What is parentification and how can you heal from it?

What is parentification and how can you heal from it? Wed 5 Aug 2026 at 4:30am Eve and her siblings were in school when they began taking on adult responsibilities at home, due to their mother's declining mental health. The now-51-year-old from Sydney/Gadigal lands recalls her mother spending most days in bed due to severe depression and her father becoming increasingly absent. "[Mum] would leave instructions for getting dinner ready and she'd leave the stuff in the fridge," says Eve, not her real name. "Then as time went on, we were basically running the household, doing everything from cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping, all of that." As well as doing physical labour, Eve, who was a young teenager when she first took on these responsibilities, says she also became an emotional support for her mother, who had experienced childhood sexual trauma. "Mum would talk to me about what had happened to her [as a child] and she was basically using me as kind of like a quasi-counsellor, it was really inappropriate." Eve says at the time she wasn't able to process what was happening, she just "got on with it". It wasn't until she studied to become a social worker that she came across the term parentification and finally "felt validated". What is parentification? Parentification is a psychological term used to describe a role reversal where children have parental-level responsibilities above what is deemed developmentally appropriate, according to Dr Rachael Sharman, a lecturer and researcher in psychology, specialising in child/adolescent development. She people can experience different forms of parentification and at varying degrees of severity. "I used to work in child protection, and this was something that we looked out for quite a lot," says Dr Sharman, based on the Sunshine Coast/Kabi Kabi lands. "[One day] we were talking to a mother, we noticed her six-year-old daughter come home from school, jump up to the kitchen bench, get herself something to eat and drink, then proceeded to wipe down all the benches and table, make the baby a bottle and feed the baby." Children who are parentified take on emotional and instrumental responsibilities before their brain is developmentally ready, but also before they are ready emotionally, according to Deirdre Brandner, a child and adolescent psychologist, based in Melbourne/Naarm. "Instrumental parentification is like practical responsibilities, so caring for siblings, getting meals done, handling household tasks." But she believes emotional parentification is more damaging, because the child is managing the emotions of the parents. "This is when kids are the parents' confidant or they're the emotional regulator for the parents, [for example] 'Dad looks like he's stressed, I need to go and do this to make sure he's OK.'" The signs of parentification Ms Brander says international studies, including a large, nationally representative study from Poland in 2021, suggest "up to one in three young people, particularly adolescents" experience emotional parentification. But she says the signs of parentification in children are often "subtle because people see these kids as mature, as helpful, as capable, as highly competent". "These children can't express what's going wrong in their life because that might be a burden for mum or dad," she says. She says common signs in children are: - Hyper vigilance to other people's moods, even peers at school - Becoming anxious about upsetting others - Being less likely to ask for help - Feeling uncomfortable receiving care - Feeling responsible for adults' wellbeing Dr Sharman says "it can manifest quite differently" depending on the age of the person and the severity of the parentification. "What we typically see is around the age of 16 to 25, that later adolescence, they start to work out that something's not right." A life of 'hyper independence and responsibility' As an adult, Eve says she has found it difficult to say no to extra responsibilities, put her own needs first, while being hyper independent. "I've never had that experience of parents turning up to stuff, going on a university tour with me when I was at the end of year 12, or getting my driver's licence," she says. "I just had to navigate all of that stuff myself." She also found herself in an intimate relationship that mirrored the unhealthy family dynamic she grew up with. "Even though [ending that relationship] has been incredibly difficult, I can look back on that now and understand why I went into it," she says. But there were some positives. Eve says she is a more "compassionate and empathetic person" and credits her successful 20-year career in the public mental health sector to her childhood experiences. Sign up to the ABC Lifestyle newsletter How to heal from parentification Experts say acknowledging that parentification was part of your childhood is the first step to processing it. "Recognising that you were a victim of this, that this was something that happened to you, that can be really difficult," Ms Brandner says. She says helpful steps can be: - Emotional disclosure (sharing your experience with trusted adults) - Separating care from responsibility - Learning how to set boundaries - Learning to tolerate feelings of guilt - Developing a sense of self - Learning to receive care Dr Sharman says reaching out for professional support, from either a psychologist or counsellor, can be helpful. "This can be a bit of a lifelong wound, chances are it's going to bubble up every now and then," she says. "I think the important thing is to not repeat the pattern when you have your own kids. "If you're really unclear on what is reasonable at what age, go and seek that information out, just make sure that you're not repeating that same pattern of expecting too much from your own kids."