4 Types Of Emotionally Immature Parents & How To Talk To Them - Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson

If you had the emotional type of immature parent, what are some experiences you'd recognize from childhood, and what are the most likely impacts on you in adulthood?

With an emotional type of emotionally immature parent, your memories are probably going to center around being very vigilant about the mood that your parent is in, being watchful and tense about what their reaction is going to be, or what kind of mood they're going to be in.

And that's because they have very poor emotional regulation. They really depend on circumstances and other people to keep them balanced and feeling all right about themselves and good about life. And it's always a moving target because there can be such little things that will make them feel scared and insecure or worried about something, but they don't contain that like an emotionally mature person would be able to.

Instead, they kind of let it all hang out. They become very reactive, just as a small child would. A three or four-year-old is not going to hold in their feelings and think about the impact on other people. If they're starting to get very upset, they're just going to get very upset.

So, if you're the child of a parent who is doing this, it's going to feel to you like everything is kind of coming apart, and you don't know when it will be over. And you don't, of course, know what to do to make sure that this person is going to calm down. So, it's a tremendously tense experience for a child to have this emotional type of emotionally immature parent.

These parents are the types that will sort of create an atmosphere in the home of everyone tiptoeing around them as though they're walking on eggshells. And they really quickly become the most important person in the family dynamics because everything has to center on them and how well they're doing with their own emotional regulation.

For instance, when dad comes home, everybody's very alert to what kind of mood he's in, what kind of day he's had. Is he going to get quickly angry if he's frustrated? Children have to become hyper alert to the emotional state of this emotional parent.

Another example would be the mother who is barely functioning because she's so overcome by anxiety or her own emotions or her own depression, for instance. And so she might run out of energy.

She might become distraught. She might have to go to bed for the rest of the evening. And the children kind of have to learn that they can't ask for too much because any amount of "pressure" is likely to render that emotional parent unable to parent or even unable to keep themselves on a steady keel.

So of all the types of emotionally immature parents, the emotional type is the one that is most likely to make their child feel acutely anxious. And also like their needs are, in a way, sort of likely to be seen as overwhelming or unwanted or even dangerous in the sense that they might tip that emotional parent into a bad mood, into a rage attack, into a depressive spiral.

They can't have the sense of security that I, the child, can have my feelings and my parent can have theirs. It has to be all about helping that parent manage their own emotions.

So, in adult life, the child of an emotionally immature emotional type parent is going to feel very familiar with people who are high-strung or tend to get angry very quickly, people who ride highs and lows because this is how all of their coping evolved to meet this kind of challenge in their deepest, most meaningful relationships. So, when they run into people who also are of an emotional type, they've got a whole bag of coping mechanisms ready to go.

They know how to be in a relationship with the person who's not very good at keeping their own emotions and needs and all that in balance and able to interact with other people in ways that are considerate or even well-modulated, calm.

So, it can happen that you actually feel drawn to people who need that kind of attentiveness from you. And that need you to be very aware of the smallest slight, the merest hint of some kind of dissatisfaction. You have probably become very good at reading that in people and being able to sort of monitor yourself and keep yourself in a place where you're going to be able to take care of them emotionally. And that is exhausting.

However, for a lot of people it just doesn't occur to them to want to leave that kind of relationship because they're always having that feeling that they're being pulled back in, that they're very necessary to that emotional type of emotionally immature person because they are. The emotional type really relies on other people to help them stay stable and have a good sense of self-esteem and to feel all right about life. So, that's a very important role that you're put in and it can be quite heavy. I mean, you can feel quite essential to a person like that.

And it really takes some self-observing, maybe even some therapy to begin to realize what it's doing to you because believe me, with this type of parent you have not had the opportunity to tune into what you need and how things make you feel.

What about the rejecting type of immature parent? What would your childhood look like with them and what are the most likely ways you'd struggle because of it in adulthood?

The rejecting parent is probably the parent that causes the most fundamental doubt in a child about their very worth or their right to be noticed and to be responded to by the adults in their life.

The rejecting parent is a parent who is very involved in whatever is on their mind or whatever it is that they need and they don't really have any sort of a welcoming presence with their children. They tend to feel that the kids are in the way, that they just want to be left alone, and whatever it is that the child is trying to bring to them or say to them is something that's kind of pesky and unimportant.

