How Emotionally Immature Parents Harm Their Kids

As parents, we need to be sensitive when a child says he or she is hurt or emotionally troubled by our words or behaviours

- Abel Ang

Parents can fail you. Contrary to the narrative that all parents naturally love and protect their children, some parents can instead be self-preoccupied, egocentric and have little empathy for their progeny.

Such emotionally immature parents can go on to raise kids who grow up feeling unseen and lonely.

This is the central thesis of the best-selling book Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents (2015) by Lindsay C. Gibson, an American clinical psychologist.

The slow burner has reportedly sold 1.2 million copies and spent six weeks on the New York Times' bestseller list in 2023, eight years after the book was first published.

The book has developed a cult following on social media, with fans talking about how it has changed their view of their parents. It has given them the courage to take action to protect themselves and their psychological well-being.

Gibson believes that emotionally immature parents have one defining characteristic: None of them puts his or her child's needs first.

According to her, this simple diagnostic can be used to assess if a parent is emotionally immature. Such parents "fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness... they don't welcome self-reflection, so they rarely accept blame or apologise".

This diagnostic has been welcomed by numerous young people who are increasingly estranged from their parents because they feel their feelings have been dismissed or trampled on as they were growing up.

In Gibson's view, the emotional immaturity of parents can be seen across a range of different parenting styles.

The first type is the emotional parent, who may oscillate between over-involvement and abandonment, leading to frightening instability and unpredictability in the lives of their kids. The kids never know where they stand and are always alert to the mood of the parent, which can change at the drop of a hat.