Emotionally Immature Parents: How They Shape Your Adult Self

We explore how emotionally immature parents shape our sense of self, nervous system, and ability to experience joy and connection, examining the patterns that indicate this upbringing and the path toward healing.

• Parents who operate from a self-focused place with emotional unpredictability, inability to see your world, or who relied on you for their comfort
• Children develop their sense of self through reflection and attunement from adults, with healthy attachments creating safety and self-acceptance
• Emotionally immature parenting creates the belief that your truest self is flawed, invisible, or that love must be earned through perfection
• "Internalizers" adapt by ignoring their needs for others, leading to self-doubt, anxiety, people-pleasing, and difficulty with boundaries in adulthood
• "Externalizers" turn outward for emotional regulation, often blaming others, acting impulsively, and engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors as adults
• Healing is possible for both types, though the journey tends to be more straightforward for internalizers due to their natural capacity for self-reflection

Subscribe, share, and like this video if you know someone who might benefit from this information. Stay tuned for deeper dives into internalizers and externalizers in upcoming episodes.

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Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and welcome to and Still we Rise.
I'm your host, christine Seidel, and today we are going to talk
about emotionally immatureparents.
You might be wondering what areemotionally immature parents,
and do I have them?
Well, let me ask you a question.
Look no further than your ownpatterns and tendencies.

(00:24):
Do you have a tendency toquestion your feelings, to
shrink your needs for others,have issues with impulsivity or
avoidance?
Do you need external validationor do you find yourself overly
self-sufficient andover-functioning?
Well, those are likely patternsthat you do have emotionally

(00:44):
immature parents, and this isthe space to understand how
these early dynamics shape yoursense of self, your nervous
system and even your ability tofeel joy and connection.
Today, as an adult, as atherapist, I've seen how this
shows up in my clients and howreflection coming back to the

(01:07):
body and regulating and innerchild work help to bring us back
to who we truly are.
So let's dive deeper into whatare emotionally immature parents
.
To begin, eips or emotionallyimmature parents tend to operate
from a very self-focused oremotionally self-serving place

(01:30):
All the way back into childhood.
These may have been parents whohad some emotional
unpredictability One momentthey're great with you, the next
moment they're yelling becauseyou spilled milk.
Maybe they had the inability orintolerance to see or consider
your world, your feelings oropinions.
Maybe they guilt-tripped orblame-shifted, criticized or

(01:52):
condition-placing.
Maybe they relied on you fortheir own comfort or regulation.
And as a child, your nervoussystem began to learn very
quickly that certain parts ofyou are not safe to show meaning
.
There was a sense that yourbelonging and your value was
conditional on you showing up inthe way that your caretaker

(02:13):
wanted you to.
So that meant you had to shiftsomething about your very
authentic self in order to getthe attention and love that you
needed.
Now you didn't have to shiftthis because there was something
wrong with you.
It was how your mind and yourbody adapted to make sense and
to survive.

(02:34):
And in childhood, any connectionwith our caregivers is better
than no connection, and thatwould mean that we would feel
safe and we could survive in thebest way we knew how to.
So you may be saying toyourself so what Was it really
that bad?
I mean, doesn't everybody havea pretty messed up childhood?
And to that I have to say it isactually very important, and

(02:58):
here's why we have to understandthat children develop their
sense of self, their ego, theirI am, through the reflection and
attunement of adults.
The statement I am comes fromtheir caregivers In healthy,
secure parent-child attachments.
A caregiver mirrors yourfeelings and responds very

(03:19):
consistently, which allows achild to internalize true safety
and that brings statements suchas I am safe to be me, I am
okay, just the way I am.
So let's say a parent sees achild painting a picture and
says a statement such as look atall the beautiful colors you've

(03:41):
chosen and blended into abeautiful rainbow.
To a child that might be, I amcreating, I bring beauty into
the world, and it's a veryaffirming and building a secure
sense of self.
Versus a parent who may beviewing a painting and, having a
very low tolerance forchildhood or anything outside of

(04:04):
their comfort zone, may respondwith you, better not have made
a mess.
Or I can't even tell what thatis.
This communicates to the childthat their truest self is either
one inherently flawed, twoinvisible, or three.
Love had to be earned if it wasonly good or perfect or

