I don’t really like giving unsolicited advice to parents. But in this article I’m going to. So I just want to begin by saying that I understand that teaching is very different from (not to mention easier than) parenting. Parenting is made up of complex interactions day after day that layer upon each other and interact with each other, creating a nuanced and deep relationship. Teaching happens only periodically in a much more controlled environment and with simpler relationships. Moreover, teachers never have a full view of the parent child relationship. I can extrapolate some information based on my interactions with students, but that information is always limited and is usually colored from the student perspective but not filled out by the parent perspective. I also know that people don’t love unsolicited advice, so if you are willing to keep reading anyway, I’m grateful.
The advice is this: make sure your kids know that you are there for them. More specifically, make sure your kids know that, as their parent, you are there for them in ways that they don’t need to be there for you.
Hopefully context as to why I make the suggestion can sharpen what I mean.
I have a recurring conversation with students. It plays out the same way again and again and often enough that I’ve come to expect it.
It starts when I have a student who is struggling in class in some way. Maybe they aren’t turning in homework, they seem to be acting out of fear, they seem really off, or they are just struggling in some way. So I take a moment to check in with the student to see what is going on. Sometimes they don’t have much to say and sometimes they are just dealing with the ups and downs of every day. But other times they open up about something difficult that is going on. Maybe they lost a friend, a close family member passed, they are nervous about the future, they generally feel less competent than their peers, they feel worthless or depressed, etc.
I ask follow up questions to try to really understand what the student is saying, and then my next question is always the same. “Have you shared how you feel with your parents?” This question seems like the obvious one to me, because no matter how helpful I can be as a teacher, the people children really need the most, especially when it comes to challenging life circumstances, are their parents.
Sometimes they say that they have and that their parents have been really good about listening to them. Sometimes they haven’t but they want to and are just planning on the right moment. But my experience has been that if we get to this point in the conversation, the answer is more likely to be no. They haven’t talked to their parents and they don’t really see it as an option. I ask why they haven’t or what would keep them from talking with their parents, and the answer is generally something like the following:
- “They have so much going on they are so stressed out, I don’t want to be a burden.”
- “They have to take care of my siblings, which is really hard, and I think it would be unfair to make myself a problem.”
- “It’s my job in the family to be helpful.”
- “My mom (or dad) is already struggling with her (or his) mental health and I don’t think I can add to that.”
- “They don’t really have time for me. They have too much going on.”
From my perspective, this indicates one of two causes or a mix of both. In the first case, the child has some other concern about talking to his or her parents and is having trouble of some sort naming it. In the second case the child is, for whatever reason, experiencing role reversal. In other words, the child, to some degree and in some way, has begun to see him or herself as a parent in the parent child relationship. Social scientists refer to this kind of role reversal as parentification.
First then, a review of parentification. Parentification is described in social science research as a role reversal between parents and children. In this 2012 meta analysis from the Graduate Student Journal of Psychology, parentification is defined as “ the process through which children are assigned the role of an adult, taking on both emotional and functional responsibilities that typically are performed by the parent.” Another 2023 meta-analysis from the National Institutes of Health points out that parentification is “distinct from supervised or monitored higher-order household responsibilities used by parents to promote positive youth development via leadership skills and character-building.”
There are two basic types of parentification: instrumental and emotional. Instrumental parentification is when children take on tasks usually taken care of by parents like childcare, shopping, cooking meals, income earning, etc. Instrumental parentification seems to affect different children differently based on the child and the context. The outcomes can depend on how much acknowledgement and support the child gets, how fair the situation appears to the child, how regularly these sorts of responsibilities fall to children, etc. The wrong combination tends to result in negative consequences for children as they grow up. But the right combination can give children a sense of accomplishment and pride in their own abilities. So children taking on physical adult responsibilities can be a positive for children if it isn’t overly burdensome, doesn’t impede their ability to work through important teen development, if they receive recognition and support for their contributions, and if the children feel invested in helping their family out.
Much more difficult for children to deal with is emotional parentification. Emotional parentification is described by the first article cited above as “[requiring] the child to fulfill specific emotional and/or psychological needs of a parent…For example, the emotionally parentified child may be expected to gauge and respond to the emotional needs of the parent, serve as confidante and an unwavering source of support, and provide crisis intervention during times of psychological distress.” In other words, instead of the child being able to rely on and expect emotional support from the parent, the role is reversed.
Both reviews of the literature on parentification note that the results of emotional parentification are more or less just negative for children. Negative results of parentification include higher rates of depression and anxiety, higher rates of substance abuse and self harm, and also academic problems such as high rates of absenteeism, aggressive and disruptive behavior, and lower grades.
Overall, if you find the subject of parentification worth learning about, I encourage you to learn more. If you like studies, both linked to above are relatively short and accessible.
So how does this information apply to my recurring conversation? In most cases, not directly. It generally seems like I’m not talking to children who are required by their family situation to listen to, be confidants for, and emotionally support parents. But the indirect application is that I’m talking to children who are dealing with role confusion. It isn’t clear in their mind that their parents have a moral duty as parents to listen to them and support them, even when things are tough or stressful in the parents’ lives and around the house. They aren’t clear that it isn’t their job to make sure that their parents are emotionally well, in fact it is their parents who have the job to ensure that they have the support that they need. As a matter of fact, as I explain this role confusion to them, it often seems like a light is going on for them.
Which brings me back to my suggestion: make sure your kids know that you are there for them. More specifically, make sure your kids know that, as their parent, you are there for them in ways that they don’t need to be there for you. I also submit a question worth asking: If, for example, you were to say any of the following statements to your child do you think it would seem obvious to them or do you think it would come as a surprise?
- “I’m an adult. I have other adults (such as spouse, parents, siblings, community, or counselor) to whom I can turn. You don’t need to worry about putting too much stress on me by sharing the things that are bothering you. I have ways of dealing with my own stress and I assure you that I can handle both my own concerns and hearing yours as well.”
- “I chose to have you as a child because I wanted you to be my child and I love you. That means it’s my responsibility to be there for you even when I’m busy or stressed, and that is a responsibility I want.”
- “Parents and children have different responsibilities. We love each other and support each other, but it isn’t your job to take care of me. It is my job to take care of you and I want to do that job.”
- “Part of you learning to grow up well is feeling like you have enough support to deal with the hard parts of life. I just want you to know that I’m here for you and I love you. I can’t solve every problem, but I can always be here for you. I can even be there for you when it looks like I’m stressed out or having a difficult time.”
Maybe you don’t know how your child would view these sorts of statements. May I humbly suggest that if you aren’t sure, it would be worth finding out?
When I have these tough conversations with students, the thing I love to hear most from my students is “Yeah, I’ve told my parents how I’m feeling and they’ve been really supportive.” It means that in the most important ways they have the essential support that they need and, just as importantly, they know that they have that support.
I hope we can work to make that the reality for every child. I hope we can help them know whose job is whose. And I hope that they can then feel confident in reaching out for the support they need.