It can be easy as a parent to unintentionally fall into the trap of treating your child/children like little adults. You may find yourself talking to them about issues such as; money concerns, sharing intimate details about family/friends, talking to them about your own relationship issues, depending on them emotionally for support.
It’s important to be mindful however that you are not burdening your child with what are essentially adult issues to manage.
Children tend to internalise their worries and are often unable to articulate what it is that is concerning them, they can often feel responsible and can at times take on a parentfied role.
Not matter how mature a child seems or appears, developmentally their capacity to be able to make sense of and cope with abstract thoughts and responsibilities is limited.
Three tips to help manage this:
Firstly, notice when you are starting to over share, acknowledge it within yourself. Ask yourself ‘is this an adult issue to deal with?’.
If your child starts to ask questions about things you’ve already shared with them, acknowledge their curiosity i.e. ‘I see you’d really like to know about….’ assure them that it’s going to be OK and that the adults are/will be looking after this issue.
Remember children need to have the space to explore the world, be curious about their surroundings and learn through play and engaging with other children, they don’t need to be too bogged down with adult issues.
