Healing from Emotionally Immature Parenting: Recognizing, Coping, and Setting Boundaries
In a healthy parent-child dynamic, the parent attunes to their child’s emotions and provides nurture. The baby is crying, the parent holds and coos at the baby until they stop. The toddler has a nightmare, the parent comforts them and reassures them it’s safe. The child comes home upset that they didn’t make a sports team, and the parent validates their disappointment and lets them know they’re still very proud of their efforts.
As they grow up, the child knows that they can rely on their parents with their emotional needs. Their upbringing has shown them that their parents will be receptive to their sadness, their joy, their anger, and their fears. Their emotions become validated and processed healthily in a safe environment.
But, not everyone gets this kind of upbringing. In families with emotionally immature parents, the child’s emotional world gets ignored, minimized, or even punished. These parents lack the ability to tolerate strong emotions, especially their child’s, and respond with discomfort, deflection, or even resentment when their child expresses them.
As a therapist, I see how these moments compound into larger narratives adults build about themselves and others, and how these narratives can be harmful. Let’s break down how immature parenting can affect our sense of self and our relationships.
In this article, I will answer the following questions:
- What does emotionally immature parenting look like?
- What are the effects of emotionally immature parenting?
- How do I heal from parents who were emotionally immature?
This article draws from the very excellent book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson.
What does Emotionally Immature Parenting Look Like?
A baby cries, but instead of being held, they’re left to self-soothe too early. It isn’t out of a developmental need, but because the parent feels overwhelmed or irritated. A toddler wakes up from a nightmare, and rather than being comforted, they’re told they’re being silly, and to go back to sleep. A child comes home upset after not making a sports team, and instead of empathy, they hear, “Maybe you should’ve practiced more”.
Emotionally immature parenting looks like a constant failure to meet a child's emotional needs. Parents may be too absorbed in their own emotional world, unable or unwilling to provide the soothing, validation, and support that the child craves. These parents might view their child’s emotions as an inconvenience, a nuisance, or even a reflection of their own inadequacy. Rather than offering comfort, they might respond with criticism, withdrawal, or indifference.
Emotionally immature parents:
- Avoid emotional intimacy
- Lack empathy or understanding
- Deflect emotional responsibility onto the child
- React unpredictably
- Struggle with boundaries
- Offer shame-based discipline
- Seldom look past their own emotions into others’
- Have a low stress tolerance
- Have a strong preoccupation with themselves/their needs
- Have a difficult time self-reflecting
- Are emotionally insensitive
In these dynamics, the emotional roles often also become reversed. Not only does the parent not soothe the child, but they also expect the child to soothe them. In the sports team instance, for example, the parent may express deep upset for the child not trying hard enough, evoking guilt onto the child not only for not making the team, but for upsetting the parent; “You know how much I wanted you to be on the team, how could you hurt me like this?”.
Other common statements sound like:
“After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me?”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
“You always make me out to be the bad guy.”
“You’re so sensitive, I was just joking.”
“You’re being dramatic, I never said that.”
“Why are you always attacking me?”
Changing the topic onto themselves
Let me be clear, it’s not that these parents are necessarily cruel or neglectful in obvious ways. In fact, more often than not, they love their children. They just lack the emotional tools to show up consistently. Their own emotional development may have been stunted by trauma or neglect, and so the cycle repeats.
The Effects of Emotionally Immature Parenting
We know that children need their parents, not only for logistical reasons, like food and shelter, but for emotional safety, as well. Children need to feel like their parents will respond to their emotions on a neurological level, and when they do not receive that responsiveness, they will form stories to explain why. A child is very unlikely to have the thought “there must be something wrong with my parents if they won’t comfort me”, because that thought is too dangerous. If that were the case, they’d have no hope to or control over getting what they need from a parent.
