Parentification and the Childhood Trauma of the Parentified Child

Individuals who may seem excessively independent, resilient, self-reliant, dependable, workaholic, or committed to taking care of others, or those who may be excessively dependent on others, may have experienced parentification in their childhood.

Parentification is a term referring to the role reversal between the parent and the child, whereby the child becomes the caregiver to their own parents or siblings, undertaking tasks beyond their age and maturity level. Such role reversal is mainly psychological rather than necessarily practical and may be unconscious and covert.

The child takes on the parental role towards their own parent or the entire family. This means that the child adopts a caring role for the parent's needs or the family's needs at the detriment of their own. As the child's needs are set aside, they are not only chronically unmet, leaving them psychologically and emotionally depleted and developmentally unsupported, but the child also begins to, consciously and unconsciously, disavow their own authentic needs. This can occur to the point where the child completely disidentifies from their own needs, no longer experiencing them consciously.

Parentification thus represents both a lack of boundary between the parent and the child, but also an active transgression of such a boundary. The child's psychological autonomy and integrity are violated by the parent. The parentifying parent is, mostly unconsciously, looking to elicit soothing, care, or generally have their own practical and emotional needs met by the child.

Because parentified children tend to be resilient and self-sufficient, often workaholic, driven, and perfectionists, and as these qualities are socially admired, they are often not only unseen as struggling by others but also do not consider themselves as struggling. In fact, any struggling is often equated with weakness. As such, parentification may go unnoticed.

The concept of parentification and the phenomenon of the parentified child are not new. They have roots in Minuchin and colleagues' term of the parental child (Minuchin, 1967), who referred mostly to functional parentification (Chase, 1999). This was later expanded upon by Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark (1973), evolving into the concept of parentification (Earley & Cushway, 2002), which introduces the inseparability of functional and emotional parentification (Chase, 1999).

Parentification and Childhood Trauma

While parentification may result in a child who is excessively self-sufficient and self-reliant, this comes with devastating emotional wounds for the child. The repercussions of the role of a parentified child extend far beyond the immediate family dynamics. They can affect the person’s adult life by impacting their sense of identity as well as affecting their social and romantic relationships. An individual who was a victim of parentification will usually remain unhealthily attached to their caregivers and unable to break free from the psychological bond of their family of origin, remaining forever preoccupied with their parents or family.

The Lost Childhood of the Parentified Child

Parentification is experienced by the child as a form of childhood trauma. Psychotherapy often reveals that the person deep down feels that they were robbed of their childhood—the childhood that they can never get back. These realisations may evoke the long-forgotten and deeply buried combination of feelings.

A person may experience sadness, regret, guilt, a sense of unfairness, resentment, loneliness, fear, and anger for having been parentified as a child, but may only get in touch with these experiences once they are explored in psychotherapy.

The Experience of the Perfect Childhood

The extent and nature of the experience of childhood trauma induced by parentification will depend on each individual's childhood experience. What we often see with individuals who were subjected to parentification is that parentification is one of the childhood experiences least associated with childhood trauma. Many individuals who were subjected to parentification often do not regard their experience of caregiving as traumatic and only begin to experience the full extent of how they felt about it and how they felt as children once they tap into the childhood experiences that have long remained unconscious.

It's not uncommon for adult parentified children to talk about experiencing their parents as loving—often excessively loving—giving them everything they needed as children and being attentive, only to later learn that they were actually smothering, engulfing, and mainly concerned about their own needs. Someone who may have been treated more as a friend by the parent rather than treated as a child may have grown up with a perception that this was a good thing, only to later realise the difficulties this caused to their sense of self, identity, and their romantic relationships, as well as how they were psychologically hijacked by the parent. Even as an adult, they may remain in the psychological grip of the parentifying parent, attending to them emotionally or even practically.

When childhood trauma of parentification begins to be worked through and resolved in psychotherapy, many will experience feelings of guilt for feeling like they are unfairly describing how they were treated, fearing that they may be misrepresenting the facts, and claiming that their parents were only doing the best they could and knew how, having experienced their own trauma as children.

Parentification and Issues With Attachment

Due to the traumatic elements of parentification, the formation of attachment between the parent and child is often disrupted, preventing the development of a secure attachment style. Individuals who were parentified as children often form adult attachment styles that mostly correspond to disorganised attachment (Chase, 1999) or a fearful adult attachment style. However, it's worth noting that parentified individuals can also develop other unhealthy attachment patterns.

The difficulties that individuals who were parentified have with attachment stem from the fact that the attachment between the parent and the child was not based on the child being experienced as a separate individual whose developmental needs need to be met. The child thus does not have the opportunity to develop a sense of identity, boundaries, and the capacity to engage in close relationships without confusion around meeting others' needs. Rather, the parentified child forms an attachment that is based on the child meeting the needs of the parent and the fear of rejection and abandonment should they fail to fulfil this role.

