behavioral Health Specialist widely known as The Emotion Doctor, has made a strong statement about the lasting impact of childhood rejection. In a recent Facebook post, Alabi emphasized that times have changed, and parents or guardians who abandon their children should no longer expect those same children to reach out to them in adulthood.

“We’re no longer in the era where a child, who was rejected or abandoned during their formative years, will feel obligated to reconnect later in life. If you made the choice to abandon them for any ‘compelling’ reason, they have every right to remove you from their mental space as well,” she wrote in her post on Thursday.