In the beginning of our lives, we are dependent on our parents/caregivers to meet our needs. Within the kind of household we grew up in, we learnt through experience what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, what will support our needs being met and what works against it, what is safe and what isn’t. Anything that didn’t serve us, including anything we were shamed for, we pushed to the subconscious and disowned from the conscious view of ourselves. So by and large, we learnt who we are in relation to others, especially in relation to our family members and most especially in relation to our parents. In other words, your personality is in large part the result of adaptations to your early social environment.
This early social environment was
to a degree impacted by intergenerational patterns. Many of the experiences your parents went through within their family of origin were perpetuated and transferred
to the family they raised. How much of it is transferred depends on the level of
awareness and integration of these patterns. Some of the patterns are positive
and others are negative. Learning about our parents’ and grandparents’
childhoods and familial relationships can be incredibly healing and I highly
recommend spending some time studying just that.
Families are like one unit that always seeks homeostasis or balance. Each family member plays a role in this and when their role or position changes, all other members of the family and the group as a whole, are impacted. So for example, when one or more family members are struggling to self-regulate in appropriate ways, regardless of the reason, other family members may unconsciously step into different roles as an attempt to rebalance the family. No family is perfect, and there is always some or other dynamic happening. That’s not something to be afraid of looking at though, because once we become aware of a dynamic, it doesn’t control us anymore, as it stops being played out in subconscious ways. We can start to change it and eventually heal it in ourselves. As we heal ourselves, we heal our relationships and become a match to new healthier relationships.
We might have a lot of resistance to seeing the parts of our upbringing that were dysfunctional or created faulty patterns in us, especially when we want to feel accepted by and belonging to our family. Alternatively, we might struggle to see what was beneficial and good in our upbringing, if closeness and belonging with the particular family we had, holds a negative meaning for us. Most likely there were both negative and positive dynamics being played out AND the scale was tipped one way. What’s important, is awareness. Awareness is a trump card when it comes to creating healthy social dynamics and a healthy sense of self.
Let’s have a closer look at the most common family roles the children can play into, in order to create a bird’s eye view of the patterns that these roles can create; patterns that keep playing out in our adulthood. Whatever role we adopted was not a conscious choice, it was just going with what worked.
The 3 roles we are going to look at are basically 3 directions children can take in their interactions with their parents: one is to please, one is to stay neutral, one is to act against. Our role determined the specific coping mechanisms that we learnt to excel at and this had a major impact on how we began seeing ourselves. Whichever role we mostly played into, is what became our primary coping mechanism in life. It’s not who we are, but it’s the style of relating that we adopted and what feels the most familiar and therefore comfortable for us. The 3 roles we will look at are not definite, there are other roles too. But for sake of simplicity, let’s look at the main ones.
I want to remind you that a role is not something that is fixed. Your role can shift and change with time and circumstances, and you can also have multiple roles in relation to different people. Essentially, these roles summarize a set of behaviours, to help us think about these behaviours in an organized way. There are many variations within each role as well as less extreme ways that they come up. As you read on, you may or may not recognize elements of each main role in yourself.
The golden child, sometimes called the hero or the chosen one, is the one who is good and special. In the family system, they generally access more resources.
There are two ways one becomes a golden child: by doing something that the parent wants or values, or by virtue of cultural bias, such as when there is a strong preference for a particular gender. For example, in some cultures it can simply be the oldest son in the family. The golden child may represent what the parent wants to be or s/he may simply get the parent the most validation by his or her looks or skills. The parents look to this child to prove that they are good parents and good people. In this way, the golden child is the recipient of the parents’ positive projections and has to live up to them to receive love and positive attention. So from an early age, they learn that love is conditional. With a narcissistic parent, this dynamic can go to an extreme, where the golden child is having to keep winning over the parent, up to the point where s/he experiences abuse from the parent as ‘love’.
