What Is an Emotionally Immature Parent—and How Do You Handle One?
If you grew up with a parent who couldn’t handle their own emotions, lacked boundaries, or made everything about them, you may have walked away with a deep belief that your needs don’t matter.
And if you survived that dynamic by becoming the “good kid,” the emotional caretaker, or the one who always performed well, it can take years to realize that what you experienced wasn’t healthy. It was survival.
In many cases, what just seemed like “normal parenting” (because that was all you knew) could in fact be a form of benign emotional neglect.
Maybe on paper, your life looks like a success story. You’re the reliable one. You know how to keep it together. You’ve learned to anticipate what others need before they ask, and you rarely ask for anything in return.
But underneath the surface, something still feels off. Relationships can feel draining or one-sided, while guilt creeps in when you try to say no. Emotions feel… distant, or overwhelming, making it hard to open up and share what you’re really feeling. You feel like you should be fine, but you’re not. And you can’t quite figure out why.
If any of that resonates, you’re not alone. You’re likely carrying the long-term impact of having an emotionally immature parent.
In this post, I want to help you put language to what you may have lived through, understand how those early dynamics shape your adult life, and offer compassionate, clinically grounded steps to begin healing.
This isn’t about blaming or shaming your parent for things that went wrong. But about gaining an understanding of an often confusing and difficult reality in order to take steps towards change.
What are the signs of an emotionally immature parent?
For many of my clients, the idea of an emotionally immature parent is brand new. Yet they often talk about the same type of experience when thinking about their past.
They’ll describe the pain of growing up with a parent who was self-centered, or unable to show up emotionally—often because their own emotions always took center stage. Their parent usually spent more time talking about their own interests than showing curiosity or engagement in their child’s.
For some, their parent was often defensive or reactive, or uncomfortable with emotional closeness and feelings. While others say they simply felt ignored, left alone, or pulled into making their parent feel comforted when something upsetting happened (rather than the reverse).
What’s true for all of them is that they didn't have the language or awareness to describe it as anything other than “that’s just how things were.”
What can make it even more difficult to name or recognize this experience with a parent is that most people, understandably so, focus more on what their parents did give them rather than what they didn’t. They had a roof over their head and food to eat, went on family vacations, and had all of their physical needs met.
But growing up with an emotionally immature parent creates its own set of conditions and experiences that can greatly impact how you felt, what you learned about relationships, and even your sense of self.
Maybe you’ve wondered why you felt more like the adult in your family. Why your parent seemed to fall apart over small things, or why your emotions always seemed to be “too much.” Why you learned, early and instinctively, to stay quiet and keep the peace. Or why you always felt so alone, like the odd one out, or that you didn’t belong.
If this resonates, you might be dealing with the impact of emotionally immature parenting.
The term itself was popularized by Dr. Lindsay Gibson, a clinical psychologist who has worked extensively with adult children of parents who struggled to provide emotional attunement and stability. In her work, she outlines four common types of emotionally immature parents, each with their own behavioral patterns.
For now, what’s most important to understand is this:
Emotionally immature parents tend to lack the internal resources—like self-regulation, emotional insight, and empathy—that children need in a caregiver.
What are the characteristics of an emotionally immature parent?
They may lash out when frustrated, withdraw when criticized, or act as if their feelings matter more than anyone else’s. Some are highly controlling. Others seem helpless or needy. Some may swing between both extremes, depending on the day. And some may even act as if their child doesn’t exist, paying them and their needs very little attention.
What they have in common is this: they cannot consistently support their child’s emotional development, because they haven’t done the emotional work themselves.
Here are some patterns I often see:
They make their child responsible for their emotional state. You may have learned to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering an outburst, or felt guilty for having needs that inconvenienced them.
They personalize everything. If you wanted space, they called you cold. If you disagreed with them, they saw it as disrespect. There wasn’t room for you to be a separate, whole person.
They lacked empathy or consistency. One moment, they seemed fine; the next, they were storming out or shutting down. You were left to guess what version of them you’d get.
What makes this so confusing is that these parents often had reasons for their behavior: their own trauma, high stress, or emotional wounds. However, as a child, you likely internalized the idea that if you could just be better, quieter, more helpful… things would settle down.
Clinical note: One of the most painful parts of healing from this dynamic is untangling the reality of your experience from the rationalizations you learned to survive it. Many adult children of emotionally immature parents feel disoriented when they first begin to name what they’ve been through, not because they’re exaggerating, but because they’ve spent years minimizing.
And if you’re just learning this language now, you’re right on time.
