7 Signs You Grew Up With Emotionally Immature Parents (And How to Heal)

Raising a child is not a small responsibility – sometimes it can be physically taxing, and sometimes it can be emotionally draining. One moment, they’ll be laughing without a care in the world, and the next, they’ll be crying their little hearts out. With children, it’s easy to accept this and move on. After all, children are emotionally immature.

They are blissfully unaware of emotional understanding and have not yet learned how to identify their feelings, name them, or even manage them. It’s how it is. Emotional growth in children comes with time.

However, even with age, emotional maturity remains elusive to many. This can manifest as emotional immaturity in adulthood.

So, how does one fare if their parents are emotionally immature? The people who are there to guide us with our emotions, what happens when they are emotionally immature? Can their emotional immaturity affect our adulthood?

Let’s explore the signs of emotionally immature parents and how to heal from emotionally immature parents.

What Does Emotional Immaturity Mean?

When we talk about emotionally immature people, we talk about the group of people who don’t meet society’s expectations for behavior within their age group. Emotionally immature people can be impulsive, can’t accept criticism, lacks emotional regulation and social skills, and seem to demand attention, childishly.

If we talk about emotionally immature parents, they are the ones who can’t deal with their emotions properly and don’t have proper coping mechanisms to deal with said emotions to maintain a calm and functioning head during stressful times.

When we say someone is “emotionally mature” we recognize their ability to identify, label, and control their emotions while maintaining empathy and responding appropriately to others’ emotions.

Emotionally immature parents are too focused on their own needs that they might not pay attention to their children’s needs.

Here are 7 common signs of emotionally immature parents that you should beware of.

Signs Of Emotionally Immature Parents

1. They Are Emotionally Absent

One of the biggest signs of emotionally immature parents is that growing up you felt emotionally lonely. While your parents must have been physically present, they were emotionally absent. As an adult child of emotionally immature parents, you don’t seem to have an emotionally secure bond with them either. Your parents were there for you but not when it came to emotions and feelings.

2. They Put Themselves First

Just like a child is needy and wants attention, an emotionally immature parent is like that too. They are quite self-centered and put themselves first, even before their own child and their needs. They are impulsive and want all the attention for themselves. Your parents might be lovable but when it comes to attention and needs, they want theirs to be first rather than yours.

3. They Have Low EQ

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is one of the most important aspects of our development and emotionally immature parents are low on that. They don’t talk about feelings and avoid expressing their emotions. Your emotionally immature parents might even avoid showing affection because it makes them look vulnerable. When it comes to emotions, they stay away,

4. They Are Emotionally Volatile

When it comes to wanting something, their emotions run wild. Just like toddlers, when emotionally immature parents don’t seem to get what they want, they might throw a tantrum. If you, their child, fail to understand their needs, they would express their hurt and anger. They expect you to just know what they want and when they want it. Just like a child expects from their parents.

5. They Don’t Understand Boundaries

Emotionally immature parents don’t understand the concept of boundaries. To them, boundaries are rejection. If you set boundaries with them, then they would lash out saying that you don’t care about them. They act offended and hurt if you put boundaries. Your parents might even enjoy and express their love if you let them break said boundaries.

6. They Are Emotionally Selfish

Emotionally immature parents are also emotionally selfish. They might be willing to harm your emotional health to make themselves feel secure and better. They might even do this to get what they want from you. Emotion-wise. Such parents don’t pay much attention to their child’s emotions, after all, so everything they do is about them, never others.

7. They Don’t Take Responsibility

Here, I’m talking about emotional responsibility. When emotionally immature parents hurt their child’s emotions to get what they want, they won’t take responsibility for hurting their child’s emotions afterward. To them, everything is fair, and apologizing after hurting others’ emotions makes no sense.

How To Heal From Emotionally Immature Parents?

1. Recognize Their Immaturity

As an adult of emotionally immature parents, you must’ve grown up thinking that it’s your fault that your parents didn’t love or care for you. It’s not that. Your parents just didn’t understand how to express their emotions the right way. To heal from this, you need to understand that it’s not your fault. Recognize that your parents are emotionally immature.

2. Work On Yourself

Once you recognize that your parents are emotionally immature, it’s time you work on your emotional health. You need to understand that you were emotionally neglected as a child and that it’s not your responsibility to raise your immature parents. It’s not on you that you were emotionally neglected.

 3. Understand Your Emotions

Develop emotional awareness and reconnect with your emotions once again. Understand your feelings and emotions and express them. Hiding your emotions might only make you feel guilty, hurt, and ashamed. You need to process your emotions. Here, journaling can help you make sense of what you’re feeling.

4. Take Care Of Yourself

Another important part of recovering from emotionally immature parents is to take care of yourself. Mindfulness and meditation might help. These practices can help you reconnect with your feelings and become aware of your emotional experience. This can also be a good practice to break the toxic emotional pattern your parents set.

5. Seek Professional Help

In the end, if nothing seems to work towards your healing, it’s recommended that you speak to a professional therapist. A therapist can help you understand your childhood neglect, its effects on your adulthood, and how you can deal with emotionally immature parents as an adult.

I hope these signs of emotionally immature parents would help you understand yourself a little better. Work on healing your emotional childhood neglect in the ways listed in this blog.

You can always reach out to a professional therapist who can help you recognize emotional neglect and how to heal from it.

For more, you can write to us at info@calmsage.com or DM us on social media. You can also share your thoughts in the comments below.

 Take Care!