Dysfunctional Family Roles: Understanding Family Dynamics
In the past 5-10 years, people are starting to better understand the impact of intergenerational trauma, complicated family dynamics, and have higher expectations for parents and family members. Blood is not thicker than water for many Millennials and Gen Zers. If you have complicated family dynamics, here's a place for you to start understanding them and the roles everyone played within your family. I will cover boundary setting and how to navigate dysfunctional families, in a future post.
Teresa Strong
8/26/20263 min read
Most families experience some level of dysfunction, whether among immediate members, extended relatives, in-laws, or co-parents. Navigating these dynamics can be deeply isolating and leave you feeling helpless. Recognizing your family role can be helpful in understanding how your past shapes your present. These childhood patterns often show up in your adult relationships, boundary management, and stress responses. By reflecting on how these behaviors show up in your life today, you can begin setting small, healthy boundaries and step out of old family dynamics.
DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY ROLES
Identifying the roles you and your family members played can offer powerful insight into your childhood and the patterns you might unknowingly carry into adulthood. Family members often step into multiple roles, and overlapping is common—for example, two siblings might both be parentified.
As you review the roles below, consider where each of your family members might fit.
COMMON FAMILY ROLES IN DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES
The Scapegoat (aka The Black Sheep): The scapegoat is the person constantly blamed for any conflict and singled out for their "bad" or "rebellious" behavior. Often feel like they are different from the rest of their family and don't fit in. They learn that their honesty about the dysfunction was not welcomed and are often distanced from the family.
The Golden Child: The child who is seen as the "favorite" and can "do no wrong." Although this may seem positive, the golden child can feel like the love is conditional on upkeeping perfection and their worth is based on how needless they can be.
The Hero: The family member whose success and presentation prove to the outside world that their family is "fine." Often learn to be high-achievers and feel pressure to appear successful.
The Mascot/Clown: The mascot/clown's role in their family is to distract from the dysfunction with jokes. They use humor to diffuse tense situations before the parents have a blow-up or things escalate. The Mascot learns that their job in relationships is to divert big emotions, with internalized assumption that big emotions lead to rupture.
The Lost Child: The lost child fades into the background of their family as a means of safety and survival. Often say they feel like they were "forgotten." The lost child learns that taking up as little space as possible is necessary and people don't care about their opinions, emotions, or needs.
The Caretaker: Also called the enabler or martyr, the caretaker tries to make everyone happy, even at the detriment to themselves. Also works to distract from dysfunction, but through denial and minimization. They learn their job is to be responsible for everyone's emotions and behaviors, at the sacrifice of their well-being. It's common for Caretakers to feel resentment towards family members for the role they play.
The Parentified Child: The child who takes other spouse or adult role in family, in absence of a healthy adult caregiver. Can overlap with the caregiver role, but the parentified child isn't necessarily enabling or maintaining illusion of family being perfect. Instead, role is about survival and taking care of other family members, because their aren't enough healthy adults to do so. They learn that their self-worth is based on other people's approval and well-being, often gravitating towards relationships with people with emotional dysfunction and avoidance.
Reflection questions:
Which role did you naturally adopt (or you were given) growing up, and do you still play it today?
How does this role shape your current relationships, boundaries, and stress levels?
What is one thing you could do that would
Questions to Reflect on Your Childhood (and its influence on you as an adult):
What was going on at five-years-old (and the years into adulthood) that resulted in…?
What was childhood like? Describe it…joyful, protected, neglected, restrained, painful, scary?
What were some of the happiest moments?
What were some of the most challenging moments?
Was discipline used or was punishment used?
What did your childhood and family teach you about:
Values, morals and virtues such as honesty, kindness, compassion, respect, integrity?Expressing emotions?
Feeling sad, hurt, scared, anxious, disgusted, frustrated, angry, happy, proud, joyful?
Accountability, remorse, and apologizing?
Your strengths?
Work and success?
Having fun?
Love?
Sex?
Money?
Religion?
Having children?
Raising children?
Religion or spirituality?
This practice is supportive of and celebrates LGBTQ+ identities.
