Emotionally Immature vs. Mature Parents

Types of Emotionally Immature Parents

1. The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety

2. The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone

3. The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting

4. The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory

From: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

Emotionally Immature Parents/Caregivers

• Are inconsistent in their behaviors, actions, etc.

• Are consistently not nurturing and empathic toward others’ feelings

  • Overly demanding

  • Overly critical

  • Making fun or mocking

  • Ridiculing

  • Shaming

  • Indifferent

  • Etc.

• Are consistently extreme in their behaviors, actions, thoughts, and emotions

• Low sense of Self (Self esteem, Self confidence, Self worth, Self love)

  • Relies on others for their approval and validation including their child(ren)

  • Seeks endless validation from others including their child(ren)

  • Needs to be the center of attention

  • Everything is about them

  • Being the constant victim

  • Feeling empty inside

  • Uncertainty around who they really are without outside validation

  • Etc.

• Are not receptive to feedback, negative and positive

• Consistent difficulty with others’ differing opinions and beliefs

• Can not or have difficulty regulating and managing their own overwhelming emotions consistently

  • Difficulty with anger, frustration, rage, irritation, etc.

  • Blowing up at others

  • Yelling and shouting at others

  • Having a temper tantrum or meltdown

  • Etc.

• Can not/did not help you regulate and manage your overwhelming emotions as a child consistently

• Unable or unwilling to take ownership and responsibility for their actions and behaviors

  • Difficulty with growing personally

  • When making a mistake, internalizes that as they are a mistake vs. making a mistake

  • When doing something poorly or making a mistake, shame spiraling vs. feeling guilt and processing it in a healthy manner

  • Downplays experiences (e.g. minimizing)

  • Overplays experiences (e.g. catastrophizing)

• Consistently blame others

• Unable or unwilling to/lack the ability to apologize when they make a mistake or engage in a rupture of some sort

• Ask for what they want in an aggressive, passive, or passive aggressive manner (vs. assertive)

• Lacks healthy communication skills

• Lacks healthy boundaries and separation/distance from others

• Uses their child(ren) as a way to offload/release stress, burden, and tension (e.g. venting about their partner/spouse/life issues that are developmentally inappropriate) and thus their child(ren) internalizes this negative/unhelpful way of relating

  • Emotional incest

  • Boundary violations

  • Enmeshment

  • Etc.

• Does not respect their child(ren)’s boundaries (dislikes, likes, physical space, emotional space, etc.)

• Makes emotional and verbal demands from their child(ren) for needs that are not developmentally appropriate and/or engages in a role reversal (e.g. child becomes a parent figure)

• Consistent difficulty with acknowledging or asserting the truth of the experience/reality

  • Denial

  • Delusion

  • Fantasizing

  • Etc.

• Lack of congruence

  • Inside world does not match outside actions

  • Behaviors does not match what is communicated

  • Feelings do not match the appropriate subsequent action/behavior

  • Etc.

• Acting like children

  • Acting out

  • Yelling and screaming

  • Demanding

  • Difficulty considering others’ beliefs or viewpoints as the correct way to be or live

  • Etc.

• And more

Emotionally Mature Parents/Caregivers

• Are consistent in their behaviors, actions, etc.

• Nurturing and empathic toward others’ feelings

• Are receptive to feedback, negative and positive

• Can regulate and manage their own overwhelming emotions consistently

• Can help you regulate and manage your overwhelming emotions as a child consistently

• Take ownership and responsibility for their actions and behaviors

• Have the ability to apologize when they make a mistake or engage in a rupture of some sort

• Can ask for what they need in an assertive manner (vs. aggressive, passive, or passive aggressive manner)

• Uplifts, supports, and engages with their child(ren) in a healthy, dignified, and respectable manner so they feel like they belong, matter, are valued

• Respects their child(ren)’s boundaries (dislikes, likes, physical space, emotional space, etc.)

• And more

Read My Other Blog Posts on Emotionally Immature Parents

• Signs You Were Raised By Emotionally Immature Parents

• Effects of Growing Up With Emotionally Immature Parents