According to the article When Parents Are Traumatized by Their Children: Managing the emotional turmoil caused by the child who takes over family life, published by Psychology Today, children with mental illness sometimes engage in behaviors that traumatize their parents. These behaviors most often seek to harm the parent or inflict self-harm. When these actions become extreme, parents can become so traumatized that they lose their ability to parent and thus require trauma-informed treatment. There are many parents in this situation and it is not shameful to seek guidance.
Children who behave in this manner will often engage in blame-shifting, placing the blame on their parents rather than accepting responsibility for their actions. Parents can become so afraid of triggering their child and so paralyzed by fear, that they can no longer enforce boundaries. When this happens, parental inversion can occur, resulting in the child gaining control of the family.
Healing from parental trauma may take decades, or even a lifetime, and specialized care for all involved will be needed. Parents will also need to develop a skill set that can neutralize their child’s destructive behaviors and restore their parental functioning.
Children who are mentally and emotionally healthy do not traumatize their parents. Read the full article for more information here.