Can Immature People Grow Up?

Can immature people grow up? It?s a question clients often ask me. Whether it’s an intimate partner, an adult child or a coworker, we might be tired and frustrated with their behavior – yet unwilling or unable to end the relationship. Often, it?s difficult to recognize and accept that other people might not see what?s obvious to us or share the values we cherish. Our perspective may feel so sensible and balanced that it?s hard to imagine the other person won?t eventually see it and come around, if we only explain it well enough. Yet, it rarely happens. (People are a bit like cats sometimes. Or the other way around.)

What do we mean by ?immature??

We can describe emotional immaturity as a mix of impulsivity, avoidance of responsibility, searching for short-term rewards and lack of consideration for others. Such people may refuse to engage with reality as it is, and instead cling to how they wish things were. (Reality is overrated anyway, right?)

In daily life, emotional immaturity is most commonly expressed through behaviors such as:

- putting pleasure first, even if it has unwanted consequences

– being driven by temporary emotions without questioning them (for example, triggered emotions from one’s childhood experiences – see: Age Regression)

– following the crowds in seeking validation, attention and status proofs

- selfish behavior, not seeking balance between own and others’ needs

– emotional outbursts, victim games, blaming, bullying, shifting blame, manipulative behaviors.

Many people exhibit a mix of mature and immature behaviors. This is often shaped by the circumstances in which they grew up and the role models they had in childhood. Such individuals can confuse us even more than consistently immature people. How is it possible for someone to be reasonable and considerate in some areas of life, and unreasonable and impulsive in others? This inconsistency can feel oddly bonding, offering us hope and elusive, unpredictable rewards. Psychological research shows that unpredictable, inconsistent rewards are more ?addictive? than consistent ones.

Some children spend their formative years hoping their parents will become sensible and considerate. As adults, we might repeat that same pattern?and that same hope?with other people, for far too long. Did your parents change because of your efforts? Probably not. You didn?t have any leverage over them, and they felt entitled to override your words and feelings. As an adult, you do have some (limited) leverage?but using it is often easier said than done.

How can immature people grow up?

Emotional maturity isn?t a single trait ? it?s a set of capacities. Like muscles, they can be trained, but that requires time, effort and strong motivation.

When we ask whether someone can ?grow up,? we?re really asking:

Can a person develop the capacity to face themselves honestly, take responsibility, and begin relating to others and the world with more presence, care, and thoughtfulness?

Let?s explore this further:

1. Awareness of Consequences

Immature people often act as if their choices are disconnected from outcomes. They might lie, avoid, explode, or disappear?without connecting the dots between their actions and the impact on others.
Maturity means learning that everything we do has consequences, expecting them, and taking ownership?even of the unintended ones.
It also means caring about those consequences. Immature people might recognize the outcomes, but not care. Sometimes they don?t care about others; sometimes the consequences for them seem too distant to bother. And sometimes, they simply don?t like themselves enough to care.

2. Long-Term Thinking

Immaturity is deeply tied to impulsivity. The need for immediate gratification overrides reflection.
Maturity brings the ability to zoom out, delay gratification, and ask: What kind of future am I creating with this choice?

3. Self-Observation

Without the ability to observe ourselves ? our emotional and behavioral patterns ? we are controlled by impulses and environment. Developing something like an internal parent is a key step. It?s the shift from ?I feel a strong emotion, therefore I must follow it? to ?I feel a strong emotion, let’s explore whether it’s realistic or not?

4. Empathy and Consideration of the Common Good

Maturity includes recognizing that others have similar needs and equal rights, and that balance between ourselves and others matters.
It means respecting others, and recognizing that investing in better relationships and a healthier society benefits us, too.

5. Capacity for Discomfort

Growth requires tolerating discomfort?whether it?s the discomfort of hearing feedback, sitting with uncertainty, or facing painful truths from the past.
Immaturity avoids discomfort at all costs. Maturity learns to stay.

6. Attitude Towards Responsibility

Immature people often perceive responsibility as an undesirable burden. They may feel that the burden shouldn’t fall on them?even when it’s the consequence of their decisions. In most cases, this stems from childhood conditioning involving guilt and fear around responsibility. Parents who are overly demanding, overly harsh, or emotionally immature themselves can instill this kind of fear and guilt in a child. As a result, the child may grow up rejecting responsibility altogether.

Mature people, on the other hand, associate responsibility with positive feelings?primarily a sense of power. Not selfish or controlling power, but the power to do good and create meaningful results, such as in parenting. That?s why maturity embraces responsibility?when it?s appropriate?rather than avoiding it.

7. النزاهة

Immature people often say whatever is convenient in the moment. Maturity means striving to align what we say and do with higher values and ideals. It?s not about perfection?it?s about the kind of world we want to help create.

