Emotionally immature parents can be frustratingly stubborn — they’re like two-year-olds who discover the word no! They don’t respect other people’s opinions and rarely admit when they’re wrong.

It is common for children of emotionally immature parents to have the fantasy that their parent will change and begin to love them and show concern. As an adult you might continue to believe this and try different things in hopes of eliciting a response from your parent that will make you feel validated, heard, and loved. Sana Qadar: Given how crucial our relationships with our parents are, it's no surprise how they treat us can have a lasting impact on our emotional well-being. Psychologist Lindsay Gibson says there are a few common ways this can play out.

Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries and Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

To complicate matters, they often see themselves as magnanimous and are utterly blind to their shortcomings. 6. Emotionally Ignorant I’m like a Lindsay C. Gibson fan boy. I’m amazed by her empathy, breath of knowledge, originality and skillful presentation.

Mandy: So in Brazil we have a tradition where we have a large party when somebody is 15 and they are coming in to be a woman et cetera, it's usually a very expensive party. I kept telling her, 'I really don't want to do this,' and she said, 'No, but I missing out on this experience.' And it was funny because it's very clearly a party that is not for the parent, it's for the child. And so she set up this whole party, did it all her own way. You know, that's not completely unhealthy in and of itself, but when you notice that in a pattern of behaviour, it becomes very interesting. They make you feel seen, heard, and understood. These are three of the most important traits of a person. When we feel seen, heard, and understood, we feel our partner really gets us. It makes us feel safe. We feel we can go to our partner for many things and they will be emotionally available to and for us. Sana Qadar: Mandy now runs an online forum where other children of difficult parents can swap survival stories, share encouragement and try and heal. 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. Along with being stubborn, emotionally underdeveloped folks can be extremely self-centered. They come first!Lindsay Gibson: Well, I don't have any research on the demographics of them unfortunately, that would be a whole other lifetime, but I became aware of them through my work in psychotherapy with people who came in and would talk about their parents in such a way that I was astounded at the immaturity of their behaviours. And as I'm listening to them, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, her father is acting like a four-year-old, or her mother sounds like a 14-year-old. Some people with the condition may fit squarely into one category. Others may exhibit elements of two or more. 1. Emotional Parents Sana Qadar: The other dynamic Lindsay often sees is that children of emotionally immature parents end up feeling responsible for other people's emotions. Emotional reactivity is the intensity with which you respond to emotions. High emotional reactivity is a sign of poor emotional regulation and involves intense shifts in your emotional responses.