The parent or caregiver often favors the golden child, but as I mentioned, this is conditional. There is the danger of falling from grace, of not being able to deliver, which can create a lot of pressure to perform or be in the way that is expected. This is especially true when there are other siblings in worse positions and who do not have the same sense of safety that the position of the golden child provides. The parent can remind the golden child to appreciate how lucky s/he is and how difficult they as parents have it. This induces a profound sense of guilt, that can carry over into adulthood and keep the golden child trapped in behaving ways that guarantees their ‘goodness’.
The golden child can take on major responsibility over the well-being of an individual or a family system. They can become parentified, meaning they step in to an adult position in the family when one of their parents is physically or emotionally unavailable, such as in the case of addiction, mental health disorders and/or chronic health conditions. This responsibility however can also come from simply being the one in the family who gets the parent or is able to be closer to an otherwise inaccessible parent.
As an adult, the gold child may continue to act in a co-dependent manner or (in less cases) they may perpetuate the experience of having been over-evaluated and develop narcissistic traits themselves. The golden child may be drawn to relationships where their persona as the good and virtuous one is validated and fitting, even if that is with a partner who is emotionally unavailable or has issues with addiction, chronic conditions, or mental health disorders. This is simply because they have only learned to be in a transactional type of a relationship, where what they do is valued over who they are.
They may also throw themselves into work and suffer from compulsive over-working, which can potentially lead into stress-related illnesses. Their goal in life is to achieve success, however that has been defined by the family; they must always be ‘brave and strong’. Even with great achievements and success, the golden child may still struggle with self-esteem and anxiety, as their persona doesn’t feel authentic. It was based on what was deemed 'good' (by the standards of someone else), and thus a whole chunk of who they are was suppressed and denied. And still is, until they begin seeing their internal world as more complex and holistic and making space for new ways of relating to themselves and others in their lives.
The golden child needs to learn to allow others have their experience and for them to take responsibility for their experience, without jumping in to fix, save, make better or distract – even if this feels detrimental and costs the relationship. This kind of challenge will inevitably come up as the golden child starts to rebel against what is expected and set his or her own authentic boundaries.
The missing need of the golden child is being simply a child, being allowed to play, to make mistakes and still be accepted and loved. The golden child needs to experience relationships where they are valued for who they are, as a whole person, instead of for what they do.
Lost child, same as the invisible child, has a quiet and shy disposition. S/he is the one who experiences neglect in the family.
The lost child role comes up when the child learns that keeping to themselves and withdrawing from the family is the safest option or when other family members cut off their attention to the degree that the child simply fades to the background of everything else going on.
In abusive households, this is a brilliant strategy. The lost child stays out of the way of the chaos and dysfunction by blending in to the background as much as possible and by never rocking the boat. They are quiet, neutral in extreme, hidden, passive and solemn. They may feel ignored, but they are also scared or reluctant to draw attention to themselves. Their safety lies in physically removing themselves from the ‘scene of the crime’ as much as is possible. When there are more siblings and many problems in the household, it is especially easy for the parents to begin overlooking the child with this kind of behavior. They may even acknowledge that the child takes no effort and no attention, and say things like this is a good and easy child, completely capable of taking care of themselves.
In the scenario where the family induces this role, rather than it being about the safety, the lost child can try to change the dynamic and get the attention in all sorts of ways. Children need nurturing, being tended to, being a part of something bigger and having others be there for them and guide them. Instinctually s/he will try everything to get the notice: getting the best grades, being the best child or sometimes also getting in trouble. If nothing works, the lost child learns that s/he doesn't have value, doesn't matter, is not good enough and has no impact whatsoever. Essentially this is an experience of complete powerlessness.
Because the lost child ends up spending a lot of time alone, sometimes actively avoiding interacting with others, s/he never has a chance to develop important social and communication skills. As an adult, the lost child may struggle with friendships and romantic relationships, preferring to be alone. Growing up in conditions of neglect will create the vicious circle, where s/he feels the void inside, needing the presence, but also fearing connection, as s/he never experienced consistent healthy attunement and positive attention. Lost children can end up isolating themselves, not believing they deserve anyone to be good to them.