8. Healthy Self-Love

Healthy self-love is another essential aspect of maturity.
We restrain ourselves now because we care about our future. People who don?t love themselves often don?t bother to improve their future.
Some immature behaviors may look like self-love, but are really forms of compensation.
To grow, an immature person must first recognize they lack healthy self-love and understand where that lack comes from (usually childhood). Then they need to decide they want to change it.

8. Perception of Time

If the future feels real and close, we?re more likely to make choices that benefit it.
But for some, the future feels distant and abstract.
These individuals may struggle to postpone pleasure in exchange for future benefit. This issue is usually mild?if the person holds solid values?but they still need to recognize and work through it.

What motivates an immature person to grow up?

Where there?s motivation, there?s effort. Where there?s long-term motivation, there?s a chance for success.
The problem is that immature behavior often delivers intense short-term pleasure, which feels more rewarding than self-restraint. Dopamine now, consequences later. Like emotional fast food.

For lasting motivation to take root, a person must fully recognize and reject the long-term consequences of immature behavior?and deeply desire the rewards of mature self-restraint. They must be motivated enough to endure the temporary frustrations that come with discipline. (Also known as ?the boring but effective stuff.?)

Example:

A client I spoke with a few months ago was expressing a lot of resentment toward women, along with frustration rooted in the belief that he needed to be aloof and manipulative to make them stay. That wasn?t what he truly wanted, but online dating influencers had tapped into his frustrations and convinced him otherwise.

As we explored his childhood conditioning, it became clear that he had been deeply bonded to his mother and tried hard to be a perfect, supportive, precocious boy, while his father had been absent for most of his life. At the same time, his mother was often away from home?working hard to both support the family and pursue higher education. As a child, he felt abandoned and unappreciated, despite all his efforts to please her. Those early feelings of resentment were later projected onto his adult relationships, leading to conflict and disappointment.

When he contacted me again recently, he admitted that he had initially felt frustrated and angry with my suggestion that his strong emotions were likely rooted in childhood. It felt, to him, as if I were dismissing his feelings. But in the meantime, he spent a lot of time observing himself and processing his emotions?and eventually, he fully recognized how much he had been projecting his unmet childhood needs and anger onto the world around him. He also came to see that his energy might have been pushing people away.

In addition, he realized that some of the social strategies he?d developed to attract and connect with others weren?t truly authentic. When his feelings and attitude shifted, everything else began to change. He rebuilt a much healthier relationship with his ex-wife?which came as a great relief to their young daughter?and, surprisingly, his ex-girlfriend reached out and expressed interest in reconnecting. This time, he decided to take things slowly rather than rushing back in. He wanted to make sure there was real compatibility and a genuinely healthy connection.

So, when do people change?
Often, they don?t?because many people around the immature person, out of fear or hope, tolerate immature behavior or compensate for it. This allows immature people to invest less effort while reaping more rewards than the responsible ones.
The responsible people end up cleaning up the mess, allowing the immature ones to enjoy their thrills without consequences. Naturally, this lack of consequences reduces the motivation to change.

Everyone learns most from the consequences of their behavior. Sometimes, those consequences must involve suffering.
A thrill-seeking driver might only change after hurting themselves or someone they love.
A manipulative or abusive partner may only realize their behavior isn?t working when the other person finally leaves?and doesn?t come back.

Bottom line: people change when they become fully aware that their behavior has brought them significantly more pain than joy. Some eventually come to that realization. But it rarely comes from someone else?s words?it usually comes from personal experience.

Some people never change?because their immature behavior continues to bring more pleasure than pain. When they do suffer consequences, they often blame others or circumstances, rather than their own choices.
The older someone is while still doing this, the less likely they are to change.

Certain traits?like lack of empathy, low emotional intelligence, or thrill-seeking?can have a biological basis, which makes change harder. It?s not always easy to know what?s biology and what?s early-life conditioning.
Still, don?t let an immature person read this and argue that it?s not their fault, but just ?nature.? If they have a brain clever enough to come up with that excuse, they?re also capable of reflecting on their behavior. After all, we all manage to suppress plenty of unhelpful biological urges every single day, otherwise we’d all be running around kicking and screaming, hitting on anybody we are attracted to, and eating cake for for breakfast, lunch, and emotional support

If you feel shy or guilty about imposing consequences that may cause temporary pain to an immature person, consider this: You?re not really avoiding pain?you?re just postponing it. And usually, making it worse.

Showing tough love requires emotional strength. You need to support yourself through conflict and emotional manipulation. You need to accept the possibility that the relationship might end. You need to learn to be assertive and clear in setting boundaries.
That?s hard?especially if you were raised to put your needs second, or if misplaced pity makes you see the other person as too weak to cope with their feelings.

If you need help managing the emotional imprints from childhood that are still preventing you from setting boundaries, consider our online coaching.
We?re here to help.

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