If Your Parents Taught You These 11 Unfortunate Skills, They Were Emotionally Immature
While your parents tried their best with the tools they had, they may have unintentionally passed down skills that aren't helpful now.
Dodokat / Shutterstock Most parents are truly just trying their best when it comes to raising their children. There is no rule book or training session, and as many parenting books and classes that they can go to, it's the kind of job you constantly learn about on the spot. If your parents taught you certain unfortunate skills, even if they didn't mean to, they were probably emotionally immature.
That doesn't mean that your parents didn't love you and want the best for you while you were growing up, but sometimes parents' lack of emotional intelligence can be the reason why we struggle with certain behaviors and patterns as adults.
If your parents taught you these 11 unfortunate skills, they were emotionally immature
1. To hide your issues inside
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One of the most common signs of emotional immaturity in parents is when they teach their children that the best thing they can do is just keep their feelings and issues inside instead of getting them off their chest. Parents may also practice this with their kids as well where they fail to process their emotions and let everything bottle up inside until they eventually explode.
Nothing good comes from not being able to process your emotions, and if you've been taught to do this as a child, now as an adult, you may struggle to form healthy bonds with people.
Anna-Thea, an intimacy coach, explained that if you're not coping with your strong emotions, they'll just end up getting in the way.
"You’ll feel overwhelmed, angry, anxiety-ridden, and depressed. Not knowing how to deal with it creates an environment of unhappy relationships in the process," she said. "The best way of coping with repressed emotions is to learn how to honor them. You see, your emotions are extremely powerful. You can't push them away. They need to be held and positively expressed, instead of denied. This will help you understand the deeper psychological patterns within you that need to be healed."
2. Tolerating toxicity in a relationship
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Parents who exhibit emotional immaturity might end up teaching their children that there's nothing wrong with tolerating unhealthy relationships with people because they believe that's what love looks like. It could be the relationship that parents may have with each other or with their own parents, so in their minds, it's perfectly normal to stay with someone and tolerate a relationship that's actually not serving them anymore.
In hindsight, nothing good comes from putting up with someone who doesn't treat you right, whether that's in a friendship or a romantic relationship. Judith Orloff, MD, a psychiatrist and intuitive healer, explained that learning to set healthy boundaries, or if necessary, completely breaking with those who drain you, will protect your sensitivities and enhance your well-being.
3. Staying away from potentially good relationships
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Many people, especially those who were raised in emotionally immature households with repressive parents, may have a pattern of avoiding or sabotaging healthy people and relationships that come into their lives. Even when there are potential connections that can lead to happiness, these individuals would rather stay in the toxic loop because of how much it's been engrained from childhood and their parents.
Lisa Lieberman-Wang, a relationship expert, explained that if a person struggles with low self-esteem, it ends up weaving through different aspects of their life. "Which is why learning how to improve low self-esteem is critical for building healthy relationships," she said.
"Without it, every aspect of your life is subject to second-guessing, self-diminishment, and self-doubt. Socially, you may be withdrawn out of a self-assigned notion that no one wants your company or your opinion."
4. Attracting emotionally immature partners
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People who were raised by emotionally immature parents may struggle to find connections with other people that don't directly mirror the kind of behaviors and patterns they're used to from childhood. This can happen without someone even realizing it and witnessing your parents struggle with their own emotional regulation and lack of boundaries, can bleed into what you think love may look like.
Ronnie Ann Ryan, an Intuitive Coach and author, explained that there are several common mistakes that people, especially women, can make when attracting emotionally immature men. Some of those include mistaking their attraction for wanting to be in a relationship, becoming attached even when they don't want a relationship, and mistaking their lack of effort for spontaneity.
5. Pretending to always be perfect and strong
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One of the ways that emotionally immature parents can stunt their children is by teaching them that the only way for them to be loved and accepted is if they're perfect and strong at all times. You're not allowed to make mistakes and you have to constantly put up this front that everything is fine, even when you may feel miserable inside.
