“You’re so mature for your age.” “You’re so responsible.” “You need to be strong.” “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
While these may appear to be healthy or encouraging statements, if you experienced them as a child in a parentified relationship, they may have set you up for anxiety, boundary issues, and health complications later in life.
Today, we will be looking at how parents can cause parentification trauma and how it affects their children.
What is parentification trauma (parentification definition)?
Let’s start with some definitions. Parentification is when you reverse roles between a parent and their child. Typically, the parent finds themselves unable to keep up with what they are required to do in their role, so they press their child to step in and help out.
Parentification can be done either intentionally or subconsciously; what matters is the impact on the child: you are pushed to grow up quickly and take on your parent’s role.
Parentification trauma focuses on the damaging effects of parentification on a child in this situation. The long-term effects of this kind of trauma can lead to both physical and mental health challenges as you grow up.
Why would a parent do this?
There are several reasons parentification may occur. If you are the parent in this dynamic, you might have been affected by something major that reduces your ability to function in your parental role. This could be a physical disability or illness, a drug or alcohol problem, a mental health condition, or a lack of supportive community.
There are some contexts in which parentification is short-term and done entirely unknowingly. Other times, it becomes emotional abuse. It may also be a perpetuation of abuse you have suffered when you were growing up.
If, as we continue to learn more about parentification, you think you might be reversing roles with your child, we would encourage you to reach out to friends, family, or an online therapist to find support and embrace healthier relational patterns.
Are there different types of parentification?
There are three main types of parentification: instrumental, emotional, and sexual. Many times they overlap.
- Instrumental parentification looks like allowing your child to take the lead in the day-to-day upkeep of your home. Instrumental parentification involves tasks such as caring for the needs of other family members, paying bills, and performing extensive household chores. Please understand that this involves a much higher commitment than doing everyday household chores. It is the difference between completing agreed-upon chores and taking on responsibility for your entire household.
- Emotional parentification refers to a situation in which your child becomes an emotional surrogate for you as a parent. You may not have a strong support system or feel safe discussing what your struggles are with others, so you bring your child into those conversations. Emotional parentification can be very overwhelming for your child, as they might not be mature enough to face adult problems, which can then lead them to develop anxiety and even chronic stress.
- Sexualized parentification is when you expect your child to take on sexual roles or responsibilities. Sexualized parentification is outright abuse and the most harmful of the three – and it can therefore inflict the greatest trauma on your child.
What are the long-term effects for your child?
As you may imagine, the long-term effects of inappropriate parent-child dynamics like these are many and significant. There are lots of different areas in which these issues can cause problems in your life if you have lived through parentification trauma. Those include emotional struggles, personal life challenges, family dynamics, and physical health complications.
Emotional struggles
- Low self-esteem: feeling like you are not worth anything.
- Emotional suppression: not showing how you feel for fear of your emotions affecting those around you.
- Substance abuse: using harmful habits to help you manage everyday life, or even just to forget what you have experienced.
Personal life challenges
- Setting boundaries: you might allow people to manipulate you due to not being able to say no.
- People pleasing: you may find yourself doing everything for everybody to make sure everyone is happy.
- Relationship difficulties: because you did not have healthy relationships to learn from, you likely have a hard time in your personal and professional relationships.
- Missed milestones: by missing developmental milestones as a child, you may experience difficulties forming friendships, and you may feel guilty when taking time to rest.
Family dynamics
- Communication problems: unhealthy communication with parents and siblings in childhood can carry into your adulthood family relationships.
- Resentment: your parents can resent you for doing what they should have done. Siblings may resent you for getting more attention because you were a parent’s confidante or because they felt abandoned or unsupported, or you may resent your other siblings for not helping out more.
- Power struggles: these may occur with siblings because you became more of an authority figure, rather than just a brother or sister.
Physical health complications
- Heart disease: literature shows that there is a link between stress, anxiety, depression, and heart health. Battling intensely with these issues can damage your heart.
