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What if your nervous system learned that love required self-abandonment? We unpack emotionally immature parents with therapists Cristine Seidell and Taylor Strong, tracing how limited capacity, stress, and intergenerational patterns shape attachment—and how those early adaptations like fawning and freeze follow us into adult relationships.

We start by defining emotional immaturity as a chronic struggle to regulate, reflect, and hold a child’s feelings without collapsing or retaliating. From there, we explore intention versus impact, why siblings remember homes so differently, and how “capacity” fluctuates with resources like sleep, workload, and support. The heart of the conversation is repair and accountability: what it sounds like when a parent owns harm, why that takes resourcing, and how to move from blame to compassionate clarity about needs.

Cristine and Taylor offer practical steps for building self-trust and boundaries rooted in nervous system safety. You’ll hear how to identify fawning and freeze in couples dynamics, set “access levels” with family, and decide if limited contact, structured engagement, or a season of no contact fits your current capacity. We talk grief for the parent you needed, the self you postponed to belong, and the path to authentic connection when repair isn’t available yet.

Along the way, we share tools, scripts, and recommended reads—Lindsay Gibson’s Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Meg Josephson’s Are You Mad At Me—for naming patterns and reclaiming your voice. The aim isn’t to punish the past; it’s to meet present needs with clarity, regulate through hard moments, and choose relationships that reciprocate. Press play for a grounded, nonjudgmental guide to healing attachment wounds, setting aligned boundaries, and creating space for real repair. If this resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share your biggest takeaway with us—what boundary are you practicing this week?

Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:

@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter

Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com

Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.

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We unpack the invisible child: how being the “easy kid” can mask unmet emotional needs, shape adult attachment, and erode self-trust. We share practical tools—somatic check-ins, values work, boundaries, and self-compassion—to rebuild identity and receive care.

• defining the invisible child and common family contexts
• how praise for responsibility becomes a survival role
• signs in adulthood: people-pleasing, numbness, loneliness
• fearful-avoidant patterns and toxic dynamics risk
• somatic skills to feel instead of overthink
• values work as identity and boundary scaffolding
• practicing self-compassion and learning to receive
• nuanced repair with parents without black-and-white thinking
• choosing safe relationships and building found family

If you would like to work with somebody Kaylee is an amazing therapist here and really has great perspective around the parent-child relationship regardless of what age you find yourself in the parenting journey

To learn more about Kaylee and the work she does, see her bio below:

https://www.risetherapycenter.com/kaylee

Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:

@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter

Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com

Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.

Send a text

We unpack how shame forms in childhood and why it feels different from guilt, then offer concrete ways to protect learning, autonomy, and connection at home, in school, and in relationships. Scripts, strategies, and mindset shifts help replace criticism with compassionate feedback.

• defining shame as a belief about worth, not behavior
• guilt as a teacher that guides change
• how tone and reactions encode shame during mistakes
• fear, perfectionism, and the I’m in trouble loop
• family systems and sibling dynamics shaping identity
• school labels, confirmation bias, and growth mindset
• co-regulation, connection before correction, and scripts
• feedback as a two-way process that preserves safety
• using repair, do-overs, and specific observations

If you're looking to learn more about this topic or others, feel free to like subscribe and follow "And Still We Rise"!

To learn more about the work Sara does at Rise Therapy Center, or any other services we offer, you can find them below!

https://www.risetherapycenter.com/sara

IG: @seenbysarak

Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:

@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter

Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com

Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.