This can involve activities such as visualization, journaling, and meditation, as well as therapy with a qualified mental health professional. Through inner child work, individuals can learn to identify and address the emotional wounds that have resulted from parentification.
A parentified child does not develop a clear sense of their own needs and feelings. As an adult, they may find it hard to trust others, manage their own emotions, and form healthy intimate relationships. They face a greater risk of anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, and eating disorders.
Parentified children may experience anxiety, depression, and other psychological and physical effects. The impact can be lasting and might continue into adulthood. In certain cases, some degree of parentification may have positive effects, such as building resilience and competency.
One aspect of overcoming parentification is to learn to establish and maintain healthy boundaries with your romantic partners, family members, friends, colleagues, and community members. These boundaries should empower you to get your needs met in relationships and allow others to support you.
However, there is a second type of trauma that is very real and pervasive, yet not captured by the traditional diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The term Complex PTSD describes chronic childhood trauma, such as emotional neglect or parentification, that is invisible in nature.
Adults who have been parentified are highly sensitive, empathic, kind, and intuitive. In a way, those who were once a parentified children can become gifted parents because they have been doing it since they were young.
Parentification Causes
Typically, a child may be parentified if a parent is unable to fulfill their own role as a parental figure for various reasons. These reasons may include: Divorce. Chronic illness, disability, or a death in the family.
However, there are often negative effects of parentification in childhood. Many parentified children can grow up with higher levels of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
As voiced by many on TikTok, the syndrome can impair eldest daughters' wellbeing and “steal” their childhood as they are rushed into assuming a disproportionate amount of adult responsibilities – also known as parentification.
One such type is parentification trauma, which occurs when children are forced to take on adult roles sooner than is appropriate for their developmental level.
One study published in 2020 revealed that some children may benefit from parentification. Research published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies suggests that parentification may give some children feelings of competence, self-efficacy, and other positive benefits.
Paradoxically, being parentified by their parent does not reduce their parent's coercive powers even though it is the child meeting the needs of the parent. Ethical considerations involving a power differential: Parentification is about exploiting children. It is done by adults for adults.
Often parentified children are the oldest or middle in the birth order. Children of all genders can become parentified. Children as young as two or three may start to take on parenting responsibilities by comforting or feeding their younger siblings.
Because parentified children often do not learn healthy boundaries and attachment, many have difficulties in their relationships as adults. They may have trouble trusting others or have an inappropriate sense of entitlement or authority” (Armas, 2022; Lewis, 2021; Newport, 2019).
Overparented adult children tend to have compromised coping skills and underdeveloped problem-solving skills. These individuals tend to use dysfunctional emotion-focused coping strategies, such as self-preoccupation and fantasizing reactions, to cope with stress10.
Every stage of parenting has its challenges, but one poll reveals what age most parents feel they struggled with the most.
For some parents, infancy is the hardest. For others, it's toddlerhood. Some parents feel that the preschool years present special challenges.
Forget the terrible twos and prepare for the hateful eights ‒ parents have named age 8 as the most difficult age to parent, according to new research. Eight being the troublesome year likely comes as a surprise to many parents, especially since parents polled found age 6 to be easier than they expected.
Parentification can occur when one or both parents have mental health issues and it seems to be common in narcissistic families where the family is structured around getting the needs of parents met, rather than providing a healthy environment where children are nurtured.
Destructive parentification* is defined as a child who over-functions in a parental role. The opposite end of the spectrum is “infantilization,” a child who under-functions in a parental role but is fulfilling the parent's emotional needs of being a dependent child (Jurkovic et al.
You can heal from parentification by seeking support and treatment. Of course, you might struggle to get help or trust others if you were parentified. You might need to practice asking for help and trusting others. Support groups can be a great place to begin to hear the stories of others who have similar issues.
The risks of eggshell parenting
Hindell says eggshell parenting can lead to long-term difficulties for children, including: Anxiety. Depression. Unstable moods.
In contrast to parentification which happens within the home, adultification happens outside the home. It comes from the attitudes of people, organisations and services who surround the child. However, it is possible that a child's circumstances may cause them to experience both adultification and parentification.