Don't Make This Life-Altering Mistake With Your Eldest Daughter

Annie Spratt on Unsplash" />A 20-something “oldest daughter” has urged parents to think about how much they put on their eldest children after she reflected on growing up feeling like “the family manager”.The eldest child took to Reddit and revealed ever since she was young, she has managed her sibling, as well as her parents’ relationship.“I was always taught to ‘give way’ to my siblings’ wants, so I grew up thinking that I have this job and that I should put myself 2nd,” she admitted, adding that now she’s grown up she finds it “hard” to enjoy things she actively chooses to do and feels “selfish” for doing so.Parents were quick to respond, acknowledging that what OP (original poster) had been through was “tough”.“I’m sorry you had to go through a non existent childhood like that,” said one respondent. “We have 4 kids, oldest is a girl, and we make sure to not make her feel like she is a third parent.”Another, who was the eldest sibling growing up, said they’d decided to only have one child because of it. “Some parents do not recognise the parentification of older children at all,” they added.What is parentification?Parentification is basically where a child takes on the role of a parent. Eldest children – especially girls – might typically be burdened with this responsibility from a young age. In more extreme cases, it can be a form of abuse or neglect, and has been linked to poor mental health including depression, anxiety and eating disorders.“Parentified children may have a hard time building trust and may have problems with anger and emotional regulation,” say experts at Newport Academy.How can parents avoid doing this to their kids?Counselling Directory member Louise Malyan told HuffPost UK: “Parents often – without meaning to – place an emotional or practical burden on their eldest children.”You might expect them to “know better”, “set the example”, or even manage younger siblings’ emotions and behaviours.But doing this “can create deep-rooted feelings of shame and over-responsibility [for eldest children] that are carried into adulthood,” she explained.As a trauma-informed counsellor, she said a lot of the adult clients she works with struggle with overwhelming guilt and a constant sense that they must “fix” or “manage” others.This often stems from childhood experiences where they were made to feel responsible for things far beyond their years.“It’s important that parents allow their eldest to just be a child, rather than assigning them roles that belong to the adults,” she added.It’s also crucial for parents to acknowledge that parenting evolves over time – and this can impact fairness.Malyan described how parents change and grow over the course of raising children — and if this resonates, “it’s crucial to avoid holding the eldest to harsher standards just because they were ‘parented’ by a less experienced or more stressed version of their parents”.“Later children may experience a more relaxed or emotionally available parenting style, and it’s important to recognise that eldest children may silently carry resentment or confusion around this,” she said.“They often internalise the idea that ‘I have to be the strong one’ or ‘I’m not allowed to need help,’ which can feed into struggles with shame, perfectionism, and emotional suppression later in life.”She asked parents to check in with how much responsibility they’re placing – even unintentionally – on their eldest children. Are you expecting them to manage younger siblings’ behaviour or emotions? Do you lean on them for emotional support meant for another adult? “Remember, no matter how mature they seem, they are still children first,” she said. “It’s vital to let them have their own childhood, free from adult-sized pressures.“Offer them space to express their own feelings, remind them it’s not their job to fix or manage others, and reassure them that the adults are responsible for the family, not them.“Protecting their right to be a child will strengthen their sense of self, confidence, and emotional wellbeing into adulthood.”She concluded: “Eldest children deserve permission to just be children – not mini adults, not emotional managers, and not scapegoats for parental stress.”Related...'I Cancelled My Daughter's 16th After She Made This Joke. Did I Go Too Far?'If Your Daughter Is Called A 'Bop' At School, It's Not What You Think It MeansWhen I Found Out I Was Having A Daughter, I Made A Vow To Myself. Keeping It Has Been Harder Than I Realized.

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