I Think I Have Emotionally Immature Parents. Now What?

A Trauma Therapist on the Signs and Symptoms of Growing Up With Emotionally Immature Parents and How to Heal

What is an Emotionally Immature Parent?

Emotionally immature parents instill a wound that is hard to characterize. Keep wondering where your anxiety, depression, difficulty with relationships and straight up relational trauma wounds are coming from? Yeah, you guessed it.

That’s because the way emotionally immature parents are in relationship with you is pervasive. The wounds they leave behind don’t have a clear “beginning” and “end.” Though not all emotionally immature parents present the same way, they do tend to struggle with similar characteristics and leave a similar impact on you, their adult child.

Emotionally mature parents are typically nurturing and protective and are capable of setting structure and offering guidance. Emotionally immature parents, on the other hand, tend to struggle with one or more of these categories. They tend to be distant, rejecting, neglectful, highly critical, self-involved, or even abusive. Essentially, emotionally immature parents are as described: emotionally stunted and stuck—they are chronologically adults, but their emotional behavior, responses, and reactions come from a place similar to someone much, much younger.

Why Are Emotionally Immature Parents Like This?

There’s no simple answer—many reasons contribute to emotionally immature parents’ behavior. There might be a history of trauma, generational trauma, immigration and survival, substance use, as well as historically obedience-centered approaches to raising children. We have learned so much more about the child brain and brain development, which has started to shift the perspective on communicating with children in a more play-centered, emotion-centered manner. But that hasn’t always been possible or realistic.

What About Adult Children of Immigrants?

For adult children of immigrants, our families and communities have navigated racist policies, colonialism, and disproportionate legislation impacting access to resources, livelihood, land, and generational wealth. And then of course there’s the capitalistic emphasis on constant work and productivity. Capitalism and survival compound each other, shaming rest and quality time with family and community and instead praising work cloaked in good values and respect. These generational impacts have been engrained into our collective psyche, reiterating messages of hyper-individualism and constant productivity.

But there’s a real consequence to all of these long-lasting impacts on our relationships with each other: when there are fewer resources at someone’s disposal, there is more stress, and stress does not lend itself to understanding and connection, especially in the parent-child relationship.

What Are the 4 Types of Emotionally Immature Parents?

Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson categorized 4 different types of emotionally immature parents in her book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (Gibson, 2015):

1. Emotional parents: These parents can be flooded and overwhelmed easily one minute, and then withdraw the next minute, often relying on others to regulate and rescue them. They can feel unpredictable and inconsistent, and in their presence, there may be the desire to hide information from them out of fear of making them upset.

2. Driven parents: Goal-oriented and perfectionistic. These parents can be focused, but can also put a great deal of pressure on their kids. Kids may feel like they are never “good enough.”

3. Passive parents: These parents often seem fine, but they struggle to set boundaries and are permissive. They tend to take a back seat in parenting and struggle with offering guidance, protection, and structure. In other words, they check out.

4. Rejecting parents: Uninterested, uninvolved, or even spiteful. These parents have little curiosity or patience for the needs of others and may be quick to get frustrated or isolate from their children.

Keep in mind: emotionally immature parents may be a combination of one or more types—not everyone has to fall into one category.

What are the Signs of having Grown Up with Emotionally Immature Parents?

If you grew up being raised by emotionally immature parents, you likely experienced or witnessed your parent(s) engage in at least one of the following common signs:

• Gaslighting

• Emotional abuse and neglect

• Physical abuse and neglect

• Inability to apologize, self-reflect, or acknowledge their own mistakes

• Difficulty in holding appropriate boundaries with children

• Deflecting blame and shame onto children

• Feeling like they changed the “emotional temperature” whenever they were present

• Entitlement, or bragging about themselves, making themselves seem more special or important

• Ridiculing or humiliating others, especially their children

What are the Symptoms of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents?

Adult children of emotionally immature parents are caught between care for their parents and acknowledging the reality of how their parents react and behave. Sometimes that care shows up as guilt for feeling angry or frustrated or disappointed. Sometimes that care makes it hard to see that the relationship isn’t what you hoped it would be.

Here are a few symptoms that adult children of emotionally immature parents experience:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Trauma, childhood trauma

• Complex trauma

• Repeated toxic friendships

• Challenging, dysfunctional, or abusive romantic relationships

• Divorce

• Infidelity

• Difficulty with self-trust

• Low self-esteem

• Codependency

• People-pleasing

• Perfectionism

• Imposter syndrome

• Burnout

How to Communicate with Emotionally Immature Parents?

Step 1: Observe Your Reactions

Before switching up your communication style with your emotionally immature parents, it’s important to observe how you already communicate with them, especially when they frustrate or disappoint you:

• Do you shut down or avoid them?

• Do you explode and get angry?

• Do you placate them or people-please them until they are happy, but you have abandoned your own needs?

