An index for tropes pertaining to just about any form of immaturity.
Contrast Maturity Tropes. See also The Jerk Index.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Immature parents believe that they have the right to use fear, manipulation, etc. to control their children.
- Affection-Hating Kid: A child character always complains and reacts in disgust when they see older people expressing their love for each other.
- Age-Stereotypical Food: Immaturity indicated by eating "childish" foods.
- All Take and No Give: Immaturity demonstrated by always demanding stuff and never giving anyone anything in return.
- Alpha Bitch: A popular girl who bullies social outcasts. It's immature to pick on someone for their inferiorities.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Your parents are so immature they're embarrassing.
- And Call Him "George": You're not mature enough to express your affection to others, so you would rather smother people to death.
- Angry Cheek Puff: Puffing one's cheek while pouting or angry as a sign of immaturity.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Your younger sibling is immature.
- Are We There Yet?: Persistently questioning if the driver has reached their destination, often in an antagonizing matter.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: You're easily distracted by something.
- Attention Whore: You desperately seek attention.
- Baby Talk: Speaking like a baby.
- Belated Child Discipline: A Spoiled Brat finally gets the overdue discipline/punishment/consequences for their bad behaviour.
- Big Brother Bully: Your older sibling bullies you.
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Character makes childish insults.
- Blaming the Tools: A character blames their own incompetence on their tools rather than accept responsibility.
- Blinded by Rage: You make bad decisions based on your unstable emotions.
- Blowing a Raspberry: Phhhbbtt!
- Boyish Shorts: Little boys wear short pants because they're too childish/young to wear long ones.
- Brats with Slingshots: Bratty children in fiction are given slingshots as weapons.
- Bratty Food Demand: Ordering food from another person, usually a parent or a food service worker, in an obnoxious and/or threatening fashion.
- Bratty Half-Pint: A child who acts whiny, self-centered, and demanding.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Your teenage daughter is immature and self-centered.
- Breath-Holding Brat: Someone holds their breath until their demands are met.
- The Bully: Picking on others inferior to you.
- Can't Take Criticism: You're not mature enough to handle criticism well.
- Carload of Cool Kids: Students inside make harassing remarks while passing by.
- Cheek Copy: If you're willing to abuse a photocopier by using it to print pictures of your rear end, then you're probably not mature.
- Childish Older Sibling: Your older sibling is immature.
- Childish Pillow Fight: A sleepover tradition in which a group of two or more people playfully hit each other with pillows.
- Childish Villain, Mature Hero: A villain who is defined by their immaturity in comparison to the hero.
- Children Are Innocent: Children are unaffected by the world's cruelty, often to a naïve fault.
- Chuunibyou: A character tries too hard to convince others they're "cool" through their own delusions.
- Circus Brat: A temperamental circus kid.
- Class Clown: The eccentric kid in class who seeks attention, typically not taking school seriously.
- Companion Cube: Treating inanimate objects like real people.
- Crocodile Tears: Fake-crying to toy with others' emotions.
- Delinquent: An underage character engages in unlawful behavior for the fun of it.
- Ding-Dong-Ditch Distraction: Knocking on someone's door and running away before it can be answered.
- Disrupting the Theater: Misbehaving in a theater to the chagrin of the other moviegoers.
- The Ditz: A stupid character often lacks maturity.
- Domestic Abuse: Immature people believe that they have the right to use fear, manipulation, etc. to control their partner.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Immediately brushing off any sympathy you may receive in response to experiencing a tragedy.
- Drama Queen: Making a big deal out of minor mishaps.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Someone thinks it's okay to joke around in serious situations.
- Dumbass Teenage Son: The teenage son of the family is immature.
- Embarrassing Relative Teacher: Relatives who don’t act age-appropriate around the pupils they teach, thus embarrassing their kids.
- Egging: Throwing eggs at property as a prank.
- Emotional Regression: Reverting to an immature emotional state.
- Enfant Terrible: An evil child.
- Entertainment Below Their Age: An older character enjoys a work intended for a younger age demographic.
- Entitled Bastard: Expecting the same person you insulted and bullied to save you when you're in trouble.
