3 Signs Your Parent Is Emotionally Immature, From Having Low Empathy To Taking Everything Personally
A hard realization is that you may be more mature than the people who raised you.
Wadi Lissa | Unsplash Not every parent has the emotional intelligence and emotional maturity to teach their children the same. A person's age does not always reflect their maturity level.
Often, an emotionally immature parent can be like the child in a parent-child relationship, which leaves the actual child needing to teach themselves emotional regulation or not learn it at all. Many adult children of emotionally immature parents can be left with feelings of guilt while taking on the role of emotional caregiver for the parent.
Here are the signs your parent is emotionally immature:
1. They are uncomfortable with emotional expression
A telling sign of an emotionally immature parent is their consistent difficulty in dealing with their child's negative or unwanted emotions. They may resort to deflecting, denying, or even belittling these emotions rather than addressing them constructively.
Often, this stems from the parent's discomfort with emotional expression or their lack of tools to process and discuss emotions healthily. Their reactions can inadvertently teach the child that such feelings are invalid or should be suppressed, which can have long-term effects on their emotional development and self-expression.
— Clare Waismann, M-RAS/ SUDCC II Waismann Method Rapid Detox Founder
Being uncomfortable with emotions suggests a lack of capacity to process and openly share feelings, crucial for healthy parent-child relationships and overall emotional development. Research from a 2021 study on attachment styles highlights how a parent's ability to be emotionally present and responsive to a child's emotions significantly impacts the child's attachment security.
2. They take everything personally
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They interpret the world through an emotional filter and take everything personally due to never learning from their parents how to take responsibility for their role in life's experiences. They approach things as a child would, and their actual children often feel guilty and shameful if they can't "make" the parents happy.
— Cassady Cayne, energy coach, author
This indicates a lack of healthy emotional boundaries, poor self-awareness, and an inability to separate one's feelings from the actions of others. This often leads to overreacting and blaming others, including one's children, for one's emotional state.
Research published in Psychology Research and Behavior Management indicates that authoritarian parenting styles, where parents are overly critical and controlling, are more likely to exhibit the behavior of taking things personally, impacting their children's emotional development.
3. They lack emotional vocabulary
All emotionally immature parents are raising their children with at least some measure of emotional neglect. Emotionally unaware parents might not admit what they feel because they are unaware they even have those feelings.
They may lack the emotional vocabulary to correctly identify their feelings. They may fail to acknowledge their anger and take it out indirectly because they don’t have the skills to express or work out their anger or hurt.
— Jonice Webb, Ph.D., psychologist and best-selling author
A 2021 study published by Frontiers in Psychology found that a limited emotional vocabulary, in which a parent struggles to identify and express a wide range of emotions accurately, can significantly indicate emotional immaturity. This can impact the parent's ability to nurture and understand their child's emotional needs effectively.
Other behaviors, such as inconsistent parenting, lack of emotional availability, and difficulty setting boundaries, can indicate emotional immaturity, even if a parent uses a relatively rich emotional vocabulary.
Dealing with the emotional immaturity of another person is never easy and more difficult when the person is your parent. The parent is supposed to be the one who steps up to comfort and assist with your emotions. Even if you are an adult now, the parent should still have a step up on the maturity ladder from you.
However, the reality of life and socialization makes many people have a lifelong gap in maturely confronting and managing their own complex emotions. If you struggle with a parent whose emotional maturity is lacking, remember you are not to blame, and you are not required to fix them.
Will Curtis is a creator, editor, and activist who has spent the last decade working remotely.