Adult Children…

Chapter 4

The four types of emotionally immature parents is the main focus of this chapter. This will be a smaller post due to the nature of already going through them as people but I’ll still highlight the main characteristics discussed.

[Emotional Parents- run by their feelings, swinging between over involvement and abrupt withdrawal. They are prone to frightening instability and unpredictability. Overwhelmed by anxiety, they rely on others to stabilize them. They treat small upsets like the end of the world and see other people as either rescuers or abandoners.

Driven Parents- are compulsively goal-oriented and super busy. They can’t stop trying to perfect everything, including other people. Although they rarely pause long enough to have true empathy for their children, they are controlling and interfering when it comes to running their. children’s lives.

Passive Parents- have a laissez-faire mind-set and avoid dealing with anything upsetting. They’re less obviously harmful than the other types but have their own negative effects. They readily take a backseat to a dominant mate, even allowing abuse and neglect to occur by looking the other way. They cope by minimizing problems and acquiescing.

Rejecting Parents- engage in a range of behaviors that make you wonder why they have a family in the first place. Whether their behavior is mild or severe, they don’t enjoy emotional intimacy and clearly don’t want. to be bothered by children. Their tolerance for other people’s needs is practically nil, and their interactions consist of issuing commands, blowing up, or isolating themselves from family life. Some of the milder types may engage in stereotyped family activities, but they still show little closeness or real engagement. They mostly want to be left alone to do their thing.]

A lot of parents have behaviors that fall into multiple categories, but most tend to align with a single overarching type. However, [none of these types are able to consistently act in ways that would make a child feel secure about the relationship.]

While dad and mom show traits in all of the categories, I identify dad as primarily a Rejecting parent with emotional parent as a close second. Mom is by far a passive parent.

Characteristics that dad shows include: [is preoccupied with his or her own needs, shows no empathy, seems disconnected and hostile, isn’t self-reflective, has no relationship repair skills, is reactive, attacking, and demeaning, is too distant, ignores his own child or can be pageful towards the child, is often rejecting and angry, and likes to mock and dismiss.] Mom’s characteristics include: [has limited empathy, is enmeshed and not respectful of boundaries, isn’t self-reflective, has limited relationship repair skills, can be thoughtful on occasion, is either too close or too distant, can be kindly and fun but not protective, has a laissez-faire attitude that all is well, is affectionate towards the child butt doesn’t stand up for him or her, and likes someone else to run the show or be the bad guy.]

These types of parents are all afraid of genuine emotion and seek to control others for their ow comfort. I think I am slightly similar as well. I’m so afraid of bad things happening that I want to control others to prevent it or get ahead of it. I will try to push people away with what I perceive are “bad” behaviors or test them to see if they will love me despite them. I don’t want to act that way, I just want to refrain from continually making the same mistakes and engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors. I think mindfulness and positive self-talk are 2 of the biggest corrective patterns to help me grow out of this. I am responsible for my own life and choices and need to accept that and act accordingly.