- Autoimmune disorders: there is evidence that stress, specifically early life stress (ELS), may increase your risk of developing autoimmune disorders.
Where do you go from here?
Have you seen snapshots of your life while reading this article? Don’t worry; whether you are a parent or an adult child, there is hope and help available. We will be going over several options to help you work through your parentification trauma.
Find support
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, if you are a parent and suspect that you might be parentifying your child, a good starting point would be to seek more support. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Options for finding support can include:
- Dial 211: this is a helpline provided by United Way, a federally endorsed charity, to assist in connecting you with resources in your local area. They may be able to refer you to services like food assistance, child care, educational programs, and skills training (e.g., budgeting, home maintenance, child rearing), among others.
- Reach out: contact family and friends you trust. Having someone to talk to or help with daily household activities, even just once a week, can be a huge help.
- Religious connection: sometimes connecting with people who share your faith can help strengthen you. They might be able to pray with and for you, and they may also be able to assist you in practical ways.
Take control of your recovery
In the video we shared at the start of this blog post, Sara Makin mentioned how, “Kids being rewarded for being mature often learn that self-sufficiency equals safety,” and that, “You learned to protect yourself by needing less.”
Both the need to be self-sufficient and to protect yourself are good reasons to carve out time to reflect and put in the work to begin your journey toward restoration. You may want to consider one or more of the following options.
Learn how to set boundaries
Setting boundaries is an important skill to acquire if you have parentification trauma. You will likely have to set boundaries with the parent who inflicted the trauma, which can be very difficult.Practice self-care
Self-care might be a foreign concept to you. You have, in all likelihood, spent your childhood caring for others without caring for yourself. At first, this may feel selfish. Instead, know that it is meant to be life-giving. When you are rested and have time to recharge, you are better able to help others.Connect with others
It is likely that, as you spent much of your time managing life at home growing up, you may not have had the opportunity to learn how to make friends. This may have left you with limited emotional support.You might consider seeking out support groups with others who have been parentified, as well as hobby groups (such as hiking, knitting, or photography), faith-based groups, or parenting groups. Learning how to connect with others may take time and may not always go smoothly; nevertheless, it is an essential life skill.
Journaling
Journaling may seem like it won’t do much to help you process your parentification trauma. Still, it could surprise you. It can be very empowering to express your thoughts and feelings – to get them out of your system. Keeping them bottled up is potentially doing you more harm than good.Learn more about parentification
Spend time reading books and articles like this one, as well as watching videos and talks about parentification. Knowing how it happens, how it can affect you, and how you can experience restoration from it can be encouraging. It may also empower you not to parentify your own children, even if that is what you experienced when you were a child.Online therapy for parentification trauma
Online therapy can be a great option for working through parentification trauma due to its flexibility. Online parentification therapy sessions provide an environment in which you can acknowledge the trauma you experienced, talk with a professional who can provide an objective view of your situation, and start to allow yourself to feel any emotions you have bottled up since childhood.
How can online therapy help you?
Parentification trauma can affect every area of your life. Because of this trauma’s pervasiveness, longevity, and deep-rooted nature, you may find that the best way to work through its effects is to seek help with a trained Makin Wellness online therapist. Online parentification therapy can provide a stable platform for you to work towards achieving your mental health goals.
Specifically, online therapy for parentification provides a safe space to:
- Learn about parentification trauma;
- Practice evidence-based techniques with professional guidance;
- Develop practical coping tools; and
- Set goals that reflect your values.
You deserve to be your own person – and your Makin Wellness online therapist is here to help when you’re ready.
Our online therapists use various types of therapy to help treat parentification trauma; one of the most common types is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT centers on assessing the relationship between your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors by discussing them with your online therapist.
Another option is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR has had great success in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is focused on moving your eyes in a specific way while you process your traumatic memories.
If you are unsure whether either kind of treatment is right for you, don’t worry: your online therapist can help answer any questions you have about CBT or working through the effects of parentification trauma.
Call us at (833)-274-heal or click here to schedule an appointment with one of our caring online therapists today.
