The third of the four roles is the Lost Child. Remember, in a family with an emotionally absent parent, the other parent is focused on the ‘missing’ one. So no one is focused on the children. As a result of their emotional absence, the children learn to cope by adopting certain behavior styles. Unfortunately, these …
Category: adult children
Rebels and Scapegoats: How do They Heal?
The second role in this discussion is the rebel, discussed in some detail here. But there is another point of view about the role of this troubled child and that is that they play the scapegoat for the family. From this perspective, this child takes on the family’s problems and acts them out, to ensure …
The Problem Child – It’s Not All Bad
In every family with an emotionally absent parent, the children learn and adopt one of four roles to deal with the stress and tension in the family. These roles are the hero, rebel or scapegoat, mascot and lost child. The previous two posts talked about the Hero – the child who learned to handle the …
Why Being The Family Hero Hurts
Monday’s post The Family Hero – It’s Not All Good generated many comments and even a couple of email questions. Although Thursday is usually a positive day here, I thought I’d change things up a bit and add a bit more information about Family Heroes. A quick recap: Children who grow up in a home with …
The Family Hero – It’s Not All Good
The Hero or Responsible Child is the first of the learned behaviors of children who grow up with an emotionally absent parent. When one parent is not providing emotional support to the family and the other parent is focused on that absence, the children are often left to fend on their own. Often the oldest, …