Parentification refers to when established roles are reversed. In some cases the son or daughter assumes the role of the parent. By resuming certain responsibilities such as providing for the parent’s emotional happiness or assuming the responsibility of providing for the parent or family, for example.
These things can happen in situations where a parent is chronically ill or incapacitated. It can happen if a parent suffers from mental illness themselves, such as in cases of substance abuse or psychosis. In some cases the parents can be absent often due to work requirements, leaving the child to raise themselves or their siblings.
These situations can be traumatic.
This article will be updated with further research and sources soon.
Sources
DEVELOPING THE COVERT TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE SCALE (COTES): A RETROSPECTIVE EARLY PSYCHOSOCIAL TRAUMA ASSESSMENT TOOL
Tiffany E. Vastardis PhD, LMHC, CCTP, CMHIMP
Clinical Education Specialist • Florida Residential Clinical Training Liaison • Mental Health Researcher • Licensed Psychotherapist • Clinical Trauma Specialist • Integrative Medicine Practitioner
Parentification
The term parentification refers to situations in which, within a household
dynamic, a child is forced into assuming a stance of emotional responsibility for the well being of others, namely, his or her caretakers (Haxhe, 2016). This process “requires
putting the child’s needs to one side in order to focus on the parent’s needs,” (Haxhe,
2016, p.192). As a result, the child considers him or herself responsible for the happiness
and livelihood of his or her caretakers, which can bear a significant toll on the child’s
psychosocial development. In the case of extreme parental dysfunction or pathology, the
child will be required to assume a stance of hypervigilance, in efforts to meet the needs of
and/or save the parent from self-inflicted or external harm. This leaves the child without
opportunity to experience his or her emotions, which may lead to several threats to social
and emotional development. For example, the parentified child may be prone to
heightened levels of anxiety, a profound sense of emptiness, depressive features, and/or
an inability to recognize, and; subsequently, tend to his or her own needs (Haxhe, 2016).
However, such outcomes may be culturally-bound. In an assessment of various forms of
triangulation amongst Chinese familial units, parentification was actually reported to
yield favorable outcomes, such as positive academic functioning and social adjustment
(Wang et al., 2017).