They communicate all of this through their rejecting attitude toward the child when the child approaches them. Lots of times people will feel that they are a bother to this kind of parent, that they are interfering, that they're interrupting, that they're making that parent feel very impatient because there's something more important that is on the mind of the parent, and they just aren't interested in hearing about what's going on with that kid.

So, when you have a parent like that, it's very hard to avoid feeling like it must be me. Like I must not be a very interesting or compelling person.

My parent doesn't want to communicate with me, and I'm kind of bothering them all the time.

So, there's a pull in the child toward wanting to relate to the parent and get the parent's attention because that's what all children need when they're growing up. They have that pull to do that. It's very insistent, very powerful. So, they find themselves approaching the rejecting parent even though they "know better". They know how it's going to go, but because they need that validation and that interaction with the parent so badly, they will keep trying.

And when the parent rebuffs them or acts like they just don't have time for them, don't want to be bothered, the child gradually begins to learn that this is not going to work out well every time they approach the parent. So, they start to give up.

Now, the unfortunate thing is they don't just learn to give up on this one parent because they have behaved in a rejecting way toward them. They form a very deep conviction about life and about their place in life.

The child who has a rejecting emotionally immature parent grows up believing that there is something that is basically not very interesting about them and certainly not very important about themselves. They don't feel like they command interest, they don't feel like people want to listen to them. In fact, they go through life feeling like they're pretty much a bother or a nuisance to other people. That others will get impatient or annoyed if they ask them for things or they have a need for them to pay attention to them about something.

So, when you grow up and you've had this kind of parent, it may be very hard for you to go to your boss.

Or a colleague, or maybe even your own partner: ask them difficult questions or important questions to tell them when you have a need for something, to introduce something that you need to discuss with them. All this becomes a hard thing to do because at this very deep level, you have learned that what you have to say is not all that important and you're bothering people when you bring it up.

So, you can see this happen a lot of times when you are composing an email or maybe you're starting a conversation with like I say a boss or a colleague somebody that you need to have their attention and you need to communicate this thing to them.

You'll find yourself starting out by saying things like, "Gee, I hate to bother you, but..." or "I hate to be a nuisance," or "I hope this is not too much trouble, but..." and you come to them sort of with your hat in hand, apologetic for existing.

It is as if you were saying to them, "I know my existence is a nuisance to you. I understand that, but I still have to ask this question, unfortunately, because I know I'm so annoying."

And when you approach someone with that deep feeling about yourself I mean you can imagine what happens. The other person is thrown off balance because they don't understand why you are assuming that they're not interested in you nor why you're kind of putting down the very topic that you're bringing up at the same time you're bringing it up.

It makes you behave in a way that communicates, "I'm not sure of myself. I'm not sure of the importance of my topic. I wish I didn't have to be bothering you about this, and I know I'm a nuisance."

That is something that does not lead to a good feeling either in you or the other person and you can change that so easily once you become aware of the connection between having had a rejecting parent that made you feel like a nuisance and was impatient with you.

Once you make that connection and you realize that oh, this is just a bad habit. I have learned to be apologetic for my own existence when I have to ask somebody for something or bring something up. I can stop doing that. I can just politely ask for their attention and launch into whatever it is I have to say. And in that way you begin to form a new habit, a new way of approaching communication.

But that's what it takes. It's the recognition that I had a rejecting parent who made me feel that way, made me doubt my worth, made me feel like I was inconsequential and in fact irritating.

And now I am transferring that onto other people in this apologetic kind of excusing myself way. I don't have to keep doing that.

So, you don't have to keep doing that if you had a rejecting parent. You just have to remember where it came from and decide that you're going to do things differently because you now know that you are worth it and you are entitled, healthily entitled, not narcissistically entitled, but healthily entitled to an answer to a legitimate question. And nobody who is an emotionally mature enough adult is going to make you feel awkward or self-conscious about that.

What's life like growing up with a passive parent and what are the potential negative outcomes of it in adulthood?

Yeah, the passive parent is likely to be the favorite parent. These parents are often really nice, more responsive parents. They are the ones who are more of a buddy to the child for instance or they're certainly more nurturing, more patient. They're easy to get along with.

They may be the parent that has the sense of humor, that's playful. They may actually act kind of like one of the kids. I mean, they tend to treat their children more like peers. They like to be with them, and they make the child feel loved and understood much more so than some of the other types of emotionally immature parents.

