‘Adult-children’, Wounded Adult: A Growing Phenomenon
Nowadays, we can see more and more young people and adults who, in their childhood, had to over-adapt to cope with the situation they were experiencing at that time.
Due to the context, They were children who could not live a childhood based on play, socialization and low responsibility thus generating what in psychology we call “adult-children”.
What are we talking about when we refer to the term child-adult?
We refer to those children whose childhood has been omitted as a stage of life Stage that includes playing, socializing, going to school, eating, sleeping, feeling loved, cared for and sheltered.
When childhood cannot be lived in such a way for various reasons, the child tends to be too mature for his or her age, with adult jargon, adult thinking, movements and expressions that do not correspond to the infant, as well as, they may lack initiative and creativity.
The boy must be a boy That is, you should not worry about economic issues, the physical and emotional health of your parents, caring for your siblings, or taking care of your home needs. When this happens, they adopt responsibilities that exceed their maturational level, generating, as we mentioned, overadaptation.
Now, we tend to think of “adult children” in situations that encompass economic and social deprivation, war situations, child labor, etc. However, the range is much larger. Overadaptation can also occur in those children who apparently have everything, but the conflict lies in silence. They are responsible for caring for, responding to, and supporting those parents who, due to lack, cannot do so.
They are parents who They cannot fulfill the parental role (take care of him, educate him, make him feel safe, protect him, make him feel valuable). In other words, they fail to respond to the child’s emotional needs.
It may happen that one or both parents are absent, there is physical or emotional abandonment, intermittent relationships (parents who are and are not present in quality time), or due to abuse and violence.
They tend to be children who develop in homes where parents, regardless of the cause, cannot fulfill the psychological role of father or mother. For example, a home where the mother is abused by the father. The child, faced with his mother’s suffering, adopts an adult role defending his mother against attacks, taking care of his siblings, taking responsibility for himself to “not bring more problems home.” Another example is when one of the parents dies, and the child assumes the role of mother or father, vis-à-vis his siblings and the organization of the home, once again taking responsibility for himself and the environment, when maturationally he does not have the capacity to do so.
Neuroscience has shown that poor care in early stages of life generates changes at a neurobiological level and that in adult life it will have consequences on the way we react to stress and anxiety.
The child grows up with the term “responsibility”, taking care of all those who should take care of him, thus having an impact on the future adult.
They are people who tend to develop asymmetrical, dependent relationships, where they occupy the roles of mother or father in the relationship, because throughout their lives they have learned to bond by caring for and taking responsibility for the other.
These adults find loves that need them, just as they needed them in childhood, since they learned to feel loved for being needed. They find profiles of people who are childish, problematic, disordered, often aimless, and in this way the adult who was previously an “adult child” finds his meaning in the relationship: being responsible for the couple feeling good again and getting on track.
In other words, They become adults who in their relationships seek to control, save or rescue the people they love without being asked, thus generating a frustrating relationship.
The adult who was an “adult child” needs to be necessary to someone. He does not know how to relate without helping or wanting to save, consequently, he does not know how to take care of himself. He tends to have very low self-esteem because he cannot take charge of his own life, putting that of others ahead of himself.
Can the adult who in his childhood has been an “adult-child” learn to love differently?
Of course. We cannot change history, because it serves to understand the present, and from there, be able to modify patterns, behaviors and thoughts that encompass the way we bond. Through a therapeutic process, we delve into being able to redefine the bonds to generate in this way, more symmetrical, reciprocal, healthy and non-dependent relationships, so that, in this way, the adult can love not out of necessity, but out of love.
