What Is Parentification?

If you were told as a kid that you were “mature for your age” or “wise beyond your years”, you might have been what’s called a “parentified child.” Parentification, a subcategory of abuse, is when a child and their caretaker reverse roles, so the child is expected to take on adult responsibilities and/or emotions that their caretaker or parent should have been in charge of handling. Role reversal can have a harmful impact on the development of children and their future relationships.

The Two Types of Parentification

According to Guy-Evans (2025), there are two types of parentification.

Instrumental Parentification

Instrumental parentification is when a child takes on physical or child-care responsibilities, like getting a job to help pay bills, assuming parental duties for siblings like emotional comfort, “babysitting” or driving siblings places without a choice, and maintaining upkeep of the household, separate from typical chores.

Emotional Parentification

Emotional parentification is when a child is a “confidant” or “therapist” for their parent. Raypole (2024) also calls this type of parentification “emotional incest”, differentiating this type by a parent treating their child more like a romantic partner than their child.

Emotional incest/parentification looks like a child managing or taking on the emotions of the parent, providing comfort, advice and loyalty to the parent unable to manage their own “adult” emotions. Guy-Evans (2025) states the child might try to keep the parent calm when that parent is dysregulated, be expected to keep secrets, listen to the parent’s problems, and/or take actions that the parent insists the child do in order for the parent to emotionally stabilize.

The emphasis in emotional parentification is on the parent’s well-being, not the child’s, and is not developmentally appropriate or healthy for the child.

Signs of Parentification

Common signs of parentification in childhood include being “mature” for your age, difficulty with prioritizing personal needs over the needs of others, caretaking of others, calm situations being uncomfortable, and feeling grief when reflecting on childhood (Guy-Evans, 2025).

It can also present as needing to “fix” or “rescue” people, difficulty saying “no”, anxiety when trying to rest or relax, seeking validation through productivity or helpfulness, and difficulty asking for help (Guy-Evans, 2025).

Long-Term Effects of Parentification

Parentified children often experience symptoms of anxiety, perfectionism, and missed developmental milestones, with anxiety being the most common feature, particularly in social situations (Guha, 2021).

These symptoms are the result of a child needing to maintain a connection with their parent (please refer to research on “attachment theory”) and thus adapting to the circumstances in order to maintain that connection, despite the lack of the child’s emotional and physiological needs being met.

According to Guha (2021), this creates a sense of fear and helplessness for the developing child. The child perceives that the world around them is dangerous and requires adaptations for “survival” that would not have otherwise been present had the child felt safe to be a child.

Who Is Most at Risk?

Most at-risk are children who have parents with substance abuse problems, suffer from mental illness/chronic illness or health concerns, are immigrants/refugees, or are single/divorced.

Adults who were also victims of parentification are more likely to carry that forward with their own children (Dariotis, et al, 2023).

According to Buie (2026), parents are oftentimes unaware that they are parentifying their child. Despite this, Buie (2026) states that parentification usually happens in private, away from “other adults who could point it out” or step in to care for the child.

Healing From Parentification

The longer these behaviors continue, the more detrimental the negative effects. Building a supportive network as a parentifying adult or expanding resources to eliminate these behaviors is critical for personal well-being, relationships and family care.

There are also resources available to help someone who might have been parentified as a child and experiencing any of these symptoms.

Beginning therapy with a focus on attachment work (Psychology Today, 2025), learning boundaries, practicing mindfulness and self-compassion can encourage healing.

Books like Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, Running on Empty by Jonice Webb, and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van Der Kolk can provide further education on family roles, emotional neglect, childhood stress and trauma.

It’s time to take care of yourself and your needs.

References

Buie, E. (2026). Stolen childhoods: Divorce and emotional parentification. Psychology Today.

Dariotis, J. K., Chen, F. R., Park, Y. R., Nowak, M. K., French, K. M., & Codamon, A. M. (2023). Parentification vulnerability, reactivity, resilience, and thriving: A mixed methods systematic literature review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(13), 6197.

Guha, A. (2021). The parentified child in adulthood. Psychology Today.

Guy-Evans, O. (2025). Parentification effects: How growing up too fast impacts adulthood. Simply Psychology.

Psychology Today. (2025). Parentification. Psychology Today.

Raypole, C. (2022). How to recognize and heal from emotional incest. Healthline.

Written 5/18/26