So, it's very common in therapy when you're working with adult children of emotionally immature parents for them to paint one parent as the one who was understanding, who gave them warmth and love, and was therefore the parent that they felt the closest to, and that was the warmest parent. You know, these are the parents that might come to the child's bedroom after a fight with the other parent and console them, or take them out for ice cream after there's been some kind of row in the house. And they just are basically nicer, warmer versions of the other types of parents.

It's important to realize, though, that one of the things that the passive parent does not do and cannot do is protect their child from the other emotionally immature parent. They don't see themselves as the child's protector. They don't fulfill that adult role as a parent, of being the one who should step in to protect the child from what the other parent is doing, or even to take charge of a situation when one parent may be out of control or emotionally overwhelmed or distraught or acting out, maybe even in abusive ways.

The passive parent tends to go along to get along, and they really aren't willing to stand up to the other parent who may be really causing suffering in their child.

You know, partly because they don't want to rock the boat, they don't want to mess up their relationship with that other parent. That relationship is very important to them. They're very invested in it.

But basically, I think it is that they don't know really how to do that. They're not grown up enough within themselves to step in and know how to handle an emotionally upset person or how to defend their child from a parent who is doing something wrong with a child or maybe even abusing the child.

They just tend to be passive. They kind of tune it out or they make excuses or they say, "Oh, that's just the way it is or that's just the way she is."

"What can I do? We're married." That's kind of the attitude. But they don't have that adult instinct to step in and protect the child who really can't protect themselves.

So, they may be beloved. They may be the favorite. And yeah, they do give a lot to their children because of this warmth and because of this kind of convivial enjoyment of their children. You know, the playfulness and so forth. That is a good thing. The child does get that from the parent.

But later on, that child may have to reckon with understanding what they didn't get from the parent in the form of protection or somebody who could see what was really going on, who could be an effective adult stepping in to help with the situation.

Now, when you grow up and you've had a passive parent.

You too can learn that you just have to go along. You just have to put up with it. It's important to keep the family together. You shouldn't make mountains out of molehills. You know, all these kind of passive coping mechanisms that allow things to go on that are not good for anybody. These are all things that can be learned from that passive parent.

The other thing is that you might find that you pick a partner who is likewise passive. And they are very difficult to get a straight answer out of. They won't really take you to task if there's something that you're doing wrong.

They're not going to speak up about it. They just kind of go along all the time, which also can be very frustrating to someone who's trying to have an honest discussion or trying to change things for the better because the passive person, the passive partner, it's kind of like playing handball against a blanket. I mean, there's just no return in terms of honest communication because that person's best coping mechanism is just to let the other person take the lead.

So, it's not a good relationship model. And if you sort of build your understanding of relationships and how, to get along and have a good relationship on that kind of parent, you end up with things getting swept under the rug, big problems mounting up until there's some kind of reckoning or explosion even. And you don't deal with things honestly as they happen.

There can be an accumulation of, old grievances until, finally in a passive way, the person, whether it's you yourself or your partner who is passive, they've had enough. And then sometimes the passive person will kind of drop the bomb of, "The relationship is over," or "I've had enough."

But they really haven't stepped in before that to work things out with you because they avoid conflict in order to keep the peace because that's what they feel most comfortable doing.

But it's not at all a good coping mechanism for deep and intimate relationships because that passive person essentially keeps themselves from the other person. They don't allow themselves to be really known because they feel like that would be dangerous for themselves. And so they don't volunteer things you don't really know where they're coming from.

So, it's important to realize that if you learned passive coping mechanisms from a parent who was a role model for that, it may be sort of a lifelong mission to exert yourself, to be more active, to go toward conflictual situations with honesty, with taking the chance that you might have something to say that might upset the other person or might not be what they want to hear, but it's still important to bring things out in the open or to stand up for things that you don't think are right.

What sort of impact do you see in adults who were raised by the driven type of emotionally immature parent?

The driven parent is probably the most positively regarded parent in any kind of advanced culture, especially if it's a capitalistic culture, because they go and they do, they accomplish things, they're very invested in their children's success, they're very active. They are driven. They are driven for accomplishment and success.

So, when you have a sort of a model in society that success and being involved in the right sorts of activities or schoolings, then this sort of parent who is very driven toward external forms of success is going to shine as an example of like the best parent ever. These are the parents that might be very involved in PTA.

