4 Ways Children Cope with Emotionally Immature Parents
Emotionally immature parents fear emotional closeness and genuine emotion. Their parenting is inconsistent and emotionally unreliable. What they lack in self-reflection they make up with self-centeredness. Their feelings and agenda come first. They blame others and rarely, if ever, apologize. So children must learn how to cope.
This article will discuss four ways that children learn to cope with emotionally immature parents. It will also cover how they manage their problems, and feelings of frustration, sadness, neglect, and loneliness.
How Children Cope With Emotionally Immature Parents
In the book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, children who don’t receive the love, attention, affection, and emotional availability from their parents growing up, cope in different ways.
Although using any of these coping mechanisms is beneficial to the child, as an adult it hinders their continued development because our upbringing affects us in several ways.
The ways children cope with emotionally immature parents are:
Healing Fantasies
The development of a role self
Internalizing
Externalizing
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1. Healing fantasies
Children of emotionally immature parents create a healing fantasy that is like ‘coming up with a fantasy about how they will eventually get what they need.’ They create a story that helps them make sense of their world, who they are, and what life means to them.
The healing fantasy is a story filled with hope that children tell themselves because they believe it will make them truly happy one day. They come to believe that if they change or those around them, that their unhappiness, loneliness, and pain will dissipate.
For example: ‘if only I was…then my parents would be more loving, available, and attentive.
As the child grows and becomes an adult of emotionally immature parents, they hang onto the fantasy and hope it comes true. However, because they were created in a child’s mind, it is far from being realistic that they will come true as an adult.
They come to believe that if they continue to work harder and persevere eventually, they will get the approval they never received from their parents. Or, they come to believe that their partner will be able to fill the loneliness and the voiced that continues to leave a hold in their heart.
This never works.
2. The Development of a Role-Self
A child develops a role-self out of necessity. This is because the child is never allowed to be their ‘true self’ - their innate aptitudes and being able to express their thoughts and feelings, and receive validation. All of those things take a back seat to their emotionally immature parent who’s feelings and thoughts take precedent over everything.
They believe they have to act a certain way or that their parent wouldn’t know what to do without them. Some children take on a caretaker role. They start to forgo doing things that are important to them because they need to maintain the role-self they have created, as they continue to long for love, emotional safety, and security.
For some children who internalize their problems and have self-involved parents, they become the helpful child and hide their needs in hopes of winning their parents love, affection, and attention. They become the giver.
Unfortunately, their true self is squelched and not allowed to come out. It will remain hidden until the child becomes an adult and does the work to honor their true self and living their life that aligns with whom they really are. When their authentic self is hidden, they become invisible.
As an adult with emotionally immature parents, it will be easy for them to take on this same role growing up. If they are not sure who they really are or what their needs and desires are, it will be hard for them to articulate them or for their partner to really know who they are - because they don’t know themselves. This can make it hard for adult children of emotionally immature parents to build stable and healthy relationships.
3. The Internalizer
There are seven key signs that a child of an emotionally immature parent has become an internalizer. I have explained these below:
1) Are self-reflective.
They like to learn and solve problems. If there is an opportunity to learn more about themselves to become more competent, they take that route. They believe that if they keep working harder, things will get better. Instinctively they take responsibility for solving problems on their own.
2) Feel they are the problem.
Because they internalize things, they tend to think that they are the problem, their very nature is the problem. They believe it’s up to them to change things in order to get their needs met.
3) Are highly sensitive.
They register when their parents are not connecting with them and are sensitive to the subtleties of their relationships with loved ones. They are more aware of their feelings of loneliness and are more alert to other people’s inner states and how they are feeling. They notice everything. Every slight, every move. They often appear overly sensitive or too emotionally needy and people say that about them.
They are highly sensitive to the quality of the emotional intimacy in their relationships, which can be problematic. They long for the intimacy and if their relationship falls short or less than what they need it to be, they feel lonely.
4) Feel anxiety and guilt.
Feelings of anxiety and guilt are the result of displeasing others or others thinking they are an imposter. They tend to over self-sacrifice in a relationship and then become resentful of how much they do for others.
5) Are very responsible.
They tend to take too much responsibility for problems and others when they surface and then blame themselves even if they don’t deserve it. They become extremely independent and not ‘needing or relying on others.’
6) Suffer in silence.
They tend to suffer in silence and look ‘fine’ on the outside, but inside they are crumbling. People are less inclined to help internalizes because they don’t present as needing help, even though they do. They are viewed as the ‘strong ones.’ They feel like they are a bother so they become the low maintenance child in the home.
7) Lack boundaries and self-care.
Because a child whose emotionally immature parent was self-focused they didn’t teach their child about healthy boundaries and self-care - the balance between their needs and the needs of others. So, many adults who are internalizers will continue to do the emotional work of the relationship and focused on their partner’s needs.
The believe if they continue to self-sacrifice and do the emotional work, they can transform their unsatisfying relationship. They continue to the role of rescuer however, this doesn’t work in adulthood. This only results in greater self-neglect and resentment believing its up to them to fix it.
No one can do this. No one can fix a person who doesn’t want to be fixed or wants to take the steps to change.
4. The Externalizer
There are five signs that a child of an emotionally immature parent has become an externalizer. These five signs are explained below:
1) Acts first, thinks after.
The externalizer acts first, then thinks later. They are often reactive and impulsive to get rid of their anxiety. They are seldom self-reflective and blame others and circumstances instead of recognizing how their actions have affected the situation.
Life is seen as a ‘trial and error’ not an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. They don’t take responsibility for their mistakes. This way of being and acting is often the result of a disordered personality which is often pervasive over time.
2) Lack of change and insight.
They believe that change must come from the outside world and others in order for them to have happiness and joy. Adult children of emotionally immature parents think that if only other people would change, do what I want and need, then my problems would go away. They look to others to blame and rarely does it have anything to do with them. They make excuses for their behaviors.
3) They are impulsive.
Unfortunately, their impulsivity is frequenting very disruptive that others have to pick up the pieces. They are often attracted to impulsive people like them, and are overly dependent on others for emotional and mental support and stability as they don’t know how to manage it internally or intrinsically on their own. They will act out their anxiety, pain, and depression.
They believe that good people owe them something and they only have good things in life because life is unfair. They present as having an inflated superiority or low self-confidence.
4) Look outside of self.
They depend on things outside or ‘external’ from them to help soothe them and will often have addictive relationships or issues with substances or need immediate gratification. The advantage of acting out this way, is that their pain and distress is visible.
5) Use denial.
When they have to face the consequences of their behaviors, they experience brief feelings of shame and a sense of failure. But they use denial to avoid feelings of shame or wondering how they could change. Most children’s emotionally immature parents have an externalizing coping style because they look to others to feel better and seldom if ever find ways to have more self-control.
Balance is the key. Ultimately the goal is to have an internalizer become more of an externalizer and reach out for support and the externalizer to turn inward and inside to find the control they want and need over their life.
If you are more inclined to be an internalizer, then finding ways to get your needs met and express how you feel and getting support, will help you not keep all of your problems inside. If you are an externalizer, then learning how to cope on your own and rely on yourself internally, will help you become less of an externalizer.
Final Thoughts
A child raised by an emotionally immature parent has to find ways to cope in order to survive. For most its creating a role-self or a fantasy or either internalizing or externalizing their problems. Regardless, these coping mechanisms have proven beneficial as a child but no longer do as an adult. And continuing these types of behaviors prevents further healthy development.
However, if you find yourself in this situation, there are ways to grow, heal, and recovery. You can read my blog on how you can heal and recover from being raised by an emotionally immature parent here.
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