30 going on 13: Why do I feel like a child around other adults?

Do you ever look around at other adults and wonder how they all seem to know what they’re doing? Although you do all the same things, work a 9-5, pay bills, and even raise children, you may not fully identify yourself with what an “adult” is.

An average adult feels 20% younger than they actually are, according to a survey conducted at Michigan State University [1]. So, it’s a fairly common feeling to feel like a child trapped in an adult’s body.

This article will investigate five reasons from your life that can explain why you feel like a child. Here, you’ll also get tips on how to normalize this feeling and feel more mature (if it’s something you need).

Why do I feel like a child mentally? Five potential reasons

Feeling like a child around other adults can be confusing and isolating. But if everyone “acts” adult, it doesn’t mean they feel adult.

Feeling “adult” is generally impossible. All you can do is feel more mature. If you don’t, it may be due to one of these five reasons:

Neurodivergent or mental health conditions
Adult child syndrome
Lack of accountability
Parentification
Fear of accountability
Fear of authority figures

The reasons below are not diagnoses, but they may help you understand why you still feel younger than your chronological age.

1. Neurodivergent or Mental Health Conditions

Certain neurodivergent traits and mental health conditions can make adulthood feel harder. The reason is pretty straightforward: these conditions affect executive functioning, a set of skills that are responsible for time management and working memory. They also affect emotional regulation and social confidence, which are developed during adulthood.

Neurodivergent individuals reject social norms and unspoken social scenarios. If you ever rejected “grown-up” rules, try taking a free neurodivergent test online, which can be pretty insightful. Nearly 20% of Americans who found themselves to be less mature than others appeared to be neurodivergent [2].

As a result, everyday responsibilities that seem effortless for others may require enormous energy behind the scenes. Many neurodivergent adults describe feeling “out of sync” with peers despite being intelligent, capable, and highly responsible.

2. Adult Child Syndrome

Adult child syndrome is a set of certain behaviors seen in adults who grew up in a dysfunctional and neglectful environment. While the term originally described adults raised by parents with alcohol use disorder, it now includes a broader range of difficult childhood experiences.

As children, these people developed coping strategies to survive. In adulthood, these coping strategies become redundant, but they still persist.

Some signs that a person has adult child syndrome are:

You always want to help others.
You overthink.
You doubt yourself.
You feel guilty.
You pity others.
You are co-dependent on someone.
You people-please.
You take everything personally.

The feelings described above can leave you feeling younger than your age. There’s an emotional part of you that still feels like a threatened child every time you feel unsafe.

3. Lack of Accountability

Before judging yourself for not being mature enough, answer this one question. Have you had the opportunity to practice being an adult?

Overprotective or “helicopter” parenting is an excessive level of parental involvement and control in a child’s life, which interferes with autonomy.

Being an adult means experience. A person collects experience when they face, solve, and live through something. Some parents don’t let their children solve their own problems or make their own decisions. These children simply don’t get the opportunity to act and feel like adults.

This is not a character flaw or evidence that something is wrong with you. It simply means you may need more practice trusting your own judgment and building confidence through independent action.

4. Parentification

Parentification is a type of childhood trauma when a child takes on responsibilities that belong to adults. Responsibilities can be both practical and emotional, such as caring for siblings, regulating parental emotions, or doing household chores.

The paradox is that a person who was parentified can seem extremely mature from the outside. And they can also be a functional adult and deal with everything. The thing is that such adults feel like children. They are afraid that they’ll be exposed as “not adult enough.”

5. Fear of Authority Figures

You may feel like a child stuck in an adult body if you are scared of authoritative figures. This fear can linger from childhood on, especially if authority figures were harsh and critical.

Pay attention to how you feel around bosses, teachers, supervisors, or anyone perceived as having power. Do you feel small or ashamed? Do you beg them for approval? These feelings can happen with most competent and capable people.

As a child, you could have associated authority with punishment or humiliation. Maybe you subconsciously don’t want to feel like these authority figures because they used to trigger negative feelings in you. Hence, you decided to become a better person who would never hurt others.

What to do if you feel like a child trapped in an adult’s body

The good news: Feeling like a child is a feeling rooted in something you learned. It’s not in your genetics or character. It means it can be fixed.

Let’s just define one thing at the beginning. Adulthood is a personal thing to everyone. It’s not being serious, never having fun, never making mistakes. Playfulness and mistakes, things associated with childhood, are inseparable parts of human lives.

You have to aim to build trust in your own abilities through experience. Don’t try to become a different person overnight. It’s a straight path to burnout.

Better focus on this:

Recognize and map when you feel most childish. Pay attention to situations that make you feel helpless or overly dependent. Especially trace your thoughts. Does your inner voice tell you you’re not enough? Or does it call you “too much”? These are your triggers that bring up defensive mechanisms that make you feel small.
Set boundaries. Start with low-stakes situations. Practice saying no, ask for time to think before agreeing to something, or express a preference. Having boundaries returns a sense of agency to your hands that makes you feel responsible for your own life
Challenge old beliefs. Notice thoughts such as, “I can’t handle this,” or “Someone else knows better than me.” Now write down arguments that support or refute these claims. This CBT is more recommended to be done with a mental health professional, especially if you try it for the first time.
Build self-trust through action. Make small decisions independently. Start small and make mistakes, even intentionally. Do it to build your tolerance for mistakes.
Seek professional support if needed. Therapy can help you process childhood experiences, improve emotional regulation, and develop healthier ways of relating to yourself and others. But mainly, it’ll teach you an important lesson: feeling like a child in an adult’s body does not mean you failed at growing up.