They would get their kids on the right swim teams, they would get their kids tutoring when they needed it. These parents might go after an advanced degree or two for themselves, start their own business, keep everything shipshape at home. They are very busy, and they almost keep themselves steady through this constant activity and constant ambition toward making things better.

So, they get a lot of external validation as everybody who is driven does in our culture, to keep being very busy and keep looking for the next thing to improve yourself with.

But when you think about what that does to a child to have a parent who is driven for success, who is always looking for a way to improve things a bit or get a leg up on something, that is a very tense way to live.

It subtly or not so subtly sometimes conveys the message to the child that you are only as good as your last success. And if you're having a problem or you're needing some help, there is a little anxiety underneath there in that parent's approach to you because it's sort of like, what can we do to fix the problem and move on from this?

That moving on piece, getting things fixed, getting things settled is incredibly important to the driven parent.

But when a child has an emotional issue, maybe their feelings were hurt at school that day or something emotional or deep has happened to them, they may just need an adult to be there with them, to maybe sit with them or maybe ask them questions, listen very deeply with deep interest, not have a time agenda, not want to wrap this up, not want to solve the problem.

The adult is able to be there and give presence to the child when they need it. That's very hard for the driven parent to do. It would be unusual for them to have a moment where their child may be sitting on their bed and maybe crying or maybe upset. It would be really hard for them to go in and just put their arm around the child and say, "Honey, what's wrong?"

Because they don't really want to know what's wrong so much as they want to know, "How can we get this fixed so we can move on?" They're in constant motion.

So the message to the child is, "You better have a good, organized answer for Mom or Dad." They're a driven parent. They want to feel in control again and feel good about their ability to help you with the problem.

You feel under pressure to straighten it up, clarify it and put it in good order so that they can then take it over and solve the problem for you or with you, however they see it. Basically, they're going to try to take over and bring this thing to a close.

Like all emotionally immature parents, they don't feel comfortable with moments of emotional intimacy: sitting there and feeling the moment with you, feeling the feelings with you, allowing you to have your emotional reactions or needs, and feeling their way through giving that to you in a way that is not dependent on how much time it's taking or when we'll be finished.

That ability to be present without a sense of agenda or time is so important for us to feel like we are worth other people's attention, that it's okay not to know what to do at times. In life, there are lots of times when we are in the middle of a big problem that we can't figure out the answer to. It's going to take time.

We might need to talk to somebody over and over before the answer starts to come to us gradually. If it's something very big, the emotional overwhelm can be such that you can't move on to problem-solving until you really understand how it's made you feel and what issues it stirred up in you. That's what the driven parent just can't do.

If they tried to do it, it would be very analytical. It would be jumping to conclusions. They would be trying the best they could to move you past it, to move you on. And that is not the way that emotional psychological healing works.

And children need their parents to be attentive, interested, and to hold kind of a space for them to have their feelings while they're connected emotionally with that parent, okay? Until the child is ready to move on, not when the parent's ready to move on.

So, when this person grows up, the person who's had a driven parent, it's not going to seem odd to them to be with a partner or be with a spouse, be in a job where people are always "go, go, go."

That "pressure, pressure, pressure, get it done" kind of mentality is going to feel like home. That's going to feel like this is an exciting place or this is a place where things are happening or it'll be attractive because it'll be so familiar.

And of course, there are lots and lots of places in culture like ours where that is exactly the kind of driven mindset that's there.

So, we have to know that we could easily get pulled into a very depleting and exhausting kind of either work relationship or even intimate relationship where everything has to keep moving forward, everything has to get settled, and there's no room to just rest and be yourself for a while and just take a break and relax.

That means being comfortable being yourself, getting your work done and being a good partner, without feeling like you're always having to work on something or always having to improve something or that you're behind on the schedule in some way.

That driven feeling can really lead to a lot of stress reactions and deep unhappiness in life actually if you don't understand where it might have come from in your own past.

That is why it matters to understand how somebody may not have been there for you when you just needed their presence, warmth and understanding. You may have felt hurried past your problem into a solution because that person wanted to wrap it up.

If you don't understand that about your past, you're likely to be attracted to people who do that now and that's not a comfortable way to live.

It's important to understand if that has been your experience in the past so you can begin to allow yourself to relax, not be on and improving every minute of every day, and find activities, people and work situations where there is a balance.

