Growing Up Too Soon? Parentification Among Immigrant and Native Adolescents in Germany

Parentification (adolescents’ adoption of adult family roles by providing instrumental or emotional support for their parents)
is assumed to be higher in immigrant than native families. An often discussed reason for parentification is the adolescent-parent
acculturation gap in immigrant families whereby immigrant adolescents acculturate faster and outperform their parents socio-culturally.
The aim of this multi-informant, multi-group study was to investigate levels, predictors, and psychosocial outcomes of instrumental
and emotional parentification. The sample comprised 197 native (adolescents: mean age 14.7 years, 52% female) and 185 ethnic
German immigrant (adolescents: mean age 15.7 years, 60% female) mother-adolescent dyads. Results revealed higher levels of
emotional and instrumental parentification among immigrant adolescents. Parents’ partnership dissatisfaction predicted instrumental
and emotional parentification only in the native German sample. Among immigrants, language brokering related to instrumental
and emotional parentification, and a larger mother-adolescent acculturation gap was associated with higher levels of emotional
parentification. The positive psychosocial outcome, self-efficacy, was predicted by instrumental parentification in both adolescent
groups. Exhaustion, the negative outcome, however, was related to higher levels of instrumental and lower levels of emotional
parentification only in the immigrant group. The results of this study highlight that family systems can change due to migration
to another country, with adolescents becoming more responsible for family matters than is normative for their age. However,
only some of these premature responsibilities carry a risk of maladaptation, with others seeming to provide opportunities
for positive developmental growth.