Kashish Sharma
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A parentified child becomes responsible for taking care of a parent’s physical, mental and emotional needs.
A parent-child relationship is not always straightforward. In theory, a parent is the caregiver and must provide a secure and emotional space for the child to grow and come back to in terms of crisis. This relationship of love, care and support has been called attachment. The roles of a parent and child are well understood. Usually, a child becomes the caretaker once the parents start to get old. Most adults eventually take on the responsibility of their parents later in life when they might become to weak to take on responsibilities. This is natural but what happens if the dynamics changes right in the children. This role reversal is neither natural nor healthy. This faulty dynamic where a young child becomes the caregiver for the parent has been called parentification.
A parentified child becomes responsible for taking care of a parent's physical, mental and emotional needs. It is a distorted reversal of roles where a child might give parents more than they might receive. This kind of attachment can lead to adverse psychological consequences for the child who might be asked to do what is not age-appropriate.
Parentification might not always happen intentionally but if continued can rob childhood from children. As per studies, parentification can make a child self-efficient, competent and emotionally mature. However, it can leave a toll on their emotional health. The emotional needs of these children are often unfulfilled. They might grow into adults who are emotionally intelligent but too self-reliant. With no one to validate their feelings, they might engage in self-blame and guilt. The following are some conditions where it might happen-
Studies have shown that parentification is an intergenerational behaviour that means it might be passed from one generation to another. Sometimes this might also result in one child taking responsibility of another neglected sibling.
Parentification can have types. Sometimes it can happen where a parent might be assigning jobs to a child that are not age-appropriate like grocery buying, paying bills, cooking meals or looking after a sick person. Though the child might be learning new skills but the task might be more beneficial to the parent. This has been called instrumental parentification.
Sometimes parentification is not that obvious. A parent can emotionally depend on the child and the child with an innate desire to become an adult one day might be helping the parent in resolving emotional conflicts, mental blockages, diffusing fights and suppressing their own needs and demands to comfort the stressed parent. This has been called as emotional parentification.