An emotionally immature parent is a parent who is unable to provide emotional needs to his/her child. The parent fails to make a solid emotional connection with the child. Owing to this, the child grows up emotionally malnourished and with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. This post will bring to your awareness 7 of the most common traits of emotionally mature parents.

All children base their sense of security on a strong emotional connection with their parents, guardians or caregivers. This sense of security is threatened when a child grows up in a relationship void of emotional connectedness and attachment to the parent, guardian or caregiver.

Most emotionally immature parents are unaware of this immaturity and they cause so much pain to their children and scar their relationships. From time to time, normal and healthy parents display a few of the traits listed below in the course of the parenting years. However, they are quick to self-correct and resume nourishing and catering to their children’s emotional needs.

The following are some traits associated with emotionally immature parents.

1. Emotionally immature parents are rigid

Rigidity is an obstinate inability to yield or refusal to see or consider another person’s viewpoint. Parents who display this trait believe that their view or that of an authority figure be it a religious leader or teacher is the only way. To them, there is only one way. These parents have not developed open-mindedness to know that people have different views and that there are more ways to achieve a certain goal.

This type of immaturity makes it very hard for other people to work with them or their child. There simply is no cooperation if their views are not given priority. Children who are raised by rigid parents are unable to develop autonomy and their individuality because they have to go by what is right for the parent and not what they truly want.

2. Emotionally immature parents have low-stress tolerance

As a person goes through the maturation process of adult life, the level of tolerance to stress increase with the exposure to the inevitable curveball in life. Emotionally immature parents, however, never develop this tolerance. Instead, they break down at the slightest stress.

Some of the ways they display low tolerance to stress are: denying there is a stressful situation or distorting what is going on or giving a narrative of how they wish things were. As an example, whereas it might be clear for all and sundry to see that this parent’s child is abusing drugs, the emotionally immature parent might shrug it as ‘he is just experimenting and he can get off’ or display defensiveness by retorting ‘No, he is not. I have brought him up well. He is a good boy/girl and can’t do that’.

The real reason for having low-stress tolerance is a chronic lack of taking responsibility for making things right. Also, they have not learnt about their emotional triggers as well as their children’s triggers and how to manage them. Most of them blame, complain and play helpless victims in a bid to escape facing the fact that they need to act and make things right for themselves and their children.

Children who grow up under these parents are crippled with anxiety and helplessness. This is because of the lack of a model to teach them how to calm themselves in stressful situations and how to solve the crises that arise as they grow. Some, from an early age, learn how to solve their problems. Most of them do this to ‘help’ their parents solve their problems. In turn, they grow as fixers who later in life attract friends and intimate partners with similar traits as the parent.

3. They do what feels best in the moment

Emotionally immature parents are excellent at sweeping things under the rug to keep the peace or avoid difficult conversations with their children. In a way, they are too permissive which leads to the child feeling entitled to everything. When accountability is required, these parents are quick to give a litany of external circumstances that made them make unwise choices.

As an example, when the child is caught in a disciplinary issue, the parent might side with the child and blame externalities and other people. In an extreme case, the parents transfers the child from the school or neighbourhood. To them, anything is better than sitting down and discussing the aberrant behaviour of their child.

Emotionally immature parents displaying this trait have not yet outgrown the uncomfortable feelings associated with growth, making peace and communicating assertively. In turn, they hurt their children by passing the same mindset, overplacating and not allowing their children to face age-appropriate life’s adversities to develop resilience, independence and perseverance.

4. Emotionally immature parents are subjective

Being subjective means that an individual places more emphasis on how they feel inside them more than what is happening to others or around them. They then act out based on how they feel in complete disregard for others and the reality at hand.

Emotionally immature parents who possess this trait hurt their children by invalidating, minimising or punishing children for displaying intense emotions such as fear, worry, anger, etc. Emotions are very contagious. When a child expresses a certain feeling, the same feeling is elicited in the parent.

It is the duty of the parent to manage his/her own discomfort when these feelings arise and help the child cope, calm and overcome his emotions. Emotionally immature parents do not have this capacity to hold space. They blurt out and unleash their discomfort on the child via yelling, shouting, shutting down or telling the child to stop being childish.

