Family gatherings are an opportunity to share important issues and strengthen relationships. Unfortunately, for some of us, family visits can turn out to be a difficult experience, bringing up old unresolved relationship issues with loved ones.
You may find similar thoughts accompanying you during your contact with your parent:
- It doesn’t matter what I do. It will never be enough for them.
- As always, my opinion in this discussion does not count.
- Another hopeless gift. Do they really not know what I like?
- As usual, I did something wrong.
- I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Why doesn’t she speak to me?
- My mother will always be offended. Why doesn’t she appreciate how hard I try?
- Why do they tell me how to live?
- They don’t understand me.
If any of these thoughts seem familiar to you, I invite you to read about the causes of unpleasant family situations that like to remind us of ourselves during the holidays, and strategies for coping in the face of them.
Causes of problems, or parentification and conditional love
The causes of difficulties in family relationships are many, and some of them are perpetuated for years. Here we will discuss two basic phenomena that can cause negative consequences in the life of the family – and in our own well-being. It is worth mentioning that in most families where we observe toxic behavior, the members are often unaware of the problems occurring. This unawareness is usually not helpful, unfortunately.
Parentification is a phenomenon in which a parent seeks emotional support and help from their child. Here, the child is expected to play the role of an adult, meeting the emotional needs of the parent – which is why we often speak of emotional parentification.
As a child, you may have been the one your parents turned to as confidants, asking for emotional support or even help or advice. Your parent may have been weak, unwieldy, ill in some areas. Sometimes children placed in such a situation may feel special because the parent communicates with them on a deeper level, which can create a sense of closeness and authenticity in the relationship. However, this closeness is apparent and actually leads to a toxic parental relationship in which the child’s basic needs are not met. There is a lack of stability, adult care and freedom to express children’s emotions.
In adulthood, this can lead to difficulty setting boundaries for fear of hurting others and problems meeting one’s own needs without guilt. The result of recreating this difficult role assigned in childhood is excessive responsibility for others.
Conditional love refers to the phenomenon when in childhood we experienced conditions, parental expectations, through which we gained acceptance and love. The conditions and expectations may have been expressed explicitly or in a veiled way, such as through non-verbal messages. In childhood, we received the message that we are fully valuable when we act in accordance with our parents’ expectations. This type of family lacks overt unconditional love, where a child receives acceptance, care and attention for who he or she is, rather than depending on the value derived from his or her actions. The basic message of all types of conditional parenting is that children must earn a parent’s love. An example would be parents rewarding a child with attention and interest only if he or she achieves high academic results.
The phenomenon of parentification is a situation that weighs heavily on a child’s emotional needs when he or she assumes the role of a parent to a certain extent and takes care of his or her caregiver’s needs, which can have negative consequences for the child’s autonomy and emotional development. Such behavior may give the illusion of strength, but does not necessarily contribute to the proper development of the child, who may develop emotionally more mature than his peers.
False division of family roles and lack of autonomy are characteristic features of adult children of immature parents who experienced parentification in childhood. Treatment for the effects of parentification may include therapy to help the person understand and work through the trauma of the false parental role.
The consequences experienced in adulthood include low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, shame and guilt. A common coping strategy for dealing with these overwhelming emotions is perfectionism and an excessive need for approval from those around us. The adult child of emotionally immature parents will push their own desires, neglecting their own needs in order to maintain a semblance of harmony and peace in relationships
Types of parentification when a child becomes an adult
There are two types of parentification: instrumental parentification, emotional parentification. Instrumental parentification means that the child takes over the care of various dimensions of the family’s existence: earning money, caring for siblings or a sick parent, cleaning, shopping, cooking meals, etc.
Emotional parentification is characterized by casting the child in roles in which he sacrifices his own needs at the expense of his parents. Emotional parentification occurs when a child feels that he or she has to bear the problems of adults. The child becomes his parent’s parent with the illusion of power. In the case of parentification, the caregiver suffered from depression, the child acts as a confidant or comforter of one of the parents, mediator or judge in marital conflicts, partner (including sexual). Remember, it is the adult who should be the support person, giving a sense of security and protection and not the other way around.
