What is an Adult Child? Healing from Dysfunctional Family Roles

The term “adult child” can be a confusing one, but it often refers to adults who grew up as children in dysfunctional families and continue to exhibit patterns of behavior rooted in trauma and disorganized attachment. 

Teens from high-risk homes where mental illness, substance abuse, and neglect are present are at an increased risk of carrying these traits into adulthood if not addressed through support and intervention. Read on to learn about this emerging buzzword and strategies to support your teen with healthy emotional development. 

The Role of Attachment in Development and Being an Adult Child

An adult child refers to someone who, as an adult, continues to respond to situations with patterns, beliefs, and emotional reactions learned during a dysfunctional or traumatic childhood with emotionally immature parents [1]. This may have involved emotional, physical, or substance abuse. It may also be in families where the parents are narcissistic, traumatized, depressed, numbed, workaholic, borderline, or with severe medical illness [2].

The concept applies broadly to anyone raised in a chronically invalidating, unpredictable, or emotionally immature environment. Adult children are often at risk of insecure attachment and poor emotional and mental health. 

Emotionally immature caregivers are often uncomfortable with emotional intimacy. They may have trouble regulating stress and communicating effectively. This may be transgenerational, resulting from how they were treated as children and leading to feelings of rejection and emotional loneliness in their children.

Some parenting styles may have various types of emotional immaturity, leading to specific insecure attachment styles in teens. These may be fluid and change over time, and can be healed through family-based interventions, trauma, and attachment therapies [1]:

‍

Common Traits of Adult Children From Dysfunctional Families

Teens who grow up in harsh or invalidating environments may begin to show maladaptive traits and carry them into adulthood. Teens and adult children of emotionally immature parents may commonly show the following characteristics [1]:

• Intense feelings of anger, frustration, rejection, and betrayal. They maintain the lie that everything was ok in the family.

• Self-doubt, self-blame, and low self-esteem in adult situations, echo feelings of inferiority learned during childhood. They feel they are different and don’t quite “fit in” with others.

• Due to unresolved childhood wounds, individuals struggle to form and sustain healthy relationships.

• Either highly responsible or highly irresponsible, and tend to be impulsive and jump into situations without thinking things through. 

• Struggle with intimacy, trust, and boundaries because they never learned healthy models from caregivers. They struggle to live without chaos and crisis.

• Overthinking, emotional dependence, and a harsh inner critic, unconsciously replicating critical parenting. 

• Take themselves very seriously and often with high intensity. Have difficulty being emotionally vulnerable and navigating intimate relationships.

• Constantly seek approval and affirmation from others, unintentionally giving away their power and control.

• Fear of authority figures and a constant search for certainty, seeking outside validation, or fearing rejection.

How the Family Roles Affect Teen Relationships

Teens who struggle with severe substance abuse disorders and trauma often come from homes where dysfunctional relationship patterns are present. This can impact their ability to form connections, trust, and maintain relationships in adulthood. 

Struggles with Emotional Intimacy: 

• May struggle to open up due to past emotional neglect or betrayal and a strong fear of vulnerability.
• To protect themselves, they may be overly dependent and clingy or emotionally withdrawn. 

Unhealthy Relationship Patterns 

• Seeks partners who repeat their parents' behaviors by unconsciously repeating childhood dynamics.
• Often, they may be codependent. With a strong need to "fix" or rescue others, they may neglect their own needs.
• Due to a strong fear of abandonment, they avoid being alone and may tolerate poor treatment. 

Communication Challenges

• Instead of expressing needs directly, they are passive-aggressive and use indirect communication such as the silent treatment or sarcasm. 
• Avoids or escalates conflict. Some avoid confrontation for fear of abandonment; others with unresolved anger react explosively.

Role Confusion (Parent-Child Dynamic in Relationships)

• Overly responsible. May treat their partner like a child by playing a "caretaker" role.
• May rebel against authority figures, resisting compromise or perceiving their partner as controlling.

Low Self-Worth and Seeks External Validation

• Seeks approval. People-pleasing and may rely on their partner for self-esteem.
• Fears rejection. Due to fear of being unlovable, they may stay in unfulfilling relationships.

Breaking the Cycle: Inner Child Work and Therapy 

It is possible to overcome and heal from the wounds of this type of childhood. Early intervention during adolescence, addressing underlying patterns of behavior, trauma, and emotions, greatly increases successful treatment outcomes. Some approaches to treat these kinds of wounds include [3]:

• Therapy: Talk therapy with an attachment-based and trauma-informed approach are highly effective for healing the inner child. Therapies include: Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT-TF), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), or somatic therapy such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR), among others.

• Reparenting: Therapy can help break old patterns of woundedness. Healthier relationships can be fostered by nurturing your inner child with self-compassion, establishing healthy boundaries, and addressing unmet emotional needs. 

• Process Trauma: Painful childhood memories can be safely processed with self-compassion and emotional regulation skills learned in trauma-informed therapy such as EMDR. 

• Build Self-Esteem: Therapy such as CBT and DBT focus on identifying and challenging negative self-beliefs. Find supportive people and do activities to build esteem. 

• Set Boundaries: Break cycles of codependency and self-neglect by learning to say no and creating healthy boundaries with family, partners, and peers. 

• Repair Parent-Child Ruptures: Family therapy can help address unresolved issues with parents and repair relationships.

Family-Focused Recovery for Teens at Lotus Behavioral Health

Lotus Behavioral Health is a residential treatment facility for teens located in Florida. Our programs are designed to support teens and their families with the tools they need to recover from substance abuse and co-occurring mental health disorders. 

We take a family-based approach to help teens address dynamics in the home, improving essential skills such as communication, self-compassion, emotional regulation, and mindfulness. Our family therapists can help you and your teen break cycles of dysfunctional attachment to support their long-term recovery. 

Sources

[1] The Attachment Project. A Guide for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.

[2] Samsel, M. Adult Child Syndrome. MichaelSamsel.com

[3] Lechnyr, D. 2025. Wait, I’m not Crazy?! Adults Who Grew Up in Dysfunctional Families.TherapyDave.com

‍