- Hey everybody. Today we're gonna talk about
how to cope with being a parentified child.
(light hip hop music)
I wanna first start by defining the term parentified child.
I know many of you may not be familiar with that term
and you're wondering, "What the heck does that mean?"
And the truth about it is that being a parentified child
means that when we were young, when we were a child,
we were forced to act like an adult or a parent.
That's why the term is parentified child.
This could be us having to take care of our siblings,
or being an emotional support person for our parent.
So that we never actually got
the childhood that we deserved.
We weren't able to be a child when we were that age.
Now like I said, this could be emotionally.
We may have a parent that comes home from a date
and wants to cry to us about how horribly it went.
Or they wanna talk with us about their relationship
with the other parent and how hard that is.
And sometimes even sharing information that as children,
we shouldn't hear.
I've heard from a lot of my clients
that they hear about their parent's sex life.
Or the fact that their mom went on a date with this guy
and then he tried to kiss her.
And just things that, as a child,
you should not have to hear about your parent.
Then there's also the other side of it,
where it's more logistical support.
Like I talked about supporting siblings.
We may be the one that gets up and makes breakfast,
cleans the house, makes sure to go get groceries.
We may be the only person in our family
that is capable of doing those things
because our parent either isn't there,
or maybe never gets out of bed,
or just is not able to offer us the support that we need.
When parentification occurs,
it can delay our own emotional development.
Which means that it can lead to anger,
can cause co-dependent relationships
and people-pleasing behavior because we weren't able
to be a child when we needed to.
Okay, so maybe now we know that
we were parentified from a very young age
and that's why we're having trouble now.
How do we overcome it?
The first thing that we need to do
is know that it wasn't okay.
It's not okay for you to have to act like the adult,
for you to be a parent at such a young age.
Understanding that and accepting that
is the first step in overcoming it.
And the second thing we can do
is validate and empathize with our situation.
I have a lot of my clients write letters to their child-self
or have their child-self write letters to their adult-self.
I know that sounds weird and you're like,
"How would I even do that?"
But get in that child mind, or in your adult mind
talk to that eight- or 10- or 12-year-old you.
And what would you say?
Empathize with them. Feel for them.
Validate their experience because what that ends up doing
is allowing us to let go of the anger and the resentment
that maybe we've been holding onto since that time.
The third thing we can do is grieve
the loss of our childhood.
And this is a lot.
I know this is just one thing I'm mentioning,
but this can take a while.
Allow yourself to cry about it.
Journal about it.
Like I was talking about writing those letters,
that can help during this process, too.
What would you say? How would you apologize to that child?
Or what kind of angry letter, maybe,
do you need to write to that parent who wasn't there?
That doesn't mean you send it, but we need to
find a healthy way to express all the anger that, maybe,
we've been building up for years and years and years.
Doing this, allowing ourselves to grieve,
be mad, be sad, and all of those things
will help us move past it.
And the fourth and final way to overcome it
is to see a therapist, or possibly join group therapy.
I think both together give us the best result,
because in therapy we can process through all of the grief.
We can talk about all of the things that are upsetting.
Maybe there was a traumatic past we had.
They can help us process through it.
Group therapy helps validate our experience,
reminds us that we're not alone,
and we can learn from other peoples' growth.
If someone's a few steps further in their process,
maybe we can take little tidbits from their story
that are helpful to us in the moment.
I find both of these to be extremely helpful
in our recovery from being a parentified child.
And also, getting in therapy and giving ourselves
the time to process it through can make sure
that we don't do this to our own children.
Because if we don't give ourselves the time
to consider it, to know that it's wrong,
to validate our experience.
If we don't give ourselves the time to process it,
we can act in that same way towards our own children
just out of habit and comfortability.
And so giving ourselves the time,
joining a group therapy program,
or seeing a therapist one-on-one can help make sure
that that doesn't happen to our own kids.
I hope you found this helpful and validating.
A lot of us have been parentified
at different times in our lives.
Even if we were latchkey kids and both our parents worked,
often kids will come home and make food
for the other children because that's part of
what they have to do before mom gets home.
There's a lot of ways that we can be parentified.
Allow yourself to feel it, to know that it's wrong,
and to process through it because you're not alone.
We're all in this together,
working towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.
And I will see you next time, bye.