IS YOUR CHILD ‘PARENTFIED’? CLICK TO FIND OUT!

The term “parentified” refers to a child who has to assume roles or responsibilities typically reserved for an adult, often due to family dynamics or circumstances. According to the experts, following are some signs of parentification for you to figure out if your child is being “parentified” or not. Little girl stressed. FREEPIK.com Per Joseph Laino, PsyD, psychologist and Assistant Director of Clinical Operations at NYU Langone, in an interview with Parents.com, there are two types of parentification: emotional and instrumental. Emotional parentification occurs when a child provides emotional support to their parent, such as keeping secrets, offering advice, providing comfort or reassurance to family members, or always being emotionally available. In other words, the child often takes on the role of a confidant, mentor, or mediator within their household. On the other hand, instrumental parentification refers to the physical aspect of parentification, where a child is given adult responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, babysitting siblings, or even managing family finances. While some tasks can be seen as age-appropriate chores, they morph into a form of parentification if the child is being overburdened, with the task serving the parent’s needs, rather than the child’s. Teen washing dishes. ADOBE STOCK IMAGES...