As young children, we don’t have the capacity to regulate our emotions on our own. We need adults to support us in naming our emotions, processing them, and moving through them in a healthy way. In turn, children develop skills to regulate their own emotions and regulate alongside others (coregulation). The child often develops a self-concept of trust in themselves and others, allowing them to make mistakes and grow. Some parents have more difficulty with the skills needed to develop a secure attachment with their children. Dr. Lindsey Gibson coined the term “emotionally immature parents” to describe parents whose emotional development has not caught up to their physical development. The characteristics these parents display can impact their children as they grow into adulthood, showing up in unconscious ways for the adult child. It’s important to name these experiences to allow adult children to heal and process their experiences. 

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What Causes Emotional Immaturity?

Emotional immaturity is a spectrum, and a person may be more or less emotionally mature depending on the context. However, some individuals portray higher levels of emotional immaturity that shows up in their parenting style. It’s important to recognize that emotional immaturity is likely caused by a complex number of factors. Dr. Gibson theorizes that for some of these parents, shutting down emotionally was an adaptive process to cope with stressors or insecure attachment in their own childhoods. Without the resources to heal from early experiences, these parents may remain stuck in unhealthy patterns that were once useful. It’s important to recognize that many parents lacked basic resources to ensure care for their children, as well as mental health resources. Additionally, intergenerational trauma and/or holding marginalized identities can be overwhelming for the nervous system and brain. We might never know the exact reason why certain parents display emotional immaturity, but we can honor the complexity of their experiences while acknowledging the impact of their behavior on their children. Adult children healing from the effects of emotionally immature parents may feel guilty for naming the impact due to their parents’ own hardships. It can be helpful to allow space for the complexity of relationships between children and parents. For example, we can hold that a parent tried their best given their resources, and their children needed more support and attunement.  Acknowledging the impact doesn’t mean you don’t love your parent or acknowledge the positive ways they shaped you. It does mean naming the impact of certain behaviors on you as a child and adult, to allow you to heal. 

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What are the Characteristics of Emotionally Immature Parents?

Emotional maturity exists on a spectrum, and many people may exhibit some signs of maturity and some signs of immaturity. However, those described as emotionally immature often exhibit a high number of characteristics that negatively impact their relationships. These characteristics can show up in any relationship, not just in parent-child interactions. Some of these signs include: 

• Low Empathy and Emotional Insensitivity: Since emotionally immature people are out of touch with their own emotions, they have difficulty understanding the emotions of others. This can lead to insensitivity and the tendency to say or do hurtful things. 
• Lack of Repair: An essential part of any relationship is the repair process that occurs following conflict. After a conflict, a parent returns to the child and seeks to repair the conflict through taking accountability for their part and apologizing. In turn, this gives the child a sense of peace and restores the closeness of the relationship. Emotionally immature people often struggle with repair, which can make conflict feel overwhelming for the child and contributes to feelings of emotional loneliness for children.
• Difficulty with self-reflection: The ability to look inward, reflect on our experiences, and consider what we could do differently is essential for the health of any relationship. Emotionally immature parents often lack self-reflection skills, which makes it difficult for change to occur in their relationships. While anyone has the capacity for change, it requires honest reflection about ourselves in relation to others. 
• Difficulty regulating their own emotions: Emotionally immature people are often underdeveloped when it comes to regulating their own emotions. In turn, they often expect their children to regulate emotions for them, and may become upset or resentful when the child isn’t able to. However, children are still developing their ability to regulate themselves, let alone their parents’ emotions. 
• Ego-Centrism: Emotionally immature parents often focus on their own experiences and emotions, and have trouble seeing the perspectives of others. This can show up as them speaking in monologues without a natural back and forth in conversation. In conflict, the parent often focuses on defending their own character rather than acknowledging others’ feelings. 
• Proneness to literal, black and white thinking: Emotionally immature people often have a rigid view of what makes behaviors, feelings or people good and bad. This contributes to difficulty in accepting nuance in themselves and others, which can contribute to judgmentalness and difficulty navigating conflict.
• Role Entitlement: Emotionally immature parents have a rigid sense of what it means to be a child or parent. For example, they may misinterpret a child sharing their emotions as disrespect for authority. This also promotes role reversal, where the parent often expects the child to meet their needs in an unhealthy way. 
• Avoidance of sharing emotions: Since they have difficulty regulating their own emotions, emotionally immature parents often avoid emotional topics or deep discussions. They prefer to keep things surface-level, which contributes to a lack of depth in relationships. This can also lead to those around them feeling bored, unfulfilled, or drained when spending time with them. Humans naturally crave rich, meaningful interactions with others that involve a back and forth of vulnerability.

