Lost Childhoods: The Plight Of The Parentified Child by Gregory J. Jurkovic

Author:Gregory J. Jurkovic [Jurkovic, Gregory J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317838845
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Middle Phase

Restoring Parental Accountability

Central to the middle phase of therapy are interventions to help parents assume more appropriate responsibilities. Effective parenting is a multifaceted undertaking, involving such emotional, cognitive, transactional, and existential-ethical processes as self-differentiation, perspective-taking, understanding, communication, authenticity, caring, commitment, fairness, and trustworthiness.

It is little wonder that boundary-marking operations at a familial level are ineffective in many cases. With parentifying parents, we find that their appreciation of generational boundaries and, more fundamentally, of their children’s personages is frequently limited by profound neediness, depression, isolation, stress, narcissism, destructive entitlement, and general socioemotional, cognitive, and moral immaturity.

For example, in the fourth session with Anne and her children, Brett tentatively informed his mother that he was uncomfortable in being treated by her as an “equal.” In particular, he did not like her talking to him about “30-year-old stuff.” She retorted: “And I don’t like hearing hours of your 15-year-old stuff…. Who am I supposed to talk to? There are no other adults at home.”

Lecturing parents about the asymmetrical nature of parent-child relationships typically contributes little to what they already know, at least on the surface. However, the therapist must not assume that such knowledge is within everyone’s repertoire. One parent of a parentified youngster finally said to us in frustration, “Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, because I don’t know” (Jurkovic, Jessee, & Goglia, 1991, p. 308). Her ability to act more responsibly, however, depended on more than our direct guidance. Like Anne, she required help in developing a more empathic and cognitively sophisticated view of her child as a developing person in need of parenting (cf. Newberger, 1980).

One way of fostering such a perspective is to sensitize parents to what their children experience as a result of their parentified role (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner, 1986). Parents are typically unaware of their children’s suffering. Once they understand, their motivation to change often increases. Anne, for example, was distressed upon learning of Brett’s inner experience when she confided in him about adult matters. At those times, he thought about running away, saddened that she treated him like a “husband” rather than a “son.”

As illustrated earlier in our work with Brett and Ansley, it is also essential to help parents acknowledge their children’s contributions to the family. Acknowledgment not only helps balance the ledger of relational burdens and benefits from an ethical perspective but also psychologically affirms their existence. As such, it represents a healthy parental response, supporting the youngster’s true rather than false self (see Bacal, 1989).

Awareness of the impact of parentification on children and of the importance of acknowledgment, however, is usually not sufficient to maintain more responsible parental behavior on a consistent basis, unless parents find other sources of support. In many cases, the therapist assumes the role previously held by the parentified child, particularly early in the treatment process. As therapy proceeds, parents can be encouraged to access or develop natural support systems through a variety of interventions designed to help them reconnect with their family of origin, to

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