Because children are wired to stay attached to their caregivers at all costs, they will prioritize maintaining the relationship over their own emotional truth. The child will often assume the problem lies within themselves:
“I must be too much”
“I must be doing something wrong”
“If I were different, they would love me better”
These thoughts might seem more negatively affective, but they’re also safer; the child holds on to the hope that they may be able to influence their parent into one day responding to their emotional needs. Thoughts like these are characteristic of an attachment wound; a deep injury to the child’s sense of worth and safety in relationships.
This wound might transform into behaviours like perfectionism, people-pleasing, emotional numbing, or a chronic fear of upsetting others. They may become overly self-reliant, shut down their feelings, or constantly scan for how others might react, especially if those reactions are unpredictable or dismissive.
These are not just personality traits; they are adaptations. The child molds themselves into who they think they need to be in order to keep love available, otherwise the message is clear: “If you upset me, I will withdraw love, become cold, or make you feel like the bad guy”. The child might become overly responsible, quiet, cheerful, or agreeable, not because it’s who they are, but because it felt like the only way to survive emotionally as children.
The emotionally immature parent will often reward those behaviours. It is not uncommon for an immature parent to make statements like:
“You’ve always been so mature for your age”
“You’re the only one who really understands me”
“We have a special connection”
“You’re like a little adult”
This praise can feel like love to the child, but it’s actually a set of conditions offered when the child suppresses their needs and aligns with the parent’s emotional comfort. The child learns that being easygoing, self-sufficient, or emotionally contained earns them approval, while expressing sadness, anger, or frustration leads to disconnection or punishment.
Over time, the child may mistake this dynamic for closeness, not realizing that what’s being rewarded isn’t their authentic self, but their ability to keep the parent emotionally regulated; part confidant, part caretaker, part emotional buffer. This can lead to enmeshment, which may feel good for the child who’s starved for connection, but it’s ultimately a burden. It teaches them that love is earned through emotional labor, and that their worth is tied to how well they manage other people’s feelings.
This can be extremely confusing to untangle in adulthood. What felt like love was sometimes just survival in disguise. By adolescence or early adulthood, these children may feel like they’re walking on emotional eggshells. They may second-guess their own feelings, feel shame for needing support, or struggle with emotional intimacy in their own relationships. They may attract partners and friends who mimic these dynamics; feeding them crumbs of connection in exchange for them staying within the tightly defined boundaries of emotional expression and acceptable behaviour.
It is not uncommon for the adult child of an emotionally immature parent to date people who feel familiar. Love is taught to be something conditional, and partners who are hot and cold, avoidant, even abusive, maintain and strengthen the same pattern these adults felt as kids. These adults may never feel like they’re good enough for their partners, and constantly feel the pressure to “shape up” to meet their expectations. Like in childhood, they do not get to be themselves, because they have learned that being themselves could cost them the relationship.
How to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parenting
Understanding how emotionally immature parenting affects us is important; knowing what to do about it is the tougher step. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all model for healing from emotionally immature parenting, but there are things we can do.
Firstly, name what’s going on. This doesn’t mean blaming your parents, or villanizing them, but it does mean taking an honest look about what your upbringing looked like, and its effects. Notice your belief system when it comes to love and your perceived worthiness. Do they mimic the attachment wound discussed earlier? Naming helps you start to see these beliefs, not as truths, but as responses to the emotional environment you grew up in. To challenge and change your internal landscape, you need to name and explore it.
Secondly, accept your parent for who they are, not who you need them to be. This is extremely difficult because it often means grieving the kind of love and nurturing you wish you could have, but it’s necessary. Let go of the fantasy that if you give your parent what they want they will love you the way you need to be loved. Let go of the illusion that you can play this role so correctly that they will make an 180 degree turn. They will not, and you will lose more and more of yourself in the process.