- Evil Is Petty: The villain thrives on being both dangerous/depraved and your snotty everyday troublemaker.
- Experience Entitlement: Ironically enough. People will often try to justify their immature behavior based on horrible experiences.
- Extreme Doormat: You're too immature to stop letting people walk over you.
- Face Doodling: Drawing on a person's face is considered immature.
- Flipping the Table: Throwing your desk across the room in a fit of rage.
- Food Fight: A fight performed by pelting food at each other.
- For the Evulz: A villain commits a deplorable act just because they thought it was funny.
- Freudian Excuse: Especially when the person using it attempts to justify their unprovoked actions with one.
- The Fundamentalist: You're too immature to accept beliefs that don't align with your own. At worst, you believe that anybody who disagrees with you is evil and deserves to be murdered.
- The Gadfly: Provoking others for fun.
- Genki Girl: A female character who is extremely cheerful and energetic.
- Girls Have Cooties: Boys have a childish disgust for girls.
- Glasses Curiosity: Expressing immature eagerness to wear the glasses of others.
- Goo-Goo-Godlike: An all-powerful child who doesn't know any better.
- Growing Up Sucks: People who believe that growing older is no fun because of the things they could do when they were younger that they won't be allowed to do anymore.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: You're not mature enough to control your temper.
- Halloween Trickery: On Halloween, people do mischievous things like pulling pranks on others.
- Hand Puppet Mockery: Combines playing with a hand puppet with teasing another person.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": Laughing at an accidental innuendo or inappropriate word in one's speech.
- Height Insult: Making fun of someone for being too tall or too short.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: A teenager who is impulsed by their perverted thoughts.
- Hypocrite: Pretending to be more moral than you actually are.
- Imaginary Friend: Treating a figment of your imagination as your friend.
- Immaturity Insult: Insulting someone by calling them a child or treating them as such.
- Immortal Immaturity: Being immortal doesn't stop you from behaving immaturely.
- Infantilization Retaliation: Treating someone or something like a baby results in the person that's babying them getting hurt in response.
- The Ingenue: A woman who is sweet and naive accidentally causes trouble and inconvenience for others.
- It's All About Me: A character who is selfish, has no regard for others, and only cares about themselves.
- I Want My Mommy!: Desperately longing for your mother when you're in an undesirable situation.
- Jabba Table Manners: Eating like a pig.
- Jerkass: You’re too immature to be considerate of people’s feelings.
- Jerk Jock: A jock immaturely expresses his insecurities by bullying people.
- Keet: An overly energetic and cheerful male character.
- Kiddie Kid: A child character acts younger than their stated age.
- Kids Are Cruel: Kids are not only immature, but also cruel, insensitive, and sociopathic.
- Kids Hate Vegetables: Kids have a childish disgust for vegetables.
- Lack of Empathy: You are not mature enough to care about other people's suffering and misfortunes.
- Little Miss Snarker: A little girl makes condescending remarks.
- Manchild: An adult character who behaves like a child.
- Manipulative Bastard: Using manipulation to get your way.
- Men Are Childish: Men are called out on their childish behavior by women, their wives in particular.
- Military Brat: For the purposes of this list, a character whose experience with the military contributes to their immaturity.Caveat
- Mocking Sing-Song: Teasing someone in a sing-song voice, typically about their crushes.
- Moral Myopia: Believing that your own immorality is justified, but another's is inexcusable.
- Mr. Imagination: A character who is lost in their imaginative roleplay.
- Mustache Vandalism: Defacing portraits by drawing childish facial hair on them.
- My Beloved Smother: A mother who refuses to give her children the space they need to grow as a person.
- Naïve Newcomer: Newcomers are typically inexperienced and immature.
- Narcissist: You think so highly of yourself that you disregard others.
- Never Grew Up: A character who is unable to grow up.
- Never My Fault: You blame others for your actions instead of taking responsibility for them.
- No, You: Responding to an insult by repeating it towards the one who gave it is usually seen as very immature.
- Not Good with Rejection: You're not mature enough to handle rejection.
- Not So Above It All: A mature character partakes in immature behavior.
- Offended by an Enemy's Indifference: A person can't accept that someone they hate doesn't care about them.
