|
|
Emotional Immature People Are Frustrating to Deal With
Coping with emotional immature (EI) people is a challenge, whether they are parents, peers, or even your own child. Emotionally immature people keep themselves front and center in your attention, making you worry about their reactions. They expect you to make them feel good and buff their self-esteem. It can be exhausting!
EI people (EIPs) show these traits, even though individual personality styles may differ:
EI people stir up guilt and self-doubt, making you feel morally obligated to put them first. They act like the person with the most important needs in any relationship.
If you don’t see emotional immaturity for what it is, you may feel that you should live your life to please them and be who they need you to be. But if you make their needs more important than your own, you will soon feel drained, unacknowledged, and ultimately resentful.
If EIPs have eroded your self-confidence and boundaries with their dominance and emotional takeovers, you'll find ideas and answers in my books and interviews, based on over thirty years of doing psychotherapy. They will help you reevaluate any self-defeating feelings and beliefs you may have learned to adopt.
By seeing through emotional immature pressure from others, you strengthen your own emotional maturity and sense of self. You stop feeling guilty about having your own preferences and boundaries. Once you start questioning other people's emotionally immature expectations, you become free to decide what really matters to you. You can start building your own best life.
EI people (EIPs) show these traits, even though individual personality styles may differ:
- They are egocentric, all roads lead to them.
- They have low empathy, and don't put themselves in others' shoes
- They blame others for their problems Instead of self-reflecting and taking responsibility
- They have a low stress tolerance, and are quick to react defensively
- They deny, dismiss, or distort reality so they're never to blame
EI people stir up guilt and self-doubt, making you feel morally obligated to put them first. They act like the person with the most important needs in any relationship.
If you don’t see emotional immaturity for what it is, you may feel that you should live your life to please them and be who they need you to be. But if you make their needs more important than your own, you will soon feel drained, unacknowledged, and ultimately resentful.
If EIPs have eroded your self-confidence and boundaries with their dominance and emotional takeovers, you'll find ideas and answers in my books and interviews, based on over thirty years of doing psychotherapy. They will help you reevaluate any self-defeating feelings and beliefs you may have learned to adopt.
By seeing through emotional immature pressure from others, you strengthen your own emotional maturity and sense of self. You stop feeling guilty about having your own preferences and boundaries. Once you start questioning other people's emotionally immature expectations, you become free to decide what really matters to you. You can start building your own best life.
Your Child's Immaturity is Your Golden Opportunity
Children are emotionally immature (EI) because they are supposed to be! But that doesn't make it any easier. Their immature behavior can be so exasperating or puzzling at times that you worry about whether you are a good parent. This can be especially true if you grew up as the adult child of emotionally immature parents. Nevertheless, children want to mature and they will respond to your guidance if you treat them respectfully as a work in progress.
My book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child, explains each stage of child psychological development, along with how you can facilitate their emotional maturation. You build confidence as you learn how to meet your child's changing needs at each stage of their development. Here are the five main jobs of a child's development:
When you treat your child like they're real inside -- just as sensitive and sentient as yourself -- with respect for their individual interests and emotional needs, they feel like they matter, strengthening their sense of self. And if you can interpret their misbehavior as awkward attempts to communicate with you, you will respond in ways that support their maturation.
As an extra bonus, your role as a parent will develop your own emotional maturity. Your child literally will transform you into a more complex, competent, and mature person -- whether you requested it or not! Creating a rewarding relationship with your child throughout their development doesn't mean being perfect, you just need to be "good enough" and make amends when needed. Perfection is not the goal, but a lifelong positive relationship with your child is.
My book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child, explains each stage of child psychological development, along with how you can facilitate their emotional maturation. You build confidence as you learn how to meet your child's changing needs at each stage of their development. Here are the five main jobs of a child's development:
- Build secure attachments and learn to relate to others
- Gradually construct an organized mental model of reality, causality, and how life works
- Learn how to identify, communicate, and handle their emotions
- Use emotional self-awareness and strong attachments to develop a secure sense of self
- Optimize full mental potential through integrated brain development
When you treat your child like they're real inside -- just as sensitive and sentient as yourself -- with respect for their individual interests and emotional needs, they feel like they matter, strengthening their sense of self. And if you can interpret their misbehavior as awkward attempts to communicate with you, you will respond in ways that support their maturation.
As an extra bonus, your role as a parent will develop your own emotional maturity. Your child literally will transform you into a more complex, competent, and mature person -- whether you requested it or not! Creating a rewarding relationship with your child throughout their development doesn't mean being perfect, you just need to be "good enough" and make amends when needed. Perfection is not the goal, but a lifelong positive relationship with your child is.