How to Recover If You Had Parental Rights As a Child
Children who experience “parentification” are children who have to grow up too quickly because they are expected to take on the role of parents of their siblings or their own parents. There are a number of reasons a child can become a parent — some are avoidable and some are not; but in any case, the parentification effect is fast and durable.
If a parent dies, becomes incapacitated, or leaves, the child may feel like they need to step in to help their remaining parent. In other cases, parents may lack the necessary resources, financial or otherwise, forcing them to rely on the older child to care for their younger siblings. Parenification can also occur when the parent is mentally unstable, dealing with addiction, or lacking the emotional capacity to act in the appropriate parental role.
Long-term effects of parentification
Whether intentional or not, avoidable or avoidable, parenteralization can be extremely stressful for a child and often has long-term consequences.
“Parenification often means no boundaries within the family system,” says Christine Myers, a licensed family therapist at Thriveworks in Midlothian, Virginia.
The parent child is often asked to take on responsibilities for which he is not prepared, such as caring for a very young sibling or asking parents to share personal concerns with them.
“Children are expected to do things that they might not be cognitively capable of and not prepared for, which can lead to feelings such as failure, shame, or low self-esteem,” says Myers.
Children born to parents can develop problems that will persist into adulthood, such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and an inability to build their own healthy relationships. For those born as children, breaking this cycle can be very difficult, as most of us learn about family relationships by observing our own. In other words, for a child growing up in such an environment, parentification may seem quite normal.
“We strive for what we know,” says Myers.
Even if a person admits that this parentification was not normal or healthy, it is still difficult for him to understand what healthy boundaries in a relationship look like and how to enforce them. Therapy can be helpful in eliminating some of the thoughts and behaviors they have developed in order to cope with the stress of having a baby, as well as to develop healthy habits in the future.
What to expect from therapy
Overcoming the consequences of being the parent of a child often means facing dysfunctional beliefs and thought patterns associated with the experience. For example, many parents who are born of parents grow up and feel responsible for others, and this habit can be difficult to give up . Therapy often focuses on unpacking these thoughts and behaviors in order to address and resolve them.
There are also a number of relationship habits that they will have to give up, such as extreme independence or a tendency to care for others while neglecting their own needs.
“Children who have been parents, as they grow up, often discover much of their identity in the role of caregiver,” says Myers.
For an adult dealing with the consequences of being the parent of a child, some of the treatments that can help include:
Trauma-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
It is a type of therapy that helps patients identify and address dysfunctional thinking patterns and assumptions to help them make sense of their experiences as well as understand themselves.
For adults born in childhood, this may include considering their beliefs that they have full responsibility for the well-being of others, as well as their concerns about their inability to fulfill age-inappropriate responsibilities.
Narrative therapy
Narrative therapy helps patients see themselves as separate from their problems, so that they can distance themselves from the problem so that they can understand how it might hurt them. It can help give patients a new perspective to help them change their thoughts and beliefs.
For adults who were born as children, it can help them unravel a keen sense of responsibility towards others, as well as over-caring for their personality as a caregiver to the point where they neglect their own needs.
Family therapy
Since the problem of parentification arises from the lack of appropriate boundaries within the family, family therapy can help break down unhealthy stereotypes within the family, as well as establish what healthy boundaries should look like.
Pair therapy
Adults born in childhood often find it difficult to establish healthy relationships of their own. Pair therapy can address these issues by helping to establish healthy boundaries in relationships as well as helping to improve communication.
Parenification causes children to grow up too quickly, which is stressful and harmful to their health. As complex as the long-term effects may be, parentification is not required to define an individual. On the contrary, with proper awareness of what has happened, and with the right therapy, this cycle can be broken.