
When you think back to your childhood, do you remember being the one who took care of everyone else? Maybe you were the one your parents relied on, whether it was looking after siblings, managing household responsibilities, or providing emotional support well beyond your years.
If this resonates with you, you might be what’s known as a parentified child—someone who was forced to take on the role of a caregiver too early. This dynamic can profoundly shape your adulthood in ways that are both empowering and limiting.
Healing from this survival pattern is not about erasing the past, but about recognising how it continues to operate in our lives and finding new, healthier ways to relate to responsibility, self-care, and our emotional needs.
What is Parentification?
Parentification happens when a child is placed in a role that requires them to take on adult responsibilities, either physically or emotionally. It’s not just about helping out around the house; it's about the imbalance that comes from a child having to meet the physical or emotional needs of their caregivers, rather than the other way around.
This dynamic can be physical (looking after siblings, cooking meals, managing household tasks) or emotional (offering advice, soothing parents, being their emotional anchor). In either case, the child is deprived of a normal childhood, where their own needs and development should come first.
Origins: Where Does Parentification Come From?
The origins of this survival pattern can be traced back to unstable or overwhelming family environments. A parent may have been emotionally unavailable due to mental health issues, trauma, addiction, or simply because they were also a product of their own unhealed childhood wounds. Often, a parentified child steps up in a bid to maintain the family system, believing that if they don’t carry the weight, the family structure may collapse.
Gabor Maté’s work on childhood development and trauma reminds us that children unconsciously absorb the emotional atmosphere around them. In this way, children are shaped by the survival needs of their environment and take on roles to feel safe and secure. It’s important to remember that parentification, like many trauma-related dynamics, begins as a brilliant survival strategy. The child learns to gain approval and a sense of worth by over-functioning for others.
Recognising the Parentified Child in Adulthood
As adults, parentified children often carry an ingrained sense of responsibility that extends far beyond what is reasonable. While this can serve them well in professional environments or caregiving roles, it can also lead to exhaustion, burnout, and a sense of never being enough. They may struggle with asking for help, setting boundaries, or even recognising their own needs.
Here are some signs you might be a parentified child:
You feel responsible for others' happiness and emotional well-being.
You have trouble delegating tasks or asking for help.
You take on more than you can handle, both at work and in relationships.
You feel guilty or anxious when you're not being productive or helping someone.
You struggle with setting boundaries, often feeling "used" or taken for granted.
You tend to avoid your own emotional needs, prioritising others instead.
You are hyper-vigilant, always scanning for potential problems or ways you can "fix" things.
It’s also worth noting that parentified children may have an internalised belief that their value is tied to what they can do for others. This often manifests as people-pleasing, over-functioning, or overworking in an attempt to be indispensable.
The Hidden Strengths of the Parentified Child
While being a parentified child is undoubtedly challenging, it’s also a role that cultivates unique strengths. As an adult, you may have a remarkable capacity for empathy, responsibility, and leadership.
You likely developed a strong intuition for others' needs and emotions, making you highly attuned in relationships and professional settings. Many parentified children go on to become excellent caregivers, therapists, healers, or leaders due to their early-life training in responsibility and caretaking.
However, these strengths often come at a cost. When your self-worth is rooted in doing for others, you can end up sacrificing your own well-being. The key to healing lies in honouring these strengths while learning to balance them with self-care and healthy boundaries.
The Challenges: How Parentification Impacts Us
The long-term impact of parentification can lead to:
Chronic burnout from overextending yourself.
Emotional exhaustion from always feeling responsible for others.
Difficulty in relationships, as you may take on the role of caregiver or fixer.
Difficulty receiving—whether it's love, care, or support from others.
Resentment—you may feel taken for granted, yet struggle to express your needs or anger.
Acclaimed American energy-psychotherapist and author, Anodea Judith’s work on energy systems and chakras examines to how unresolved patterns, especially those rooted in childhood, become stored in the body and energy field. For the parentified child, the solar plexus chakra (our seat of personal power and will) may be overactive, driving them to over-function. Meanwhile, the heart chakra (where we experience both giving and receiving love) can become blocked, making it hard to receive support or love.
Healing the Parentified Child: Breaking Free from Survival Patterns
Healing begins by acknowledging that parentification is not your fault, nor is it a flaw. It's a survival strategy that worked at one time but no longer serves you. Here are some ways to begin healing:
Recognise and Validate Your Experience
Acknowledge that you were placed in an unfair position as a child. Understanding that this was not your fault is the first step toward healing.
Reframe Responsibility
Understand that taking care of others is not the only way to be valuable. Explore new ways to connect with yourself that don’t involve constantly giving to others.
Practice Boundary Setting
Learn how to say "no" without guilt. Start small, and practice recognising where you are overextending yourself. See my other blogs for guidance on this.
Allow Yourself to Receive
This can be one of the hardest shifts for the parentified child who is taught early on to sacrifice their wants and over-give to others. It may feel foreign, but begin practicing receiving—whether it's help, love, or support from those around you.
Inner Child Work
Engage with practices that nurture the child within, allowing space for play, rest, and care. Compassionate Inquiry, developed by Gabor Maté, offers a pathway to reconnect with your wounded parts and create a dialogue between your adult self and the child within.
Body Awareness and Somatic Healing
As Anodea Judith highlights, body-based practices are crucial. Releasing old survival patterns held in the body through somatic therapy, breathwork, and mindfulness can bring you into deeper connection with your true self, underneath the maladaptive behaviour.
My Experience with Parentification
In my own growth and self-development journey, I spent many years working on the tendency to take on too much, trying to "do it all" and the mental load of tryign to ensure those around me were happy and taken care of. Through therapy I learnt that my safety and belonging are not contingent on how many problems I solve, how productive I am and that I am not responsible for the emotions and responses of those around me. It was hard work but so incredibly freeing!
The Path Forward
Healing from the effects of being a parentified child is a journey. It requires patience, compassion, and a willingness to rewrite old patterns. But in doing so, you reclaim not only your energy and boundaries but also the joy of simply being rather than always doing.
If any part of this resonates with you, know that you don’t have to navigate this alone. Healing is possible, and I’m here to support you on your journey toward wholeness.
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