Nothing good comes from wearing this "perfect" mask all of the time. It ends up being exhausting and isolating because you're unable to form real connections with people and allow them to see exactly who you are — flaws and all.
6. Avoiding or ignoring problems
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One of the most harmful behaviors that an emotionally immature parent may teach their kids is that rather than facing their problems head-on, they should sweep things under the rug and let them roll off their backs. Running away from any semblance of conflict or refusing to acknowledge when there's an issue in the room may seem like the easier way to cope with things, but in the long run, only ends up creating more conflict.
"The problem with avoidance coping is that it doesn’t solve the issue," Dr. Jessica Goodnight, a licensed clinical psychologist from Atlanta, Georgia, told Psych Central.
“If you’re avoiding something that scares you because it feels like too much, you never learn to overcome your fear and live more freely. Some forms of avoidance cause additional problems also; for example, binge drinking regularly whenever you’re sad can have some lasting consequences."
7. Love is conditional
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Emotionally immature parents may have forced the idea onto their children that they are only worth loving if they meet certain expectations and standards. They may have claimed that they only wanted the best for their children, but their approval was only shown as a reward instead of unconditionally.
Instead of trying to build resilience within their kids, these types of parents only instilled a constant fear of rejection and failure. Adults who believe that love is conditional may find themselves in such toxic relationships because they feel as if they need to show up as someone else just to be loved.
Kaytee Gillis, LCSW, a psychotherapist and the author, wrote for Psychology Today that healing from conditional love "involves a combination of acknowledging your history and doing some reparenting work for that part of you that feels unloved."
"Acknowledging one’s history of inadequate or insufficient caregiver support involves more than just admitting that it happened. It involves taking a deeper look at how your past affected you and what deficits or 'needs' you might have due to it."
8. Resisting change
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Emotionally immature parents may have struggled to adapt to changes that happen and because of this, may have unknowingly taught their children to be fearful of having to adapt to new things that arrive. Instead of viewing change as a natural part of life and growing up, children were taught that they should be adamant about remaining stagnant.
As adults, this can hinder the opportunity for growth, which is such a beautiful thing. Change can be scary but it's also necessary, and if you know how to approach it healthily, it won't be as scary as your parents may have made it seem.
9. Blaming yourself for everything
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Something emotionally immature parents may struggle with is being able to take accountability for their actions. Instead of owning up to their mistakes and shortcomings, they'll often shift the blame to their children. Because of this, children are growing up in an environment where they feel the need to carry all this unnecessary responsibility on their shoulders for things that aren't even their fault.
As an adult, this ends up meaning they often internalize a lot of things as being their fault when it isn't. Anything that goes wrong, they're unable to conceptualize that it was out of their hands.
10. Ignoring self-care
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Emotionally immature parents are sometimes unable to recognize their own needs and as a result, unintentionally pass down those habits to their children. They were unable to model a healthy view of self-care and what it means to truly put yourself first in moments when you need it.
Instead, children of emotionally immature parents may have been taught to "tough it out" and "grow up," when they were experiencing distress, instead of being told to feel their emotions and take time for themselves.
If a child grows up in this kind of environment, as adults, they struggle to have boundaries with themselves and with other people. They may not even know the first thing they should do when they're feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
11. Minimize your experiences
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Emotionally immature parents are sometimes unable to have emotional depth and empathy, so instead of validating their children's feelings, accomplishments, and experiences, they belittle and dismiss them. As a child growing up in this kind of household, you were being taught that goals being met and dreams being achieved were not a big deal at all.
As an adult, you may struggle with being able to celebrate yourself and may even feel uncomfortable when other people make a big deal out of things that have happened to you because, in your mind, they don't matter.
The truth is, they definitely do, and just because your parents refused to acknowledge certain things doesn't mean you have to let yourself stay in that cycle instead of being excited and joyful.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.