Are you the Adult Child of an “Emotionally Immature Parent?”
How this small piece of knowledge can jumpstart your healing journey and provide the pathway for powerful therapeutic work.
This concept of the “Emotionally Immature Parent” was highlighted and made popular with Lindsey Gibson’s 2015 book titled, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents.
Here, we discuss the presentation and impact of emotionally immature parenting, as well as some suggested therapeutic interventions from the experts.
Trauma and attachment therapists frequently work with adults who are facing relational or emotional challenges that stemmed from a childhood with inadequate, emotionally immature parenting. This may present as depression, anxiety, poor emotional regulation, low self-confidence, challenges with shame and excessive self-blaming, relationship and attachment difficulties, and lacking a sense of self-worth and personal strengths.
Trauma therapy for adult children of emotionally immature parents will often include some of all of the following:
A review and re-narration of one’s own story with increased empathy and compassion for the client’s younger selves.
Building awareness and insight of symptom development with curiosity, knowing that unhealthy present-day actions, reactions, and patterns are rooted in outdated coping tools that were essential to a child’s ability to manage and survive various circumstances.
Rebuilding and practicing skills of secure attachment, allowing for integration of internal messages of worth and self-soothing.
Trauma reprocessing using EMDR or alternative methods for trauma reprocessing and “updating” the trauma narrative.
Skill development to manage and interact with emotionally immature parents and other emotionally immature people in our adult lives. This includes setting realistic expectations, utilizing healthy boundaries, effective communication tools, and a growing sense of self-worth and value.
Let’s take a deeper dive into healthy and unhealthy parenting!
The quality of parenting/caregiving we receive largely impacts our identity development and the way we show up in relationships. Ideally, a parent provides a safe, supportive environment that encourages:
the formation of healthy trust in self and others that allows for deep connections
a growing sense of self, separate from our parents
the ability to adapt to reality, manage change, and regulate emotions
appropriate flexibility in relationships with others that includes dependence, independence, and interdependence
the ability to collaborate with others by listening to, learning from, and respectfully exchanging diverse ideas
Unfortunately, parents are not perfect and are not always able to provide ideal parenting. There can be many reasons why parents may be emotionally immature themselves and do not provide an environment that encourages a child to develop into a healthy adult.
learned poor parenting patterns (due to lack of healthy parenting models, support, and mentoring)
presence of mental illness, developmental or neuro-atypical challenges
unprocessed, unhealed personal trauma and/or presence of generational trauma
addiction
victims of abuse (physical, emotional)
neglect or abandonment as a child
adverse life experience associated with loss such as divorce, chronic illness, or death
It is worth noting that emotionally immature parenting exists on a continuum from inconsistent, neglectful parenting to abusive, narcissistic parenting.
What does emotionally immature parenting look like?
Parent lacks emotional regulation and cope with life with using unhealthy or child-like behaviors (anger outbursts, silent treatment, blaming other, emotional punishment and manipulation)
Parent is indifferent to or rejects a child’s attempts to share and seek help experiencing difficulties. Parent made the issue about themselves or maintained themselves as the primary victim (I had it worse than you)
Parent did not use appropriate parent/child boundaries (parents confided in child about adult topics, involved the child in adult relationships and demanded the child side with them, allowed or placed the child in roles that were developmentally beyond the child’s level)
Parent exposes their child to unhealthy situations or people and put their needs first (prioritize their dating life, leaving child alone or with others who are not safe, responsible care givers)
Parent’s needs always came first
Parent invalidates a child's experiences, feelings, and ideas
Parent presents with an attitude that the child “owes them “and needs to make sacrifices because they sacrificed to raise child (prevalent use of shaming and blaming)
Parent expects the child to be their world and to be the center part of the child's world (enmeshment) Use jealousy and punishment when other things or people are prioritized
Developmental limitations interfere with a child’s ability to identify that parents were or are part of the problem. With emotionally immature parenting, a child often turns blame inward leading to misplaced responsibility, shame, depression, anxiety, and difficulties in relationships that can carry forward into adulthood. The goal of therapy is not to blame or demonize the emotionally immature parent. However, an honest review of childhood experience provides insight into personality formation and relationship patterns. These insights also inform the healing journey to healthy, mature adulting.
Effectively interacting with Emotionally Immature Parents and other Emotionally Immature People in our lives.
While your own therapy is an important part of moving forward as an emotionally mature adult, learning how to effectively interact with emotionally immature people (parents, coworkers, acquaintances) is an important part of healing and therapy support.
Some general guides and expectations for therapy support include:
Being able to recognize when you are engaging with an emotionally immature individual.
Learning and practicing self-awareness and self-regulation to remain in your logical brain space when interacting.
Resisting the emotionally immature person’s assertion that you are responsible for their feelings, actions, and experience.
Learning and internalizing your individual bill of rights.
Having realistic goals and redefining what successful interactions look like (stay regulated, express your singular main point, give yourself permission to and option to leave the interaction)
Convincing the “other” of the validity of your view or changing their mind is not the goal!
Using role plays to practice interactions and give yourself permission to be less than perfect when learning new skills.
The “right, magic words” do not exist. Be yourself and know that if someone wants to understand you, they will try, and they will.
Giving yourself permission to learn and practice. Don’t expect perfection when learning new skills.
You get to decide when and if you interact with emotionally immature people in your life and try new approaches.
The GOOD NEWS is that healing from ineffective parenting is not only possible, but probable with the right support. Look for a therapist who specializes in attachment wounds and specifically working with adult children of immature parents.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” — Dan Millman.
Resources:
Gibson, L. (2015). Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents. New Harbinger Publications.