You can enjoy comfortable moments and some downtime while you're getting your work done or while things are getting solved, without that driven insistence that we have to get it done right away or we're not being successful or productive. That is not the only way to be successful and productive. But the driven parent will convince you, by their behavior and by modeling it for you, that this is the way to do it.

Then you'll end up exhausted and resentful.

You don't have any time or downtime for yourself, and you won't know why.

But if you think about what you experienced as a child, it oftentimes becomes clear and then you can do something about it.

Every time I talk to my mother about my childhood, she takes it as an attack and gets really defensive. How do I make her understand and take responsibility for what I went through with her as a child so we can have a better relationship?

Well, first of all, I just want to say that nobody ever became self-reflective under fire. Meaning that if you're trying to get your parent to not only understand what happened to you or what they did in their relationship with you, but you're also trying to get them to take responsibility for it, you have to realize that that is a setup that will make them feel extremely defensive and will not at all dispose them to consider what you're saying or try to work on that with you.

It seems like we should be able to do that, to have a frank discussion about here's what you did or here's what my childhood was like because of your behavior. And have the other person say, oh, wow, I didn't realize that, honey. Tell me more. What did I say that time or what was the situation?

As nice as it would be if this were possible, you can't just wade in and start telling them about everything that they did that was wrong without first creating a situation where they might be somewhat more receptive to whatever it is that you're trying to tell them.

So, how do we make them receptive to that? Well, first of all, we have to remember, like I said at the beginning, we do not look at our own behavior or self-reflect if we feel that we are being attacked. We just don't do it. We get defensive. That is, psychology 101. That's just the way it is.

So, what you want to do is you want to lower the threat to your parent, and you want to get them in a more willing or receptive frame of mind if that's going to be possible.

The other thing is nobody ever worked out 15 problems in a relationship at once.

It's too much, it's too big, it's too hard to keep track of. And then if you throw in defensiveness and anxiety on top of all of that, I mean, nothing gets settled and things just get worse because there's so much confusion going on.

So, one of the things you can do is you can tell your parent, I have some things that I want to talk with you about. And I just want to tell you about an incident that happened when I was growing up. And I wonder if you would be willing to listen to that and maybe understand how it made me feel. And then I would love to hear from your standpoint what that was like for you, too. Because I would like to understand what happened and maybe this would help our relationship to be even closer.

And I just think it would be an interesting thing to do. So, would you be willing to spend 15 minutes, 30 minutes, give them a time frame, and stick to it to talk about this incident.

And that way you're letting them know I'm going to be receptive to your point of view. I want to be honest with you because I want us to have a better, closer relationship. I'm not going to torture you for 2 hours. I'm going to ask for your attention for 15 minutes or 30 minutes. And we're going to deal with one incident. And we're going to see how that goes.

That feels doable. It feels like that parent is not going to be trapped or that parent is not going to be ambushed with, like I say, 15 things that they did wrong all at once.

And if you approach it like that, you have a much better chance of the parent (a) being willing to give you the time, and (b) being receptive to what you're saying.

Because you've already told them, I want to know what it was like from your side, too. So, you're saying, I'm a safe person to talk to. I know that you have your own way of seeing what happened, and I'm curious about that in you. Could we share our impressions of this experience?

And then, it's only going to be 15 minutes or 30 minutes. That has a much higher likelihood of being something that the parent would be interested in and agree to. And then, you can ask for additional ones for all 15 issues or whatever it is.

That works better than the emotional sort of downloading of everything that they ever did, or abstracting it out to two or three huge failings of theirs, like, they never allowed you to cry, or they never allowed you to express your feelings with them, or they always got angry. I mean, these kind of sweeping abstract characterizations of the parents' failings are guaranteed to make them defensive. So, it works a little better.

This isn't always the solution, because sometimes people just can't do it. But it gives you an opportunity to structure it in such a way that you might get more receptivity from the parent, and the whole communication attempt might go somewhat better if you communicate that it's going to be safe, it's going to be short, and you're going to be willing to listen to their side, too.

But only within the parameters of this time limit, so that it doesn't devolve into an endless, non-productive kind of discussion.

Hi there. Thank you so much for watching. If you would like to learn more, there is a course available at the Academy of Self-Help that I created just for adult children of emotionally immature parents. I think you're going to love it.