Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents : How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Nobody chooses to be raised by emotionally unavailable parents, but in this revealing study, psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson offers choices for how to deal with them in adulthood. Understanding that parents’ neglectful actions spring from their own issues, not their children’s behavior, is key. She breaks down four problematic parenting types—emotional, driven, passive, and rejecting—with concrete examples of the harm each causes. The offspring of ill-equipped caregivers fall into two categories: internalizers and externalizers. (Basically, either cautious or impulsive.) Gibson’s advice offers that recognizing parents’ shortcomings frees their adult children to adjust the relationship—even if that means, in severe cases, no longer having one. She also gives advice on how to make potentially daunting changes such as limiting contact and how to recognize emotional maturity in others so the cycle of disconnect can be broken. Narrator Marguerite Gavin’s calm, steady delivery makes even the most challenging insights feel approachable. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents delivers practical advice for healing from the harm that can come from these types of familial relationships.