- Offing the Annoyance: Murdering someone just because they irritate you is an extreme form of immaturity.
- One of the Kids: An adult hangs out with children to signify their immaturity.
- Outhumbling Each Other: Romantic bickering.
- Parenting the Husband: A wife takes care of her immature husband.
- Petty Childhood Grudge: Someone who holds a grudge against another person from long ago over something really minor.
- Ping Pong Naïveté: Someone who should know better from past experiences, but doesn't.
- Plaster Cast Doodling: Doodling childish things on a plaster cast like drawing a dick or writing insults.
- Playing the Victim Card: Victimizing yourself to get out of responsibility.
- Prank Call: Messing with a company or person via a phone call.
- The Prankster: Someone who lives to pull pranks on others.
- Propeller Hat of Whimsy: Propeller hats as a visual shorthand for whimsical and/or youthful people, including childish behaviors.
- Psychological Projection: A character who unwittingly projects their own negative traits onto another.
- Psychopathic Manchild: An unstable adult character who possesses a childlike demeanor.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: Using your cute eyes to get your way.
- Rage Quit: Quitting a game in a fit of rage.
- Rejecting the Consolation Prize: A Sore Loser who won't accept their second or third-place prize.
- Resort to Pouting: Someone pouts when they don't get their way.
- Royal Brat: A spoiled rich person misuses their power of royalty.
- Safe Under Blankets: Hiding under a blanket in hope of avoiding problems.
- Sarcasm-Blind: You're too oblivious to realize someone said something sarcastic to you.
- Shaking the Rump: Can be done by an immature character if done in a taunting way.
- Sibling Rivalry: Siblings who fight each other.
- Silver Spoon Troublemaker: Misconduct is typically associated with immaturity and childishness.
- Skilled, but Naive: A full-fledged badass when he sets his mind to it, but a Naïve Newcomer by default.
- Smitten Teenage Girl: A teenage girl with an obsessive and nonsensical crush on a certain guy.
- The Sociopath: A dangerous combination of no empathy, impulsiveness, and using manipulation to get what you want.
- Sore Loser: Whining and complaining when you don't win a competition.
- Spiteful Spoiler: Ruining a twist for someone to get revenge, or to entertain oneself.
- Spoiled Brat: Characters (and not just kids, but adults as well) who are arrogant, selfish, and entitled.
- Still Believes in Santa: A character's post-childhood belief in Santa marks them as childish.
- Still Sucks Thumb: A character sucks their thumb despite being too old for it.
- The Stool Pigeon: You're a tattletale.
- Stop Copying Me: An immature way to go about being imitated.
- Sunroof Shenanigans: Someone uses a sunroof (typically in a limo) to misbehave.
- Super Gullible: So oblivious that you go along with whatever you're told.
- Tantrum Throwing: Things don't go your way? Throw random things around.
- Teens Are Monsters: Teenagers who are not only mean, but also intimidating, cruel, sociopathic, and downright dangerous.
- Toilet Humor: Jokes about bodily functions.
- Toilet Paper Prank: Throwing toilet paper on one's property, typically known as TPing.
- Tongue-Out Insult: Sticking your tongue out at someone to insult/taunt them is immature.
- Trojan Veggies: Kids Hate Vegetables, so they have to be tricked into eating them when they're hidden in a different food.
- The Unapologetic: You're immature because you don't apologize for your actions.
- Ungrateful Bastard: When other people help you out, you never thank them and instead repay their kindness by continuing to be mean to them.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: You've won something, and you're not going to be graceful or mature in accepting it.
- Unstable Powered Child: A powerful child whose lack of maturity can cause mischief, chaos, or violence all around them.
- Valley Girl: A teenage girl stereotype with a very naïve demeanor.
- Villainous Breakdown: A villain will throw a huge temper tantrum like a little kid not getting his way.
- Wangst: Endlessly complaining about minor things makes you immature.
- Wild Card Excuse: Using the same excuse over and over again.
- Wild Child: A feral child with the mannerisms of an animal.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Acting strange and hyperactive when trying to convince someone of something, which fails to make him or her be believed.
- Your Mom: Making jokes about another's mother is a common trait of immaturity.
