Understanding Parentification
Today I am talking with Homeschool Connections’ own Dr. Kristi Moore. Dr. Moore is an Associate Professor and Program Director for the Applied Psychology program at Angelo State University, but we at Homeschool Connections know her as our instructor for Child Development, College Preparatory Psychology (dual enrollment), and more.
What is parentification?
Parentification occurs when children are placed in the role of the parent and take on what would normally be considered parental duties. There are two types: instrumental parentification, when children take on parental responsibilities like running the house, and emotional parentification, when children take on the emotional roles of parents, such as offering a parent advice or comfort. While parentification is often used negatively to signify making children assume responsibilities beyond what is age-appropriate, a certain degree of parentification is expected as children grow up and can be used constructively.
How can we discern the difference between inappropriate parentification and children just helping out around the house?
An example of negative parentification would be if you, as the parent, are not doing your duties and instead tell your children to do them all. However, it is essential to remember that more parentification occurs as children age and become adolescents because we are preparing them to be independent adults. Therefore, our children will often take over a particular duty, such as doing the dishes or the laundry. There isn’t a clear-cut answer to when chores become parentification. Parents should consider the child’s needs and abilities when making that decision. However, as a rule of thumb, you start drifting into sketchy territory whenever parents completely abdicate parental responsibilities to children, as opposed to merely delegating certain tasks.
Can adults inappropriately parentify children in an emotional sense as well (e.g., depending on their children for emotional support)?
Yes, absolutely. Emotional parentification is when we depend on our children for emotional support. As with instrumental parentification, some of this will occur naturally as children age. For example, you may have more conversations with your adolescent about different issues you are having in your life, and your adolescent may offer you some emotional support. This type of parentification can be developmentally appropriate.
The problem would be if you only depend on your children for support or treat them more like a close friend versus your child, functionally treating them like another adult. We must be more careful with emotional parentification, especially for our younger children. Most of the time, we see emotional parentification in households with high stress and conflict or when parents have mental health or substance abuse issues.
What are some of the negative effects exhibited by children who have been parentified?
The research literature shows that parentification is complex and has both positive and negative outcomes. We most likely see negative outcomes when parentification is misused. Negative consequences include psychological distress, poor parent-child relationships, and issues for the children in expressing their emotions. All of these are related to emotional parentification, with poor parent-child relationships also being related to instrumental parentification.
On the positive side, when appropriately used, parentification can predict positive parent-child relationships, self-esteem, less psychological distress, and better coping skills, as well as helping children transition into adulthood more seamlessly.
Since homeschooling children spend more time at home and generally have more household duties than their public school counterparts, how do we ensure that we maintain proper boundaries in terms of their roles in the household?
As mentioned, some degree of parentification will naturally occur as your children age because we are teaching them to be independent adults. In general, you want to ensure you aren’t handing off all your parenting duties to your children, at least all the time. For example, when you have a new baby, more instrumental parentification likely occurs as your older children are helping keep the household running, and the same likely occurs during parental illness, especially a long one. All these things are okay; they are a part of life and teach our children lessons about responsibilities in a family and serving others. I would say that everyday chores do not qualify as parentification. If the parent were, however, to wholly and permanently entrust the care of younger siblings to an older child, such that they were functionally abdicating their parental responsibilities, this would be highly inappropriate.
It is important to consider the individual child as well. Some children enjoy activities such as organizing and helping to run the household. If so, it is okay to let them do it, but check in with your child and let them know they don’t have to take on those extra responsibilities. Children are their own worst critics, liable to misconstrue voluntary responsibilities as mandatory duties and put themselves under massive amounts of pressure to keep up.
As parents, we really should be more careful with emotional parentification—the research shows that it has more negative outcomes than instrumental parentification. Once again, relationships do shift as our children grow up, but the important point is not to put the child in a position where they are making decisions or offering emotional support in situations where it should be an adult doing those things. Even if we consider our kids to be mature, there are certain levels of sharing and dependence that are simply inappropriate between parents and children. A good rule of thumb is that parents should never have conversations with our children that would be more appropriate for a therapist.
