Growing up, I am the oldest of my siblings and I am about 5years older than my brother. We are 5 in number, my both parents were very busy, both doing business. Sometimes, before we wake up in the morning, they are both gone? I remember how I will be the one to bath my siblings, get them dressed, prepare breakfast and we were all in the same school which makes it easier for us all to go school together, though it was a walkable distance.
Once the bell rings for school closure, I will go looking for my siblings and we walk back home again, when we get home, I will prepare lunch for myself and my siblings, wash our uniforms and sucks it won’t be long it is dinner time. This was where I had lots of trouble from my insatiable mum, she’s never pleased with my cooking no matter how I try to impress her, Sometimes I get punished, sometimes she uses her mouth to say all sorts of things to me that affected me emotionally.
I do all the chores at home, I get punished for my sibling’s misbehavior, she will always give them preferences over me with the claim that they are children and I’m older so I should understand, sometimes I ask myself if she’s actually my mother with the way she treated me. All of these went on until I left the house for university and never came back home again.
What this client of mine went through is a form of instrumental parentification.
What is parentification?
It is where a child acts or play the role as a parent to their parents or to their siblings. That is where a child takes the role of parents to either her parents or siblings. This can be done in two forms.
Emotional Parentification
This is where a child gives a grown-up advice to parents or where parents tell child secrets and ask the child to keep it as secret. Sometimes parents can as well go to their child for comfort. For instance, a child tells parent ‘’mummy you forgot my birthday today.” Rather than show a sense of remorse, mummy came up with excuses to make the child feels bad. ‘I‘’I am working so hard because of you, if I don’t go to work, I will not get money to celebrate your birthday or even buy you toys.’’
Then, you will hear the child ‘says “I AM SORRY, MUMMY.” I do understand, is fine you can go to work. The child is the one apologizing to a mother who can’t accept she’s done wrong for forgetting her daughter’s birthday. Emotional parentification can also be where a child is the one supporting sibling emotionally.
Instrumental Parentification
This is where a child is in charge of things like cooking, booking hospital appointments, taking siblings or parents to hospital for an appointment, a child working to pay bills because the parents are not able to do so, making a shopping list, getting siblings ready for school etc. When it comes to instrumental parentification, what needs to be considered is,
1.Is this task age appropriate?
2. Does it meet my child’s developmental needs?
3. Does it meet my child’s psychological needs for competence?
Parentification it is not about giving your child chores because chores are great for meeting a child’s need for competence. In the case of my client, it was a forced instrumental parentification, but there are still some cases where a child is not forced or asked to do so, but the child takes it upon herself to do so. Whatever the case, it has a negative impact on a child which usually lasts into adulthood.
It can lead to child having issues with anger, a child feeling of loss of childhood, always telling people around you what to do , leading you to always be the one caring for others, lack of trust, feeling of resentment that is, doing too much for others without taking care of yourself, feeling of anxiety, If you are prettifying your child, it is high time you retraced your step and think about the developmental needs of your child and if you as a parent feels parentified, seek professional help either way, early intervention is the key to being healed.
