Last week at the farmers’ market, I watched my five-year-old Ellie negotiate with Milo over who got to carry the basket of apples. Instead of swooping in to solve it, I waited. They figured it out—Ellie carried it to the car, Milo got to pick the next fruit.
Small moment, huge realization: this is emotional maturity in action.
And you know what’s wild? Most adults I know couldn’t have handled that negotiation as gracefully as my kids did. We live in a world full of grown-ups throwing tantrums on social media, shutting down during difficult conversations, and pointing fingers instead of taking responsibility.
Emotional maturity isn’t about age. It’s about skills. And if you’ve mastered these seven particular ones, you’re doing better than 95% of adults out there. .
1) You can sit with uncomfortable emotions without immediately reacting
Remember the last time someone cut you off in traffic? Or when your partner said something that hit a nerve? That surge of anger, that immediate urge to react—most people act on it instantly.
But emotional maturity looks different. It’s taking that deep breath when your kid dumps his breakfast on the floor right when we’re running late.
It’s pausing before firing off that angry text. It’s what I call the sacred pause.
This morning, Matt forgot to start the coffee (again). Old me would’ve made a snippy comment. Instead, I noticed my irritation, acknowledged it internally, and started the coffee myself. No drama. No resentment building up. Just a simple response to a simple problem.
The magic happens in that space between feeling and reacting. That’s where choice lives. That’s where we decide who we want to be rather than being controlled by our immediate impulses.
Or ss psychologist Viktor Frankl put it, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
Most people never find that space. They live in constant reaction mode, bouncing from one emotional response to another like a pinball. But when you can sit with discomfort—really sit with it without numbing it, fixing it, or exploding from it—you’ve unlocked a superpower.
2) You take responsibility for your emotional state
“You made me angry” might be the most emotionally immature sentence in the English language.
Nobody makes you feel anything. Your emotions are your responsibility. This was a game-changer for me after dealing with postpartum anxiety following Milo’s birth. I kept waiting for external things to change so I’d feel better.
Spoiler alert: that’s not how it works.
Your boss doesn’t make you stressed. Your kids don’t make you lose your patience. These situations might trigger emotions, but the emotions themselves? They’re yours to manage.
I learned this the hard way during my teaching years. I’d come home exhausted, blaming the kids, the parents, the system. Then one day, a colleague who’d been teaching for thirty years seemed completely energized after the exact same day. Same kids, same challenges, totally different emotional response. That’s when it clicked.
Taking responsibility for your emotional state doesn’t mean suppressing feelings or pretending everything’s fine. It means owning your reactions and working with them constructively.
When I feel overwhelmed now, I don’t blame Matt for not helping enough or the kids for being kids. I recognize it as my signal to check in with myself. Maybe I need a walk. Maybe I need to lower my expectations for the day. Maybe I just need to cry in the bathroom for two minutes and then carry on.
This shift changes everything about how you move through the world.
3) You can validate others’ feelings without taking them personally
Ellie came to me yesterday, tears streaming: “You’re the meanest mommy ever!” Why? Because I said no to another cookie.
The emotionally immature response? Getting defensive. Taking it personally. Arguing about whether I’m actually mean. Or worse, giving in to stop the tears.
Instead, I got down to her level: “You’re really disappointed about the cookie. That feels unfair to you.” Her little shoulders relaxed. She still didn’t get the cookie, but she felt heard. She moved on within minutes.
This skill transforms adult relationships too. When Matt comes home stressed and snappy, I don’t immediately assume I did something wrong or snap back. His mood is information about his day, not a reflection of my worth. I can acknowledge his stress without absorbing it.
Can you imagine how different our world would be if everyone could do this? If we could hear criticism without crumbling? If we could witness someone else’s bad day without making it about us?
The ability to separate someone else’s emotional experience from your own identity is rare. Most people either become defensive or absorb others’ emotions like sponges. But when you can stand firm in your own emotional space while making room for others’ feelings, you become a safe person. You become someone people trust with their real feelings because they know you won’t make it about you.
4) You recognize patterns from your past playing out in the present
My parents were wonderful people who did their best. They were also emotionally distant, keeping conversations surface-level at our nightly dinners. Growing up, I learned that being “good” meant being quiet about feelings.
Guess what I found myself doing with Ellie and Milo initially? Same thing. Rushing them through their big feelings. Trying to fix everything quickly so we could return to “happy.”
