When you think of childhood experiences that are scarring, you might assume they’re big events, like accidents or natural disasters. While those can definitely scar a child emotionally, there are day-to-day experiences that can also cause serious issues for kids down the line. Parents and other caring adults almost never mean to scar kids. Still, these experiences can turn even the sweetest kids into unhappy adults. 11 scarring childhood experiences that turn the sweetest kids into unhappy adults 1. Their parents dismissed their emotions juninatt | Shutterstock When sweet kids aren’t allowed to express how they feel, they often become unhappy adults. Parents who shut down whenever their kids share difficult feelings send the subconscious message that their feelings are too much to manage, and shouldn’t be shared out in the open. When kids have dismissive parents, they learn to push their emotions away. While emotional repression kept them safe when they were kids, in adulthood, that repression keeps them from understanding how they really feel. They grow into unhappy adults because they were never allowed …