The immature parents.

The immature parent has many of the same traits as a narcissistic personality and there are many similarities. However, note that it is NOT the same.

Today I have borrowed the text below from Copenhagen Psychologist.

4 TYPES OF IMMATURE PARENTS…

Common to the 4 types is self-absorption, insensitivity and limited ability to create emotional contact with their children.

The parents have difficulty understanding other people's feelings. Have problems with boundaries. Use their children to feel better.

This can create loneliness and insecurity in the child and later in the adult.

THE EMOTIONAL PARENT

Is governed by one's own emotions with major emotional fluctuations, this creates a family where the child is involved in conflicts and lows. The child experiences that the adult is not able to take care of himself. The American psychologist LCGibson, who writes about emotionally immature parents, says that these parents may appear to others as normal and well-functioning, and yet they create emotional neglect for their children. She describes how the children are affected in the long term, among other things, in choosing a partner and how they often submit to the feelings, desires and needs of others at the expense of being themselves.

Characteristics:

• Communication is about the parents themselves

• They don't reflect on themselves.

• Has difficulty rebuilding the relationship after a conflict

• Can be frightening in their (sometimes lack of) emotional expression

• Sees himself as a victim

THE DRIVEN PARENT

Is goal-focused, wants the child to do well so that they as parents are in a good light. Fears their children will fail, as the parents will then see themselves as failures. This type of parent is convinced that they know what is best. The child pays a high price in the form of self-destruction.

Characteristics

• Perfectionist expectations

• The child is only good enough when he is a mirror image of his parents.

• Controlling and dominant

• The parents arrange everything.

THE PASSIVE PARENT

Avoids participating in anything that involves emotions, looks the other way, and does not support abuse and neglect, no matter how it harms the child. The parents do not offer guidance on how to navigate the world. The child must satisfy the parents' need for admiration and attention.

Characteristics

• Limited ability to empathize

• Inattentive to others' boundaries

• Talks about himself, doesn't listen

• May seem indifferent to the child

• Delegating responsibility to others

THE REJECTING PARENT

Does not care about emotional presence, may seem hostile. Controls the family with fear, there is no deeper emotional contact. The child will experience and feel that it is a hassle and in the way. The child gives up expressing his feelings and needs.

Characteristics

• Preoccupied with own needs

• Has regulated boundaries

• Not talking to the child

• Is demanding, controlling and critical in his/her contact

• Is absent

• Ignores the child and meets it with rage

Parents are not always one type of parent or another, but often a mixture of several types.

AS AN ADULT, YOU CARRY YOUR WOUNDED CHILD WITHIN YOU

And this neglected child can create many incomprehensible disturbances in your adult life.

The child has an inner experience of being alone and abandoned, which creates loneliness, insecurity, restlessness and anxiety. The child believes there is something wrong with them, not good enough, not real enough. Unlovable. Inadequate. Wrong. Impossible.

The result is a lonely child without self-esteem. A child with antennae that point to others, has forgotten/hidden his own needs in order to find peace in his world.

Filled with guilt and shame.

It is not the child who is to blame for the difficult upbringing conditions, it is the parents' inability to make emotional contact that causes neglect.

The child as an adult can fend for himself because the parents have often been a resource/support in his old age.

The child thinks: I am someone you cannot love...

Or someone who isn't worth helping.

Against this background, creating and maintaining relationships becomes very difficult, which is clearly reflected in the relationship...

Where it can create conflicts is that your boundaries are unclear, that it is difficult to put your feelings into words, difficult or almost impossible to feel and express your desires or needs.

You may end up as a partner who pleases, a partner who conforms to the norm, or you may end up in a completely different situation where you become controlling, dominant, and jealous out of fear of losing the one you love.

Ending up with a partner who is insecure or afraid of you.

SEEK HELP AND SUPPORT

Neither you nor your partner feels good in extremes, it can be safe and good if you have the courage to look at yourself and gain better self-insight.