But here’s the thing about patterns—once you see them, you can change them. Emotional maturity means recognizing when you’re recreating dynamics from your past. Are you people-pleasing because that’s how you earned love as a kid? Are you controlling because chaos felt unsafe growing up.
I catch myself all the time now. When I start anxiously double-checking locks (hello, Mom’s anxiety), I pause. When I feel the urge to make everything perfect for a playdate, I remember that connection matters more than perfection. These patterns don’t disappear overnight, but awareness is the first step to freedom.
Most adults sleepwalk through life, unconsciously repeating their childhood dynamics. They marry someone like their difficult parent. They recreate the same conflicts. They pass down the same wounds. But when you can see these patterns clearly, you get to choose differently.
5) You can hold multiple truths at once
Here’s something that took me years to understand: two things can be true at the same time.
I can love my kids fiercely AND sometimes fantasize about running away to a quiet cabin. I can be grateful for my life AND feel overwhelmed by it. I can support attachment parenting AND sometimes need to let them cry while I take a shower.
This is what emotional maturity looks like—holding complexity without needing to simplify everything into good or bad, right or wrong.
People who lack this skill live in black and white. They’re either happy or sad, never both. Someone is either perfect or terrible, never complex. But emotional maturity means making room for all of it. For the messy middle. For the both/and instead of the either/or.
6) You can repair after rupture
I lost it last week. Full-on mom meltdown. Raised voice, slammed cabinet, the works. Milo had drawn on the wall (again), Ellie was whining about lunch, and I just… snapped.
The old me would’ve justified it. Would’ve stewed in guilt. Would’ve pretended it didn’t happen. Instead, after I calmed down, I sat with them: “I’m sorry I yelled. I was frustrated, but that wasn’t okay. I should have taken a breath first.”
“It’s okay, Mama,” Ellie said, patting my hand. “Sometimes big feelings are hard.”
Out of the mouths of babes, right?
Repair is everything. It’s not about being perfect—it’s about coming back together after disconnection.
This applies to all relationships. With Matt, we have a rule: we don’t let the sun set on unresolved conflict. Not because we force resolution, but because we at least acknowledge the rupture and commit to working through it.
Most people either pretend ruptures didn’t happen or let them fester into permanent disconnection. But emotional maturity means having the humility to admit when you’re wrong and the courage to make it right. It means teaching our kids that relationships can survive imperfection—in fact, they grow stronger through the repair process.
7) You know when to engage and when to let go
Not every battle needs fighting. Not every feeling needs processing. Not every slight needs addressing.
My mother-in-law still makes passive-aggressive comments about our “alternative” parenting choices. I used to engage every time, defending our decisions about co-sleeping and organic food.
Now? I smile and change the subject. She’s not going to change her mind, and I don’t need her approval.
This is perhaps the pinnacle of emotional maturity—knowing when something deserves your emotional energy and when it doesn’t.
With the kids, this looks like choosing my battles. Yes, they need to brush teeth. No, I’m not going to die on the hill of matching socks. Matt loads the dishwasher “wrong,” but it gets clean, so I let it go.
As Brené Brown has noted, “Choose discomfort over resentment.” Sometimes that means speaking up. Sometimes it means letting go. Wisdom is knowing the difference.
Most adults exhaust themselves engaging with every emotional trigger. They fight battles that don’t matter. They hold onto grievances that serve no purpose. But when you can discern what truly needs your attention from what can be released, you save your energy for what actually matters.
Conclusion
So here’s my question for you: how many of these skills have you actually mastered?
If you’re sitting there thinking “maybe two or three,” you’re not alone. Emotional maturity isn’t something we’re taught in school. Most of us are figuring it out as we go, making mistakes, trying again. I’m thirty-two years old and still working on all of these daily.
The beautiful thing is that these skills can be learned at any age. Every day offers new chances to pause before reacting, to take responsibility, to repair after messing up. Every interaction is an opportunity to practice.
I watch Ellie and Milo navigate their big feelings, and I realize we’re all learning together. They’re teaching me as much as I’m teaching them. That’s what emotional maturity really is—staying open to growth, staying humble about how much we still don’t know, staying committed to doing better.
Progress, not perfection, as I remind myself during the hard moments.
The world needs more emotionally mature adults. Not perfect ones—just ones who are willing to do the work, to stay aware, to keep growing. If you’ve mastered even a few of these skills, you’re already ahead of the game. Keep going. We need you.
And remember: the fact that you’re even reading about emotional maturity? That’s a sign you’re on the right track. Most people never even get that far.
