Daughters of Emotionally Immature Parents Often Develop These 7 Traits as Adults

Yahoo

06-05-2025

Small children often let their imaginations run wild, sometimes pretending to be parents and having the parent play the role of the child. However, this scenario may not be fun and games in real life, especially if the parent is emotionally immature.
"Children of emotionally immature parents risk becoming what's known in psychology as 'parentified,'" says Nicole Runyon, LMSW, a psychotherapist and author of Free to Fly: The Secret to Fostering Independence in the Next Generation. "It's a role reversal in which the child cares for the parent emotionally instead of the parent caring for the child. The parentified child takes on an adult role before they are fully developed emotionally and become adults who feel personally responsible for other people's feelings."
Runyon says daughters of emotionally immature mothers and fathers can suffer from chronic emotional burnout from putting everyone else's needs and wants before their own. The same is true for sons, but Runyon says women and girls are particularly at risk for the long-term effects of emotionally immature parents.
"Girls and women are communal," Runyon explains. "We weave the social fabric of our families and society. This makes us more susceptible to being agreeable to please others."
In other words, you can suffer from "eldest daughter syndrome" even if you have an elder sister. Healing is possible, though, especially if you can recognize common traits in daughters of emotionally immature parents. Runyon shared seven common ones and tips for coping and moving on.
Related: What Is 'Eldest Daughter Syndrome?' 11 Signs To Look For, According to Psychologists
7 Common Traits of Daughters With Emotionally Immature Parents
1. Codependent in relationships
The dynamics we share in our earliest relationships—with our parents—can become the ones we normalize, for better or worse. Runyon points out that daughters of emotionally immature parents are prone to developing codependent relationships. In these dynamics, one person (usually the daughter of an emotionally immature parent) puts their needs on the back burner.
"Women are generally more agreeable than men because of our need to be communal," Runyon notes. "However, agreeableness is magnified in women who are reared by emotionally immature parents because they are rewarded for this behavior. They learn early on that they must put themselves aside for someone else to be in a relationship."
2. Perfectionist
There's little room for error when you're parenting a parent despite not being legally old enough to vote.
"Children raised by emotionally immature parents miss key points in their development—one of which is learning that it's okay to make mistakes," Runyon says. "These children become adults who don't permit themselves to fail. They are terrified that failing means not being forgiven."
3. Prone to fawning
Emotionally immature parents can put daughters into survival mode, which Runyon says triggers a fight, flight, freeze or fawn reaction in the nervous system. Fawning is a trauma response where you people-please to avoid conflict, and daughters of emotionally immature parents generally react by fawning to feel safe in relationships.
"The person tells themselves, 'If I serve, they won't leave,'" Runyon says. "Stress compounds. These women often are not able to calm the nervous system and [they] remain in the stress response."
Chronic stress can manifest physically and mentally.
"Chronic stress wreaks havoc on the body, and these women overwhelmingly experience symptoms of fatigue, sleep disruptions, autoimmune issues, [and] lack of attention and focus," Runyon reveals.
Related: 6 Signs You Have an Emotionally Immature Partner and How to Deal, According to a Psychologist
4. Always grinding
We're human beings, not human doings. However, daughters of parents lacking emotional maturity often miss (or can't bring themselves to internalize) that popular Instagram tile.
"These women take on tasks and overdo them because being 'busy' means being valued," Runyon says. "They have internalized that inherently, they have no value unless they are 'doing.' They can't stop and give themselves time to think about their feelings or needs because if they do, they will feel the pain of not having that in their childhood. It's in the silence that we learn about ourselves, and the silence is terrifying."
Related: 7 Signs of 'High-Functioning Depression,' According to a Columbia-Trained Psychiatrist
5. Anxious
Parents who lack emotional maturity struggle to identify and regulate their own feelings, so they generally raise children who can. It can result in adults who feel like they don't have control over themselves, triggering anxiety.
"When a trusted adult helps a child move through negative feelings, the child gains a sense that they can trust themselves, even when things are uncertain," Runyon explains. "This provides a sense of security over the unknown. If this doesn't occur, that child develops tendencies of trying to control the outside world because the inner chaos isn't resolved."
Runyon notes that the illusion of external control is a trap.
"We can only control ourselves," Runyon explains. "It's in [that] internal locus of control that helps us to move through fear."
6. Depressed
As with anxiety, parents who aren't in touch with their feelings often struggle to raise children who can say the opposite.
"When children aren't taught early on how to process their feelings and move out of them, they learn to shut down the emotional center," Runyon says.
However, burying unresolved feelings doesn't mean they disappear.
"They stay put, get pushed down and leave room for more negative feelings to build," Runyon explains. "Eventually, the person cannot hold on to the feelings, and they bubble over, causing symptoms of depression. When there is no resolve, women feel trapped, causing them to ruminate and lose their ability to work through it."
Related: 7 Signs of Depression Most People Miss, According to Mental Health Experts
7. Quick to anger
Runyon reports that unprocessed feelings can also trigger short tempers and uncontrollable anger.
"Anger can feel powerful to someone who doesn't feel control over themselves and can be the only emotion they allow themselves to have," Runyon shares. "When feelings get pushed down enough, they boil over and often become uncontrollable."
Related: People Who Were 'Emotionally Neglected' in Childhood Often Develop These 10 Traits as Adults, Psychologists Say
How To Heal From Emotionally Immature Parents
1. Set boundaries in relationships
Pool fences are one tool to keep pets and small kids from physically drowning. Boundaries in relationships can figuratively do the same for your mental well-being if you're the daughter of an emotionally immature mother or father.
"We have to prioritize ourselves to be available to others and avoid burnout," Runyon emphasizes. "This can be done by first giving yourself time to think and process the feelings. This will be hard, but getting to a place where you understand yourself leads you to have the ability to communicate your needs in a relationship."
2. Push through the discomfort
Healing from such an exhausting childhood—one that has affected you as an adult—won't be easy.
"Discomfort in someone who wasn't reared to work through their feelings can feel terrifying," Runyon says. "It's something to survive, and it triggers the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response in the nervous system."
Runyon can't take those feelings away—there's no getting around them.
"The only way out is through," Runyon explains. "I suggest doing somatic exercises to calm the nervous system and allow emotional discomfort to bubble up. Painful feelings don't have to be scary and certainly are not a threat. They are a part of life."
3. Control the controllable
Runyon says adults of emotionally immature parents crave control over their environments. It offers a sense of protection. However, knowing what you can and cannot control is critical.
"Understanding that we are responsible for our part in any relationship is the key to healing," Runyon says. "A relationship works like a system. Each person is responsible for their part in the system."
For instance, you can't change your childhood but can enact and enforce boundaries as an adult.
Up Next:
Related: How To Deal With a Narcissistic Parent, According to Psychologists
Source: