'Children-adults', injured adult: a growing phenomenon

Currently, more and more young people and adults can be seen 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 from play, socialization and low responsibility, generating in this way what in psychology we call “children-adults”.

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 age, with a jargon adult, adult thought, 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, he should not worry about economic issues, the physical and emotional health of the parents, the care of the siblings, or attend to the home needs. When this happens, he adopts responsibilities that exceed his maturational level, generating, as we mentioned, an overadaptation.

Now, we tend to think of "adult children" in situations that include economic and social deprivations, war situations, child labor, etc. However, the range is much greater. Overadaptation can also be generated in those children who apparently have everything, but in silence lies the conflict. They are responsible for caring, responding and supporting those parents who cannot due to lack.

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What role do parents play in adult children?

They are parents who they cannot fulfill the parenting function (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 emotional needs of the child.

It may happen that one or both parents are absent, there is physical or emotional abandonment, intermittent ties (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 the parents, regardless of the cause, cannot fulfill the psychological role of father or mother. For example, a home where the mother is mistreated by the father. The child, faced with the suffering of his mother, 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, in front of his siblings and the organization of the home, taking responsibility again for himself and the environment, when he maturely does not have the capacity to do it.

Neurosciences have shown that poor care in early stages of life generates changes at the neurobiological and that in adult life will have consequences on the way of reacting to stress and anxiety.

The child grows up with the term "responsibility", taking care of all those who should take care of him, thus affecting the future adult.

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What is the “adult child” like in adulthood?

They are people who tend to develop asymmetrical relationships, of a dependent nature, where they occupy the roles of mother or father in the relationship, because throughout their lives they have learned to bond from caring and taking responsibility for the other.

These adults find love that needs them, just as they needed them in childhood, since they learned to feel loved by being needed. They find profiles of childish, problematic, disorderly people, many times aimlessly, and in this way the adult who before was an "adult child" finds its meaning in the relationship: being responsible for the couple being able to feel good again and head off

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 "adult child" needs to be necessary to someone. He does not know how to relate without helping or without wanting to save, consequently, he does not know how to take care of himself. He tends to have a very low self-esteem because he cannot take charge of his own life, putting that of others ahead.

• Related article: "What is social psychology?"

Can the adult who in his childhood has been a "child-adult" learn to love differently?

Of course. We cannot change history, because it serves to understand the present, and from there, to be able to modify patterns, behaviors and thoughts that encompass the way we bond. Through a therapeutic process, we delve into being able to resignify the ties, 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.