The parentified child attaches to the parent through fear of being rejected or abandoned if they do not meet the parent's needs. This causes the child to completely disregard their own needs in the effort to physically and psychologically survive.

Parentification and Adult Close and Romantic Relationships

Parentification creates an unhealthy attachment between the parent and the child—a trauma-based umbilical cord between the child and the parent that carries into adulthood, destroying the parentified child's sense of self, their ability to be their own person, and their close relationships. It can have a devastating effect on their commitments to their own children and create relationship issues for the couple.

Parentified individuals may struggle with committing to romantic relationships. They may be overly involved, practically or psychologically, with their parents or entire family of origin. They often focus and give attention to their parents, finding it challenging to balance between the love they give to their parents and the love they give to their romantic partners. For their romantic partner, such an unhealthy bond between the individual and their parent can evoke feelings of being neglected or unseen, causing conflicts or continuous deterioration of the romantic relationship.

A person may find themselves unable to sustain close relationships, only to end up alone and as an actual or psychological carer for their parents. In romantic relationships, the parentified child may re-enact their childhood trauma of meeting others' needs while having their own needs unmet. They may engage in romantic and other close relationships where they tend to others without tending to themselves.

Types of Parentification

Parentification can be divided into two main types: instrumental parentification and emotional parentification. Both types are different but equally burdensome for the parentified child. Both of these forms of parentification also inflict psychological wounds on the child and can severely impact the child's mental health in adulthood, as well as inhibit their capacity to engage in relationships.

Psychological or Emotional Parentification

Emotional parentification is a more prevalent and more hidden form of parentification in which the child becomes the emotional support for the parent. They have to be there for their parent, offering comfort and understanding like an adult would. Often, these children have to disavow their own feelings and authentic needs to meet their parents’ needs and take care of their feelings.

For instance, a child who needs to soothe one of their parents after the parents have had an argument, and the parent may seek comfort in the child. Or, a child who attempts to "awaken" or "cheer up" a depressed parent or feels responsible or scared for their parent's wellbeing when afraid of the depressed parent potentially hurting themselves or leaving.

Emotional parentification is the form of parentification that, during the course of psychotherapy, we most often see having detrimental effects on the child's sense of self, their subsequent dependency and codependency in relationships, their inability to emotionally separate from their primary family, their issues with romantic relationships, and their overall mental health.

(Related: The Hidden Faces of Dependency)

It's important to note that emotional parentification can occur fairly covertly and unconsciously. For instance, a child who needs to admire one of their parents due to the parent's narcissistic needs is already subjected to parentification. Or, for example, a child who needs to behave properly so that the parents can impress others at social gatherings. Similarly, a child who needs to soothe their mother after an argument between her and the child's father is also a form of emotional parentification.

Functional or Instrumental Parentification

This type of parentification occurs when a child undertakes practical tasks around the house that are usually done by adults. These responsibilities can include cooking, cleaning, managing money, or taking care of younger siblings. An example would be a child who cooks and cleans or takes care of the bills because the parents are either absent or suffer from addiction.

The psychological and mental health consequences of instrumental parentification are no less severe than they are in the case of emotional parentification. We also need to know that instrumental and emotional parentification often occur in tandem.

Whilst there is no particular type of parenting style associated with parentification, we see it most relatable to authoritarian and uninvolved parenting styles.

Roles That a Parentified Child Can Take

While there are three distinct roles that a parentified child can take, we will usually see a mix of roles with any child who was subject to parentification (Chase, 1999).

The three roles are:

Child-as-a-Parent

This is where a child takes on the role of a parent for one or both of their parents. In this role, while the parent may be taking care of the child practically, the child's role is to care for the parent's emotional needs and soothe their psychological distress. For example, the child may alleviate the parent's abandonment fears or represent an emotional crutch to the parent.

There are many manifestations of such parentification, and a person may struggle with multiple ones simultaneously. Here are just some of the most common manifestations of the child-as-a-parent parentification:

The Parentified Child Alleviating the Parent From Abandonment Fears

Here, the child takes on the role of a person who prevents the parent from feeling lonely or abandoned while the parent is either forced or chooses to have no romantic partner, or the parent has a partner but unconsciously attempts to develop a codependent relationship with the child. Because the child is entirely dependent on the parent and at their complete mercy, the child may represent, for the parent unconsciously, the ultimate guardian against abandonment.

While the parent may lose their romantic partner, they will never be abandoned by their child. This makes children vulnerable to such devastatingly abusive use of parentification.