In every one of those situations, you are continuing to react to them as your child self, not as your adult self. And your child self is reacting out of fear.

This is because when you were a child, you did not have the capacity to respond to your parents differently. It was important to fall in line and function in a way that helped maintain the relationship. However, it meant sacrificing your identity and your needs. And now, you are ready to be more genuine in this relationship.

Step 2: Notice The Triggers

The next step in communicating differently with emotionally immature parents is to take note of what has historically triggered your reactions:

• Is it when you point something out and your parent feels ashamed, turning it on you?

• Is this when your parent does not hear your needs and you don’t feel valued?

• Is it when you want to share something exciting with your parent and they ignore you?

• Is it when your parent relies on you to fix all their worries and solve all their problems?

Something about what your parent is feeling, needing and doing brings out your own reaction. While you don’t need to rescue them from it, getting curious about what is happening can be a tool: when you understand what is happening in your interactions and dynamic, you can better understand how to interrupt the interaction that is not working and replace it with one that does work.

Step 3: Create Space

In these interactions, create opportunities to take a deep breath and focus on what your need is. Rather than reacting with your younger self, use that breath to tell that younger part of you, “hey, I got this now, I am an adult and I don’t have to be so afraid anymore.”

Step 4: Communicate with Clarity

After creating space, you can take the opportunity to respond with clarity, rather than react.

You can acknowledge your parents’ goal or need out loud, and then redirect back to what you need. Because emotionally immature parents often deflect or react out of shame, helping them to re-focus on you and a shared goal will be helpful.

You can add something like “I hear what you are saying (Mom/Dad). At the same time, when you say those words to me, it’s really hurtful, and it makes it hard for me to respond honestly. I want to figure this out with you, together.”

Communicating with Emotionally Immature Parents in a New Way Takes Time

As you find new ways to communicate your needs to your emotionally immature parents, you are showing up in a relationship with them as your adult self, not as a frightened child. This relationship stops becoming a power dynamic and evolves into one of mutual connection.

However. Not every emotionally immature parent can make this change. Many can and are willing to do so. But some may very much struggle. If you get the sense that your emotionally immature parents are unable to be flexible with you and to work toward resolving challenges in your relationship, working toward one of connection, you may approach a decision point. And that decision point will focus on what kind of and how much contact you wish to have with them as this relationship shifts.

How Do You Heal from Emotionally Immature Parents?

Healing is not only about communicating differently and finding a new path to relating; it’s also about grieving a childhood that was not the way you wanted it to be or hoped it would turn out.

3 Ways to Heal as an Adult Child of Emotionally Immature Parents:

• Reconnect with your inner child: Re-explore hobbies, activities, play, music, etc that you would have loved as a child and give yourself the chance to do it now

• Find supportive community and chosen family: Turn to community and relationships who offer shared mutual support and connection, allowing you to feel bigger rather than smaller

• Seek support with a trauma therapist: Seek the support of an expert trauma therapist to help you with tools, grieving, and identity-building in healing

Start Online Therapy at Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, LLC

Childhood Trauma Therapy in Connecticut & Virginia

Alice Zic, MPH, LCSW | Trauma Therapist & Owner, Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, LLC

1. Click the button below to schedule your free 15-minute consultation phone call

2. Complete the pre-consult questions

3. Consult with Alice Zic, Childhood Trauma Therapist

4. Begin your journey toward healing as an adult child of emotionally immature parents

Online Therapy in Connecticut

Online Therapy for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Looking for a therapist who can help you heal childhood wounds? My virtual practice is located in Colchester, CT but guess what? Because I offer online therapy in Connecticut, you can access therapy anywhere in the state, from Hartford to New Canaan to Stamford to Glastonbury to New Haven! All you need is your device and a private space for us to meet. Easy! Learn more about online therapy in Connecticut below:

Online Therapy in Virginia

Online Therapy for Recovering Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Life is busy and overwhelming, but you are ready to work through your childhood trauma and wounds. You want to recover from being raised by emotionally immature parents. Make it easier on yourself with online therapy in Virginia. I am a licensed trauma therapist in Virginia offering online therapy throughout Virginia. Rather than running from errand to errand, work to appointment, you can settle into your therapy session from the comfort of your private space and focus on healing. Learn more about online therapy in Virginia below:

More About Alice Zic, Licensed Trauma Therapist in CT & VA

Alice Zic is a licensed clinical social worker in Connecticut and Virginia. She is a trauma therapist and teen therapist who works with those struggling with childhood trauma, parentification trauma, and teen anxiety. She supports adults and adult children of immigrants recover and heal from being raised by emotionally immature parents. She is trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and primarily uses this trauma-informed approach when working with clients. Learn more about Alice, her approach, and start working with Alice below:

Therapy Services Offered at Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, LLC

Sources:

Gibson, LC (2015). Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents. New Harbinger Publications: CA