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The Effects of Growing Up with Emotionally Immature Parents

As children, we adapt to our environments and learn ways to prioritize our safety. Our fight/flight/freeze/fawn system kicks in to take care of ourselves in the moment. In the short-term, these are incredible adaptations from the nervous system to help us cope with overwhelming experiences. However, in the long term, these patterns can unconsciously show up in ways that are no longer needed and make life more difficult for us. Adults who grew up with emotionally immature parents may encounter a variety of difficulties in adulthood. These difficulties can include: 

• Lack of trust in yourself: The lack of attunement from parents can lead to difficulty trusting yourself because your needs and emotions weren’t validated and addressed. You might wonder if your needs are too much for others or if your feelings are valid. 
• Low self-confidence: Growing up with emotionally immature parents can make it difficult to feel secure in who you are, as your body was focused on survival rather than developing your unique sense of self. You might struggle with low self-esteem, doubting yourself, or second guessing your experiences. 
• People pleasing: The fawn response is a way our nervous systems adapt to an environment where our emotional needs are not met. We learn to silence our own needs in order to placate others and reduce any threat to feelings of safety. Over time, this can lead to difficulty communicating our needs with others and getting those needs met. It can also lead to feelings of resentment or anger, as the body attempts to communicate an unmet need or a boundary that you need to set. 
• Anxiety, depression, or other mental health symptoms: Growing up with emotionally immature parents can be overwhelming for the nervous system, which seeks consistency and safety. As adults, individuals may continue to feel the effects of dysregulation through symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.
• Doing emotional work for others: Children often are pressured to carry the emotional load for their parents, who have difficulty regulating their emotions. This can lead to patterns of emotionally caring for others to the detriment of your own needs and emotions. It could also lead to unhealthy relationships in adulthood that feel one-sided. 
• The Healing Fantasy: The healing fantasy is a term coined by Dr. Gibson to describe the tendency of adult children of emotionally immature parents to have an idealized outcome in their minds about their relationship with their parents. It’s completely natural to have this fantasy, as humans are wired for connection. The healing fantasy can contribute to feelings of stuckness or self-blame if we don’t acknowledge parents’ role in self-reflection and change. While change is possible, it can be unhealthy for your own healing journey to depend on your parents’ ability to grow. 

Healing from Emotionally Immature Parents

Growing up with emotionally immature parents can be a form of relational trauma. There’s no one right or wrong way to navigate healing from these early experiences. Each person’s journey is unique and can involve a variety of different resources. However, some helpful aspects to the healing journey can be:

• Naming your experience: Often the first step to healing is acknowledging the pain we’ve experienced. Whether the language of emotionally immature parents resonates or not, it can be useful to find a way to name the ways your early experiences impacted you. 
• Accepting your emotions: Naming your experience will likely bring up a variety of emotions, which may include anger, grief, sadness, or fear. Recognizing what needs went unmet in childhood can often lead to a grief process that feels like a loss. 
• Processing alongside others: We do not heal in isolation. When healing from relational pain, it’s especially important to lean on others for support and begin to heal in healthy relationships. It can be difficult to be vulnerable with others when vulnerability wasn’t respected in your family of origin. However, vulnerability can also bring deep connection and healing.
• Seeking mental health support: Anyone close to you can support you through a healing journey. However, sometimes it can be useful to process these impactful experiences with a therapist. The therapeutic relationship can provide a safe and consistent space to connect with your emotions, experiences and needs. 
• Establishing your needs and boundaries: Growing up with parents who display characteristics of emotionally immaturity, you may have felt shame for having needs and boundaries. A core part of healing can involve getting in touch with your needs and communicating them to others. It may be helpful to practice this with emotionally mature people in your life prior to doing so with your parents. This can give you an opportunity to learn your needs are important and that others can be responsive to them.
• Practice self-care when engaging with your parents: Self-care is often a buzzword to describe bubble baths and face masks. However, it also involves prioritizing our needs and taking care of ourselves in difficult moments. Self-care with emotionally immature parents can look different for each person. Some individuals may choose to pause or end contact with their parents to prioritize their healing. Others may identify helpful boundaries to establish with parents to care for themselves while spending time with their parents. Acknowledging patterns in your relationship with your parents can allow you to identify the path forward that feels the most fulfilling for you. 

Acknowledging and healing from unmet needs in childhood and adulthood is a difficult process. Healing from any loss, trauma or pain doesn’t mean never feeling the effects or difficult emotions anymore. Rather, healing is an ongoing process of honoring the complexity of your experience and being present with the many parts of you. It also means identifying how you can attune to your inner child today. You didn’t have control over your parents’ actions, but you do have autonomy in your healing journey. 

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Resources:

• Dr. Lindsey Gibson is the author of several books about emotionally immature parents, including  Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
• Dr. Lindsey Gibson joins the We Can Do Hard Things podcast to discuss her work‍
• Emotionally Immature Parents: What They Are and Their Impact