The child becomes very confused and hurt because he has not developed the mechanisms to self-soothe or self-calm. He learns that when strong feelings emerge, there is something wrong with him and in time learns to switch off the feelings. When he notices emotional upset in others, he uses the same unhelpful mechanisms the parent or caregiver used on him which creates chaotic relationships.

Another display of being subjective is hijacking space. For example, when your child shares a story with an emotionally immature parent, the parent does not listen to understand the child. She/he cuts the child and starts to share a similar story about herself/himself. The parent does this not to create a connection with the child, but to be the one receiving the attention. Such a parent fails to build a deep connection with his/her child because the child feels invalidated, ignored, unseen and unheard.

5. Emotionally immature parents have no emotional boundaries with their children

Part of being a parent is protecting our children from emotions that they are not able to handle yet. Be it the death of a family member, divorce, extramarital affair or drug problem. Emotionally immature parents lack the wisdom to withhold certain information or lack the wisdom on how to deliver the pieces of information to their children in a way that they will digest.

They continuously share private affairs between them and their spouses or engage their children in gossiping about their friends. Not being assertive to stop the parent, the child grows up with a skewed view of relationships and in some instances, this type of emotional immaturity causes children to side with one parent and alienate the other.

It is our duty as parents to have emotional boundaries with ourselves on what is to be shared with our children and what is to remain secret to us. Develop a support system for your emotional well-being and make yourself available for your children when they need you. They learn to be emotionally agile and strong under your leadership and guidance.

6. Emotionally immature parents are self-preoccupied and self-absorbed.

One of the hallmarks of emotionally immature parents is their obsessions with themselves. All they care about is how their needs and their own problems. They act as if everyone should give them a hearing ear or help with little consideration of what others might be going through or their abilities and resources.

Children raised by such parents learn to minimise their needs because they have continuously been led to believe that other people’s problems or issues are bigger than theirs. As an example, a teenager may approach a parent with a genuine need for a new pair of shoes. An emotionally immature parent may respond as follows ” you are so selfish for needing a new pair of shoes, can’t you see how I am financially stretched?! Your grandma is sick, the bills are due and you are here asking for a new pair of shoes, what is wrong with you??! ” when in fact this parent has not shared the financial state she/ he is in with the child.

This is outright emotional abuse to the child. The parent is so consumed with what is going on in his/her world that any request or opinion that contradicts this world is viewed as an attack. They respond defensively and in a critical manner causing more hurt both to the child and themselves. As is, they expect the child to be mature and read their minds.

Another peculiar characteristic of self-absorption is an excessive holding of grudges. These parents are quick to remind their children of all the times they have disappointed them as a means to make the child compliant and act in ways that appease the parent. Forgiveness is not something they are willing to cultivate. Self-absorbed parents are notorious for expecting others to read their minds. They have not mastered the art of assertively speaking and hence expect their children to read their minds. As an example, a parent might be tired and worn out. But instead of communicating, she/he starts to complain that no one cares about them. This induces guilt feelings in the child who then starts to assume the role of caretaker to the parent.

7. Emotionally immature parents lack self-awareness

The emotionally immature parent is oblivious to the effects of their actions and choices on those around him/her. They rarely stop to think of the long-term ramifications of their behaviours on those around them. As an example, a parent who always solves his/her child’s problems or is always rescuing the child is unaware of the dependence he/she is creating in the child.

When they are faulted for this quality, they become overly defensive. They may stone wall a child or ignore him altogether. These behaviours sink them deeper into their self-absorption and widen the abyss between the parent and the child.

These parents do not do the internal work of identifying their emotional triggers. As a result, they mostly live in reaction mode, which causes anxiety to them and to their children. Consequently, owing to their lack of profitable coping skills, they do not teach their children how to manage their emotional distress.

• Why Psychological Safety Matters In A Family And How To Create It
• PARENTAL FAVOURITISM – recipe for vicious sibling rivalry and family breakdown
• UNDERSTANDING BULLYING – why children and adolescents do it, how to address and stop it.
• 20 Longterm benefits of strong attachment to a primary caregiver in infants, toddlers, middleschoolers and teenagers
• 10 HARMFUL EFFECTS OF PARENTAL CONFLICT ON CHILDREN