The Parentified Child as the Parent of the Family

We often see children taking up the role of carers for the entire family. For instance, family dynamics may push a child into the role of being the parental figure not only to their siblings but also to their parents. They may take on the role of the one keeping the family from falling apart or saving the family from familial conflicts. Or, they may take on the role of a saviour or rescuer of the family from one member whom they perceive as destructive.

Such a child may forever struggle with meeting their own needs and may forever be attempting to prevent the family from falling apart.

Paradoxically, such parentified children may, as adults, still enact the role of the family saviour, often unable to see that their families have already fallen apart.

The Parentified Child as a Scapegoat

A child may take on the role of a parentified scapegoat, accepting blame and responsibility for the parent's own unmet needs, unfulfilled potential in life, or unrealised dreams. The parent may feel like they had to give up living their life when they had a child and were never able to achieve what they dreamed of. This blame may be consciously or unconsciously passed onto the child, whereby the child is made to feel like they should not have existed. They may feel like they are not only a burden to the parent but that they are actively destroying the parent's life. These feelings are devastating to the child's psyche because the child begins to consider their existence as a mistake.

The parentified child feels guilty for being alive and is pulled to earn their living, which they do by pleasing and taking care of the parent, and, as such, may feel forever indebted and loyal to the parent.

The Parantified Child as a Sibling of a Disabled or Ill Child

Parentification is often seen in children who have siblings battling physical or mental illness or other special needs. A child with such a sibling may be caught up in family dynamics where their parents need to pay special attention to their sibling. The healthy child may feel they are in the way, too much, and that they need to allow more room for the sibling.

“The extreme helpfulness, hyper-responsibility, and pseudo-maturity exhibited by some siblings may be accompanied by a flip-side clinical picture of depression, shame, excessive guilt, unrelenting worry, social isolation, psychosomatic problems, and conduct disturbances that characterize the parentified child.” (Lamorey, 1999, p. 76)

The parentified child may feel guilty for their existence and wanting their parent's attention. They may feel that merely having their own authentic needs is not only invalid and unacceptable as their sibling needs more attention, but that it may even be destructive to the sibling and the family. They began to associate their needs with selfishness, which evokes guilt and shame, and that is why they then reject and disavow their needs.

The way they take care of their sibling, and their family is by robbing themselves of life.

This often creates feelings of rage, sadness, and loneliness, which the child does not experience consciously but pushes into the unconsciousness before the feelings can be experienced. These feelings, however, remain there and unconsciously impact their life until they can be brought into the person's awareness and worked through.

The Parentified Child as the Guardian Against the Parent’s Depression

Often, children whose one or both parents battled with depression become parentified as they consciously or unconsciously attempted to save their parent from depression. Facing a depressed parent, the child may feel the parent's withdrawal into their internal world as abandonment, evoking terrors of abandonment and an experience of not being seen or existent. As adults, these children often battle with depression themselves. They also tend to develop a sense of internal emptiness that they either experience throughout their life or may experience as meaninglessness and purposelessness, mediocrity, boredom, confusion, or loneliness.

The Parantified Child and the Parent’s Alcohol or Substance Abuse

Children from families where alcohol and substance abuse are prevalent often struggle with the repercussions of parentification. Such children grow up emotionally and practically taking care of their parents, adopting the role of a caregiver.

Despite the fact that some may have trouble functioning in close relationships, these parentified children often grow up excessively resilient, self-sufficient, and with a great capacity to care for others. They will usually be socially apt, gaining others' approval and liking by being pleasant and pleasing, and often develop good social skills.

Despite these skills, their functioning in romantic relationships may be poor, and they may struggle with genuine intimacy and closeness, which may stem from their fears of abandonment and fears of excessive dependency and relying on others.

Due to their underlying dependency, resilience, and self-sufficiency, parentified children of alcoholic parents tend to engage in codependent relationships.

Child-as-a-Friend

This form of parentification often intertwines with the child-as-a-parent form and manifests itself in the parent's perception and treatment of the child as a friend rather than a child. Such parentification may be conscious and even intended by the parent, who rationalises this as a good form of upbringing. However, it may also be unconscious whereby the parent lacks having developed intergenerational boundaries in their own childhood and cannot implement such boundaries with their own children.

When a child is parentified into being the parent's friend or the child having the parent as a friend, the child may psychologically confuse the parent with a peer.

The pathological attachment to the parent that arises out of such relationship may hold the parentified child hostage in the grip of codependency with their parent. Such attachment may persist into adulthood and destructively impact the child’s sense of identity, their romantic relationships, and their ability to tackle adult life.

Spouse-as-a-Parent

The spouse-as-a-parent role is a dynamic where, within a romantic couple, one partner assumes the role of a parent while the other remains in the role of a child. This couple dynamic is not static, meaning the adopted roles each partner takes are not fixed across situations and time. While one member may take a parental role in one situation, they may take on the role of the child in another.