How does an emotionally immature parent affect a child?
Let me tell you what I see over and over in my practice:
Clients come in describing burnout, anxiety, difficulty accessing their emotions, or an ongoing pattern of lopsided relationships. They’re the dependable ones. The overachievers. The ones who never want to “be a burden.” And they’re struggling with emotional loneliness, a feeling of being unseen by others, or a sense of emptiness inside.
But when we start unpacking their story, a theme emerges: somewhere early on, they had to grow up too fast.
They became the one who knew what to do. Who soothed their parent’s anxiety, changed their own behavior to avoid conflict, or learned to disappear emotionally so no one would be upset.
This is the legacy of emotional immaturity. It creates children who:
Suppress their own emotional needs to stay safe
Perform or try to be perfect to gain approval
Experience deep self-doubt when they feel sad, angry, or overwhelmed
Take on the emotional labor in relationships, often at their own expense
Emotionally immature parents tend to make their children feel like any conflict, discomfort, or emotional intensity is their fault. So it’s no surprise that as adults, these children struggle with guilt, difficulty setting boundaries, and an internalized sense that “there’s something wrong with me.”
What’s especially insidious is how well these coping strategies work in the world. You become competent. Reliable. Highly successful.
But they also disconnect you from your own emotional world and from the safety of being fully known in relationships.
Clinical note: These survival strategies map closely onto what we might call “parentification” in family systems theory, as well as elements of Complex PTSD or developmental trauma. The body and brain adapt to ongoing unpredictability and emotional neglect by becoming hyper-attuned to threat and hyper-responsible for others’ needs.
The good news? These patterns aren’t fixed. Healing is absolutely possible, but it begins with recognizing what you’ve lived through and offering yourself the compassion you’ve long extended to everyone else.
“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.”
How to handle an emotionally immature parent
Once you start recognizing these patterns, it’s natural to ask: Okay, now what?
What do you do when your parent continues to act in immature or hurtful ways? When a phone call leaves you spiraling for hours? When you dread every visit but still feel crushing guilt for pulling back?
The difficult truth is, emotionally immature parents rarely change in meaningful ways, at least not on your timeline, and not because you explained it perfectly. What can change is the way you respond.
Here are some starting points to consider:
1. Shift your expectations.
It can be incredibly painful to realize that your parent may never become the safe, emotionally available adult you hoped for. Grieving that unmet need is hard, but also freeing. When you stop expecting them to meet emotional standards they’ve never been able to meet, you create space for clearer boundaries and less disappointment.
2. Practice internal boundaries.
Not every boundary has to be said out loud. Sometimes, the most powerful boundaries start inside you. That might mean reminding yourself: Their feelings aren’t my responsibility. I don’t have to explain myself again. I can leave the conversation if it turns toxic.
3. Limit emotional exposure.
This doesn’t necessarily mean going no contact. It might look like shortening phone calls, avoiding hot-button topics, skipping certain family events, or choosing not to share vulnerable parts of your life with them. Less exposure often means less reactivity and more emotional stability for you.
4. Stop justifying your boundaries.
Emotionally immature parents often see boundaries as rejection or punishment. Trying to get them to understand or agree can keep you stuck. You are allowed to make decisions that protect your peace, even if they don’t “get it.”
5. Let go of the fantasy.
Many adult children of emotionally immature parents hold on to hope that “someday” things will be different. That if they just say it the right way or wait long enough, their parent will finally change. Letting go of that fantasy isn’t giving up; it’s choosing reality over resentment.
Healing from emotionally immature parenting is a process. It involves grief, clarity, and rebuilding your internal compass—especially if you spent years doubting yourself.
If this post resonated, I highly recommend checking out the work of Dr. Lindsay Gibson, who coined the term “emotionally immature parent” and has written extensively about this topic. Her books, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, are thoughtful, compassionate guides for those beginning this work.
And if you're looking for more personalized support, therapy can be a powerful space to reconnect with yourself and learn how to show up in your life without the emotional baggage of the past.
You don’t have to keep doing emotional gymnastics
Untangling yourself from emotionally immature family dynamics is hard. It takes insight, boundaries, grief work, and a whole lot of self-compassion.
You don’t have to have it all figured out to take the first step.
If you’re ready for support that honors your story and helps you reconnect with your own emotional life, I’d love to walk with you.
I offer online therapy for adult children of emotionally immature parents in New York and California, and I specialize in helping clients untangle the emotional patterns that leave them feeling stuck, burned out, or lost in their relationships.
