This article talks about how to heal from emotionally immature parents. You’ll learn the signs & effects of having such parents and how to deal with it in a safe way.
One of the ways to phenomenally improve your mental health is to understand why our parents were the way they were in our childhood.
Your parents need not have been totally evil to have scarred your mental health. Emotionally immature parents may be well-meaning yet have caused childhood trauma that affects you well into adulthood.
Recognizing this short fall from your parents is the first step to healing your inner child.
Many parents have children when they are not emotionally ready to face the challenges of raising kids. This leads them to inadvertently harming the mental health of their children.
If your parents were emotionally immature, here are some of the signs and behaviours you may have noticed:
List of 12 Signs of Emotionally Immature Parents
- Being extremely strict and rigid
- Low stress tolerance
- Becoming agitated when you don’t behave the way they expect you to behave
- Lack of empathy
- Being emotionally distant or unavailable
- Believing their way is the only right way and unwilling to recognize different ideas
- Extremely controlling
- Not apologizing
- Blaming you or others, and refusing to take responsibility
- Refusing to allow their children to express negative emotions
- Dismissive of children’s problems
- Taking care of you physically but not emotionally
10 Effects of Emotionally Immature Parents on Adult Children
What happens to the children of emotionally immature parents? They grow up to become adults with poor mental health. They may face problems such as:
- Feeling inadequate
- Blaming themselves for problems
- Being afraid to be happy, or guilt over feeling happy
- Feeling lonely and misunderstood
- Being unable to manage their own emotions
- Restricting of emotions
- Self-doubt
- Low self esteem
- Feeling you are unworthy of love
- Feeling that you are responsible for your parent’s happiness
How to Deal with Emotionally Immature Parents
Many of you are here because you live under the roof of emotionally immature parents. You are wondering how you can deal with them and not lose your sanity. Here are some tips that I have used:
1. Try to avoid them as much as possible
Don’t keep trying to look for ways to show them they are wrong or don’t understand. Don’t even try to change them because you just cannot. Emotionally immature parents are stuck in their ways. Even if they want to change, they may not do it and they may still go back to their old ways – there is just no guarantee. Besides the basics of greeting, doing chores or helping when needed, don’t be in their paths.
2. Try emotional detachment
You probably already do this anyway, because it’s one of the effects of having emotionally immature parents. You developing become emotionally distant and detached from them because they made you that way.
If it’s a family dinner or your parents are interacting with you, you don’t have to get emotional or have angry outbursts.
Yes, you raging at them can happen but as time goes on, you’ll see that it’s better you just disengage in conversations because they won’t understand your point of view. Some people, even if they are your parents can have a perspective of you in their heads that they never want to change.
3. Develop hobbies you love
Take time for yourself to discover and indulge in things you love. Whether it’s photography, reading, writing, gaming, reading manga, watching TV shows – just do it and stop thinking about how frustrating your parents are. Develop your own world of happiness and be there. It’s fun! Also, if you’re an extrovert, you can engage in hobbies that require you to be out of the house.
4. Talk to someone trustworthy
Maybe you’re in high school and can’t go to a professional therapist yet. So, seek the help of the counsellor. You may have someone like an older sister, a family member or a good friend that can listen to you even if you just want to vent. Be careful though and only talk to trusted people who won’t take advantage of you.
How to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parents as Adult Children
It’s important to also need to know how to heal from emotionally immature parents as adult children. Here are a few ways to find healing:
1. Set boundaries with your parents
Now that you’re an adult and don’t live with them, it’s easier to set boundaries. If you don’t set boundaries, you may be open to the suffering you faced while you were living with them.
Emotionally immature parents can try to use and take advantage of their adult children whether it’s in terms of financial abuse such as taking control of your finances when you don’t want them to or psychological maneuvres such as guilt-tripping you into having children when you are child-free, etc.
Setting boundaries with your parents helps protect your peace. It can save you from bringing the abusive cycle of your childhood back into your adult life. Your parents should be aware that they can’t overstep your boundaries in any way.
2. Do not engage with their behaviour
Perhaps you had no choice but to bear the brunt of your emotionally abusive parents’ behaviour when you were under their roof.
But as an adult you should no longer engage with their behaviour. Be consistent with your boundaries. When you don’t engage with them, they become stuck and tend to leave you alone because they see they no longer have power over you.
Many adult children, even though they are not physically with their parents, are still attached to them emotionally and psychologically. This makes them engage with their parent’s behaviour, causing arguments, fights, and a never-ending cycle of toxicity. It drains your energy and also shows your parents that they still hold power over you and can still manipulate you.
3. See a therapist
Working with a therapist can help you move on with your life and not dwell on the actions of your parents and how they affect you now. Your therapist can give you coping techniques based on your personal experiences.
4. You can read self-help books
Self-help books can be very healing. Especially when you are an adult and feel ashamed that you still haven’t healed from your childhood trauma. It’s okay to feel ashamed, by the way. Books can help you in a way that you don’t have to talk to someone physically to get help.
Reading psychology books can help you gain new knowledge about yourself and your emotionally immature parents. It can also show you different perspectives of how other people deal with their emotionally immature parents.
One such book that can help is: “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents”. It is a great book by Lindsay C Gibson.
Are there any other tips you have on how to heal from emotionally immature parents? Share them below so we can also benefit! Thank you so much.
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