(04:26):
compliant, and this fractures achild's sense of self.
Instead of you becoming you,you become what others need you
to be, and that leaves a verydeep grief within us, the grief
of not being fully seen or knownin this world and unfortunately

(04:48):
, we carry this belief systeminto adulthood and we operate on
autopilot from this place, andit typically manifests in two
different ways, two differentperspectives.
One is called the internalizerand the other is called the
externalizer.
Now, both of these types arehurt through their own

(05:09):
experiences in childhood andthey have unmet needs, but how
they rehearse these and seekthese in adulthood are very
different and unique in theirchallenges.
So let's look at theinternalizer first.
The internalizer throughchildhood they had a high
capacity for the world aroundthem and a deep sense of

(05:30):
introspection.
Their ability to look withinwas very, very high, and these
children are drawn by the desirefor knowledge and for
self-improvement.
So when being raised byemotionally immature parents,
these children would navigatethat discomfort and disconnect
by looking into themselves tosee how they could change and

(05:52):
how they can make therelationship better, could
change and how they can make therelationship better.
They adapted in childhood byignoring their own needs in lieu
of those of the parents.
So the parents' feelings becamethe needs and so into adulthood
these adult children, althoughtypically very high, achieving
very self-sufficient, maystruggle with self-doubt,

(06:17):
anxiety, people-pleasing,perfectionism and guilt if they
disappoint other people.
So in adult relationships likethe workplace or friendships or
intimate relationships, theyhave a hard time saying no,
expressing their own needs orfeelings or desires.
They have a difficult timeholding boundaries and

(06:40):
communicating clearly what istruly inauthentic to them, and
this makes these adult childrenpredisposed to anxiety-based
disorders, self-esteem issues,somatic complaints like upset
stomach, constipation, nauseaand codependency, just to name a
few.

(07:00):
Now let's look at theexternalizer, which is unlike
the internalizer in that aschildren they turned outward to
make sense of their experiences,looking for others to satisfy
their emotional needs.
And most emotional, immatureparents are externalizers
themselves and likely wereraised in emotionally chaotic

(07:22):
environments or households orthey had emotional neglect where
no one was really consistentlyavailable for emotional
regulation.
Therefore, externalizersquickly shift the anxiety of
seeking comfort outside ofthemselves.
So as children, they oftenblamed others or acted

(07:43):
impulsively through tantrums waypast the age that was
appropriate, had difficulty inself-regulating and,
unfortunately, as adults theytend to do the same.
They release stress as soon asthey feel it.
They need others to validatethem, they participate in risky

(08:04):
self-sabotaging behaviors, theyhave low self-esteem or a sense
of grandiosity, and they rarelylearn from their own mistakes.
And these adult children tendto have challenges with
depression, healthyrelationships, substance use,
high-risk behaviors, legalissues, personality disorders

(08:26):
and several others.
It is often the internalizersthat begin the healing process
that comes to the place ofacknowledging that their
experiences in childhood weredistorted belief systems and
they were brought about becauseof the lack of attunement and
attendance they received aschildren.

(08:47):
The internalizers tend to finda way to correct it and they do
often reach to healthier waysand different ways of navigating
their concept of self and turnto healthier and more satisfying
relationships.
However, for the externalizer,the journey tends to be a lot
more complicated, as the road toself-reflection can be very,

(09:10):
very uncomfortable forexternalizers.
Externalizers are conditionedto seek escape as quickly as
possible or to seek comfort andvalidation from others.
However, for thoseexternalizers that may hit rock
bottom, they do seek support andcare to heal these little parts

(09:32):
and they can bring a vastamount of wisdom to the
relationships once they obtainthat.
So if you're looking tounderstand your childhood
parental wounding and orguidance on how to begin healing
from emotionally immatureparents, I encourage you to look
through the additional videosor resources that we have in our

(09:53):
playlist and also stay tuned aswe dive deeper into
internalizers and externalizers,and perhaps you can find
yourself, or maybe a partner, inthe description of those and
help in hope and in healing forthat little child part that had
emotionally immature parents.
So I invite you to continue tolisten with us, to join this

(10:16):
series, to subscribe, share,like if you feel like you know
anyone else who may benefit bylistening, and for that I look
forward to speaking with you allnext time and we appreciate all
of your support.
See you next time.