For instance, one member of the couple may have struggled as a child with being seen and recognised by their parents, ending up feeling incompetent and insecure in themselves. In the relationship, they may, like a child, seek recognition from their partner by being idealised for their professional, social, or other achievements. On the other hand, while their partner, in such a situation, engages in the relationship as a parent, they may, in other areas, engage as a child where they give up their adult abilities and responsibilities. The partner may feel incompetent at adult life, expect the other person to guide or even control them, and may give up certain aspects of adult functioning to the other person, for instance taking care of finances. As such, a person may remain in the role of the child on some situation whilst enact the role of the parent in others.

As the relationship dynamics are analysed in psychotherapy, it may turn out that both partners grapple with their own personal insecurities, fears of rejection, and anticipations of abandonment. By adopting the roles of a parent and a child, they may mediate against the mutual rejection and abandonment. This kind of dynamic is characteristic of codependent relationships and often indicates underlying dependency issues for both members of the couple.

The Impact of Parentification on Mental Health

Experiences from psychotherapeutic treatment of adults who were parentified as children suggest that parentified children are more likely to develop an underlying dependency, which is guarded against by excessive independence and self-sufficiency. They may often struggle with depression, anxiety, eating disorders (Borchet et al., 2021; Hooper et al., 2021), addiction (Olson & Gariti, 1993), and personality disorder, particularly borderline personality disorder (BPD) (Trupe et al., 2018). Often, the underlying issues with identity and sense of self cause them extreme difficulties in navigating close and romantic relationships, as well as attending to their own children.

Research also indicates that children of parents who struggle with mental illness are more likely to have been parentified and may, as such, themselves struggle with mental health as adults (Abraham & Stein, 2012). This indicates what we have been seeing in psychotherapy, which is that parentification itself results from the parents' own mental or psychological issues and is not a result of healthy upbringing. Furthermore, studies also indicate that parentification may be a common feature with parents struggling with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and may be one of the pathways to developing disorganised attachment in the parentified child and evoking features of personality disorder in the parentified child (Macfie et al., 2017).

Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Parentification

Psychotherapeutic treatment of someone that was raised as a parentified child and, as an adult, struggles with its aftermath, will need to entail the resolution of internal conflicts at the level of personality. This means that the disavowal of one’s own needs and feelings and their investment into meeting others’ needs cannot be resolved behaviourally or by setting behavioural boundaries in relationships. It is important to understand that the tendency to invest oneself into others as a parentified child stems from one’s underlying identity deficits, their lack of self-worth and self-esteem.

A parentified child is invested in others to attain a favourable sense of identity—to feel good about themselves and feel worthy. Preventing one to meet others’ needs without addressing the underlying issues with the sense of self, may only plunge the already vulnerable person into more despair, self-loathing, and feelings of isolation and abandonment.

The psychotheraputic process thus needs to entail working through the underlying dependency, the past unmet needs, and the feelings of resentment, anger, sadness, despair, hopelessness, meaninglessness and purposelessness associated with that.

Ales Zivkovic, MSc (TA Psych), CTA(P), PTSTA(P), Psychotherapist

Ales Zivkovic is an MSc in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy, a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (PTSTA-P), and a Certified Transactional Analyst in the field of Psychotherapy (CTA-P). He is a member of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Ales previously worked with individuals and groups in the UK National Health Service (NHS) and is currently a psychotherapist, counsellor, and supervisor in his private clinical practice in Central London, UK. He works with individuals, couples, and groups. In clinical setting, he specialises in the treatment of issues pertaining to childhood trauma, personality disorders, and relationship issues. He also specialises in online psychotherapy. Ales developed a distinct psychotherapeutic approach called interpretive dynamic transactional analysis psychotherapy (IDTAP). More about Ales, as well as how to reach him, can be found here.

Related:

The Loneliness and Pain of the Parentified Child

Codependency and the Dynamics of Codependent Relationships

The Hidden Faces of Dependency

References:

Abraham, K. M., & Stein, C. H. (2012). Emerging Adults’ Perspectives on Their Relationships With Mothers With Mental Illness: Implications for Caregiving. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 82(4), 542–549. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2012.01175.x

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Lamorey, S. (1999). Parentification of siblings of children with disability or chronic disease. In Chase, N. D. (Ed.). (1999). Burdened children: Theory, research, and treatment of parentification. (pp. 75-91) Sage Publications, Inc.

Macfie, J., Kurdziel, G., Mahan, R. M., & Kors, S. (2017). A mother’s borderline personality disorder and her sensitivity, autonomy support, hostility, fearful/disoriented behavior, and role reversal with her young child. Journal of Personality Disorders, 31(6), 721–737. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi_2017_31_275

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