Reflections As An Adult: Were You A Parentified Child?

Have you ever felt like you were the person taking care of your parents as a child? Did you find yourself taking care of your own needs growing up?

These roles that some find themselves in a children are actually parent roles, not child roles. This experience is what’s known as parentified children.

Parentified children can be more common than you think. It is a built-in expectation (spoken or unspoken) that the child will take care of their parents through emotional support, and sometimes, it may even feel like you had to take care of your parents financially.

This means that instead of receiving support as a child you may have been the person giving it to your parents.

This can be a really uncomfortable realization, especially if you felt needed by your parents.

You may initially defend your parents because they were doing their best and providing you with the basics like food and shelter.

In many cases, parents having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet leave kids to take on responsibilities children aren’t emotionally equipped to do.

Read More: “How Dysfunctional Families (and You)Can Break Generational Cycles”

While in this instance, the parent is doing everything they can to meet a child’s basic needs of food and shelter, a byproduct of this experience is children having to feed and take care of themselves and their siblings.

Sometimes, if that is the case, you may even convince yourself that you were lucky, even though this can mean you experienced childhood trauma, unhealthy expectations and responsibilities as a child, and create mental health and relationship issues in the long run.

In other cases where a parent or parents struggle with substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, trauma, children may also be put in the position of taking care of themselves and/or their parent at a young age because their parent is emotionally and/or physically unavailable.

Healthy parenting is more than providing housing and food; it is providing love, care, and emotional support to your children while modeling what it means to do those things for yourself.

It is not the child’s responsibility to take care of their parents or to be the primary caretaker of themselves or their siblings.

The truth is, parentification can be a form of child abuse, depending on the dynamic of the relationship. The role reversal of giving adult responsibilities to a child can be considered emotional neglect at the very least.

Some adults who were parentified as children don’t realize they were put in a position of responsibility a child should not hold.

These roles as children can impact how, as an adult, a parentified child interacts with the world and in relationships with others.

As an adult, a parentified child may become a workaholic, high achiever, or perfectionist. They may seek external validation, find themselves in codependent relationships, or feel taken advantage of by others. They may turn to substance abuse, have difficulty managing emotions or experience suicidal thoughts.

They may repeat parentified patterns with their children.

It was not your job to take care of your parents or parent while you were growing up, and it is your job to take care of yourself now.

So, what is the next step toward healing the wounds of parentification?

Let go of expectations

Coming to terms with having been a parentified child can often hold a craving for closure or repair and acknowledgement from the parent of the experience. Though closure can be craved, especially with parents, that time might not come.

Read More: “How Your Expectations Of Relationship Influence The Relationships You Have”

Understanding that you were needed for emotional support or practical needs as a child can mean that you weren’t necessarily wanted.

Your parents may not be able or willing to acknowledge their role in how their expectations of you have impacted you.

It may feel impossible to heal when you don’t get closure from a parent, which can impact your mental health.

Parentified children may be waiting for an apology that will not come. It can be difficult to manage emotions around this type of relationship with your parents.

Expecting a parent to apologize can be hurtful, and the time may never come.

When you have difficult parental figures in your life, take steps to come to acceptance. Holding on to what you cannot control (your parent’s behaviors now and then) can fuel hurt and resentment that can interfere with other relationships.

The relationship with your parent(s) might not look the way you want. You may even surpass your parents with emotional maturity, which is often the case.

That can be hard, especially because you may have them up on a pedestal. They are human; they show what they are capable of.

Trust that you see that and let go of expectations of more – even if you deserve it.

Go gentle with yourself

Coming to terms with having been a parentified child can elicit a lot of emotions. Be kind to yourself as you begin to recognize patterns you have developed over time and continue that are rooted in the role you played as a child.

It will take a huge amount of compassion toward yourself to unlearn the behaviors that suited you as a child.

Some of these may look like:

• being a caretaker
• managing the safety of yourself and/or others
• taking responsibility for others
• not trusting others
• relying only on yourself for emotional support
• not having needs, using work or school as a distraction
• using drugs, alcohol, exercise or eating as a form of distraction, numbing or escape

Recreating patterns that are no longer serving you in your adult life can be a difficult path.

Having compassion and being gentle with yourself as you come to terms with the impacts your role as a child has had on you is an opportunity for you to give your younger self the attention it needs.

Use reflection and journaling

Take some time to reflect on current patterns in your relationships.

Take a deeper look at patterns and the people in your life that remind you of your childhood.

If people in your life remind you of siblings or parents that weren’t healthy, it may be time to weigh the value they hold in your life as an adult.

When you have a reaction to something someone says or does, take a moment to reflect on why you may have reacted this way.

When you find yourself feeling resentment, frustration with others, feeling misunderstood, take a moment to reflect on why you are feeling this way and what your role is in these patterns of experiences.

It’s likely you may be repeating ways of being in relationship that you learned as a child taking on parent-roles that you continue to foster in your relationships as an adult.

Journaling as you reflect can help your flow of consciousness, and unconsciousness, and allows you to return after some time to re-read what you wrote, perhaps leading to more helpful insights and reflection.

Create boundaries as needed

Societally, it can be difficult to set and maintain boundaries with family because of the ongoing messages such as “family comes first”.

Read More: “5 Ways To Become Your Own Loving Parent”

However, for some people, it can be safer to create emotional and physical distance with family members which may also include your siblings.

Creating boundaries doesn’t have to mean cutting people out of your life. It can be changing your expectations of them and the relationship, spending less time with someone, or it may mean cutting them out of your life.

When you grow up as a parentified child, you may also struggle with your sibling relationships. Often, siblings can have different experiences and perspectives while they grow up.

This can mean that they grow further apart, not closer together. That is okay.

Engage in therapy

Enaging in therapy with a therapist who understands patterns of parentification can be helpful.

A therapist can use techniques to guide you through making helpful connections and gaining insights into how this relationship role impacted you as a child and continues to impact you today.

Some therapeutic approaches that can be especially helpful are Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, trauma therapy like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) or other trauma-informed approaches that help to shed light on your experiences.

As a child, you may not have had choices. As an adult, you do have choices.

Navigating family relationships can be a challenge, and support can be important.

At Denver Metro Counseling, we have therapists on our clinical team who specialize in helping people navigate life and realizations of the past. Whether through individual therapy or family therapy, we can help.

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Written by: Randi Thackeray, MA
Clinically Reviewed and Edited by: Julie Reichenberger, MA, LPC, ACS