Parentification-warning signals
When spending intensely with loved ones, childhood problems can resurface. Before you face these situations, realize first of all that you are no longer just a helpless child of your parent, but have an adult part of you that is strong and can protect you. In order not to renew known problems that bring negative emotions, pay attention to such words and behaviors of your loved ones:
- Questions. Pay attention to whether the questions asked of you have a cognitive or controlling function. In healthier relationships, asking, “How do you like your new job?” has the function of finding out how you’re doing. Toxic parents of adult children use questions designed to lead to quick conclusions, such as: “I knew it would be difficult, I told you not to change jobs.” In contrast, some families don’t like to ask questions because it causes them to lose control and/or attention
- Martyrs. Be wary of people in your family system who step into the role of martyrs, who take actions that often no one asked them to do. This can often take the form of self-pity: “I am so unloved, so sick.” They may also constantly complain about all the things they do for you, and make it subtly clear that they expect you to make amends.
- Guilt feelings. Family members will try to induce them in you through their statements and behavior. The message will include hearing about what you should or should not do. Often this will not relate to your needs and values at all, but to top-down assumptions.
- Authority. This refers to the use of messages in which other important people have said certain truths with which you should agree. The use of third-party authority is unthinkingly widespread in much of everyday life, because it gives support to vague judgments. It’s a classic blame-shifting designed to sway you to agree with opinions you don’t identify with.
- Confrontational remarks. The purpose of such provocative behavior is to cause annoyance, to create tension in the family. One of the family members, wishing to gain influence or control, reaches for confrontational statements, leading to immediate upset or even an argument.
Emotional parentification – ways to deal with difficult relationships with parents
- Take care of your boundaries. Setting new boundaries is a difficult but necessary undertaking, especially if your loved ones don’t see the need for changes in the relationship. While taking care of your space in a new way, accept the difficulties you will face. Your new reactions will not change the family system immediately, but they will certainly help you. When someone close to you suggests that you are responsible for things that are not really under your control or your fault, don’t reach for convoluted explanations, but rather a short factual answer:
– I thought you would bring more dishes for Christmas.
– I brought as many as I could make.
Instead of getting into an argument, simply answer “no” by rationally pointing out clear facts in a calm tone. It is important that your answer be simple and friendly. Avoid over-explaining, which can push your boundaries in a way that is unfavorable to you. - Listen to yourself. In all possible situations, whether or not it’s easy to see the signs of toxic behavior, the most important thing is that you listen to yourself and how you feel at the time. Do you perhaps feel pressured, obligated to say or do things you would rather not do?
Try to focus and consciously pay attention to situations that make you feel the way you did as a child, feeling a hunger for unmet needs, related to depreciation, misunderstanding or failure. Instead of allowing yourself to recreate the same thing, stop and ask yourself: How do I feel now? What do I need right now? - The “why” perspective. Try to see your loved ones from an observer’s perspective. This will help you focus on other people’s motivations and actions. As you build your adult part, you become the author of your own story, and in this perspective it is good to see some situations from a distance. How do you act and react? How do your loved ones behave, what are they responsible for?
- Reverse the communication and dynamics in the relationship. If you feel that your voice is being taken away or overlooked, give yourself permission to speak up. When the atmosphere becomes thick and tense, say something positive about your loved ones – something true that you really admire or like. It could be something you’ve always taken for granted, such as that your mother always prepares an elegant tablecloth for Christmas Eve dinner.
Parentification – the serious consequences of parentification
Parentification is a phenomenon of role reversal in the family, which carries serious consequences for children, their development and then for the rest of their lives. Parentification can have many dimensions, invalidation and deprivation can have many dimensions. The experience of parentification positively affects various mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety disorders, affects low self-esteem. The consequences of parentification affect entering into specific roles of entering into relationships, e.g., frequent devotion to others, entering into the role of rescuer. In schema therapy, the experience of parentification builds a pattern of emotional deprivation.
Parentification vs. psychotherapy
Now you have a choice. You don’t have to recreate what has become established in your family relationships. You are no longer a helpless child. You can draw on your adult experiences, in which you took care of yourself, were assertive and affectionate to yourself and loved ones. You don’t have to place blame. People are imperfect – you, your family members, all of us. And we all share responsibility for our relationships.
Parentification is a difficult experience that can cause short-term and long-term consequences in your life. But you don’t have to feel helpless and alone – online therapy can help you heal this area. If you have experienced parentification, make an appointment with specialists – online psychotherapy.