Thirdly, if you have a relationship with your emotionally immature parent(s), work on observing your relationship with them. It’s very common for adult children of emotionally immature parents to be stuck in a loop of guilt and resentment, even with the understanding of what’s really going on. You may still feel the sting of guilt when your parent tells you you disappointed them. This makes sense; your nervous system is still attuned to believe that you will only be okay if they’re okay. You may feel overwhelming anger or resentment as you notice how this upbringing affected you. That makes total sense, as well. As difficult as it sounds, try not to act on this guilt or resentment, but rather, take on an observational approach as you interact with them. Be explicit about what’s happening:
“My mom just told me that she is disgusted that I’m taking a trip with my boyfriend and haven’t taken a trip with her this year. I feel guilty, and my instinct is to plan a trip with her right now to make her feel okay. I know this is happening because throughout my childhood she encouraged me to attune to her needs. It’s okay that I’m taking a trip with my boyfriend, I do not have to abandon my plans or compromise my boundaries in order to make her feel okay.”
“My dad always asks me about my financial situation and pressures me to give him money, even when I’ve said no in the past. Today, he was asking again, and I started feeling nervous, like I needed to help him to keep the peace. But I know that I have the right to say no without explanation. I don’t need to justify my decision to him.”
“My mom just called me again for the third time today, and every time I pick up the phone, she immediately begins talking about her problems without asking how I’m doing. I feel like I can’t get a word in edgewise. My instinct is to immediately drop what I’m doing and start listening to her, but I know that if I keep doing that, I’m going to burn out. I’ll tell her, ‘I can’t talk right now, but I’ll call you tomorrow at 6 PM’, and then talk through my guilt with my friend who gets it.”
“After I shared with my dad that I’m in therapy and working on my anxiety, he laughed and said, ‘You don’t need therapy, you need to toughen up’. I feel a mix of anger and sadness. I want to argue with him, tell him he’s wrong. But I know that his response is about his own discomfort, not my reality. I don’t need to convince him or justify my choices.”
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, find ways to self-soothe. It sounds paradoxical, but your coping mechanism to the anxiety associated with your parent’s demands is to fulfill your parents’ needs. You feel you can’t cope with the guilt of their disappointment, so instead, you exert yourself to meet their expectations. The pattern may look like this:
Your parent asks something of you (e.g., to cancel your plans and see them this weekend).
You know it’s uncomfortable or inauthentic to meet this need, so you tell them (e.g., “I can’t this weekend, I made a commitment already”).
Your parent does or says something to trigger your guilt (e.g., “You never want to see me, I might as well be dead!”, then hangs up).
You sit with extreme feelings of guilt.
You decide to cancel your plans to spend time with your parent.
Instead, you need to learn to cope with the feelings of guilt without acting on your childhood impulse to take care of your parent. Self-soothing is vital to this, and can break the pattern:
Your parent asks something of you (e.g., to cancel your plans and see them this weekend).
You know it’s uncomfortable or inauthentic to meet this need, so you tell them (e.g., “I can’t this weekend, I made a commitment already”).
Your parent does or says something to trigger your guilt (e.g., “You never want to see me, I might as well be dead!”, then hangs up).
You sit with extreme feelings of guilt.
You breathe through the feelings, name why this is happening, and talk with a trusted friend about how difficult this is for you.
You reassert your boundary through text, or by ignoring the guilt-trip, reminding yourself that your parent’s emotion is not your responsibility.
I know it sounds incredibly difficult, and it is, but on an ongoing basis, this firm boundary setting sets up clear expectations that their guilt tripping will not manifest into their needs being met. Alongside a clear internal understanding of why this is happening (through naming your internal beliefs, accepting your parent for who they are, and observing your relationship with them), you can slowly begin to shift away from a narrative that keeps you tied to an unhealthy dynamic.
If you find yourself in friendships or romantic relationships where this pattern is mirrored, use the same steps to cope with those, as well. As excruciating as it is, in some cases, this may mean letting go of those relationships altogether.
Getting Help
I know it isn’t easy to navigate and break these deep, ingrained patterns. Healing from emotionally immature parenting takes work, and while the steps outlined above can certainly help, added support can be incredibly powerful.
If you’re looking for a therapist to support you through this journey, reach out. Book a free 15-minute call with us and get set up with a therapist as soon as this week.
