What Is A Parentified Child? How Foster Parents Can Help
This blog explains what it means for a child to be parentified and how this role reversal impacts emotional development. It defines parentification as a form of psychological abuse in which children take on adult responsibilities, either emotionally or instrumentally. The article outlines common causes, distinguishes between emotional and instrumental parentification, and describes long-term effects such as boundary issues, hyper-responsibility, and difficulty experiencing joy. It emphasizes the importance of therapeutic intervention to help children heal and rediscover healthy attachment and self-worth.
What is a Parentified Child
Looking for ways to help a child who has been a parent
When a child is placed in an adult role, it is called parentification. Many children are pushed into caring for their younger siblings or into becoming an emotional crutch for their parents. This role reversal happens when parents cannot fully show up for their children.
Parentification is a form of psychological abuse and is undoubtedly a boundary violation for a child. Parentified children wind up in developmentally inappropriate situations. This includes caring for their parents emotionally, physically caring for the household, and taking on jobs at a young age to support the family.
Some of the situations that parentification can arise from include:
- Divorce
- Death of a parent or sibling
- Substance abuse of a parent
- Chronic disease or disability of a parent or sibling
- Domestic violence relationship between parents
- Abusive parent/child relationship, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, or verbal abuse
- Immature or emotionally unavailable parent
- A parent who struggles with mental health
While browsing the internet on this topic, there seem to be two types of parentification.
The first is emotional parentification. This is when the child is forced to offer emotional support to their parent and become the parent's confidant or emotional caretaker. A parent may overshare their negative feelings about their marriage or life in general. The parent may even harm themselves or the other parent in front of the child. The child assumes a caregiving role for their parent, which is too much for a child to handle.
Then there is instrumental parentification. This manifests as the child taking on household chores and adult responsibilities. They may be forced to take on tasks such as cooking, cleaning, or caring for younger siblings. Some adolescents may even take on a job to help pay the bills. Exposure to these situations can erase the joy of what should be a carefree time in a youth's life.
Parentified children often need therapeutic intervention with a mental health professional. It is typical for them to struggle to have fun and to set boundaries with their family members. They are used to being in the caretaker role. There are many adverse effects of parentification.
Typically, the child views their self-worth as being linked to what they can provide others. They feel the need to be in control and to be the peacekeeper since those responsibilities were forced onto them. A parentified child may also believe that being self-reliant is better than trusting others. Therapeutic interventions for parentified children can help them understand that they deserve unconditional love.
My next blog will discuss therapeutic interventions for the parentified child.
If you are caring for a child who has had to grow up too fast, you are not alone. FosterVA is here to help you understand parentification and support healing through trauma-informed care. Reach out to our team to learn more about resources, training, and therapeutic supports for children who deserve the chance to simply be kids.
What are you waiting for? Click here to help a child in need!