Inside they experience an intense sense of rejection, separation and being neglected, while outwardly they blend in, adjusting themselves according to others. Interacting in groups can bring up discomfort and anxiety. They struggle with self-worth, as they never experienced being valuable enough to be noticed. This can lead into a life of not only isolation, but also anger and resentment. In adulthood, the lost child may act against this conditioning and try to find any and every way of getting noticed.
Lack of social interaction also means lack of reflection from others, which is the basis for forming a sense of self. Because of lack of attention in childhood, the lost child never fully explored what s/he wants, what s/he needs, how s/he feels and who s/he is. As a result, the lost child can lack direction and a sense of anchoring, feeling like a stranger, not belonging anywhere. The lost child instinctually avoids any sort of conflict or opposition, keeping a low profile. S/he can struggle with making decisions, not knowing what’s right for him or her. As s/he doesn't take up challenges in life, s/he can end up doing things in life well below his or her capability.
The missing need of the lost child is to have consistent attunement and loving presence from another person. The lost child needs to recognize having impact and to learn in which ways s/he wants to have impact in relationships and in the world in general.
Scapegoat is the so-called problem child within the family, also known as ‘identified patient’. This role is assumed by any child who doesn’t play into the family expectations and receives most of the blame for any problem that comes up.
Scapegoat is the person in the family who receives consistent negative attention in the form of accusations and blame for whatever mistakes, faults and wrongdoings take place, including the ones that may very well have nothing to do with them. That way, the actual source of the discomfort, that is the actual problems within the family, are being deflected and projected and thus, not dealt with. They are isolated and ganged up against or heavily criticized by other family members, or the whole family system.
The reason they are scapegoated can be manifold: sometimes they are perceived as a threat, for being superior in some way; other times they are the one that sees through the dysfunction of the family system and does not play into it. There are two types of scapegoated children, there is the angry, defiant, disobedient and self-destructive problem child who is constantly getting into trouble and into conflicts; and there is the weak, picked on, or sick child. In both cases, the child is sacrificed for the family, meaning they are in the receiving end of the family’s negative projections. Children who are scapegoated are often aware of their role in the family and may feel rejected, unlovable, isolated and confused.
With time the scapegoat will become conditioned to expect negative attention. They usually experience more and/or harsher abuse or negative consequences compared to other siblings or family members. There is no straight communication, no solutions, no genuine care and concern being offered to this child. Instead there is constant emotional abuse, gaslighting and manipulation. That can create a hardening and alienation to a degree, where the child begins seeing everyone as a potential attacker. Noone is in their camp, so they become hypervigilant about protecting themselves. The second layer of this role is when the scapegoat accepts the blame and the family starts to focus their energy onto fixing them. This way the scapegoat avoids abandonment and the family avoids confronting their own dysfunction. This can lead to the scapegoat taking on the burden of the family dysfunction for everyone in the family system.
In adulthood, the scapegoat often experiences difficulty connecting with others on a genuine level and may self-sabotage, as a result of deep shame for being ‘bad’. They can be very clever and develop social skills within their chosen circle, even becoming leaders in their own group, but the people they choose to associate with, do not represent healthy relationships, and their relationships can be quite shallow and inauthentic. This person is used to being accused and blamed for everything, so their style of relating with others is through opposition or becoming the problem the other people try to help, heal or fix. They are magnets for gaslighting and they struggle with the pattern of ‘I can never do anything right’.
The missing need of a scapegoat is to experience genuine love, meaning someone taking his or her best interest at heart. They need relationships where others are able to fully own up to and take responsibility for what is theirs (and no more), essentially without going into victim-villain-hero dynamics.
While a particular family role can feel challenging to separate ourselves from, noticing when and how we act from that mindset that comes with the role, can be hugely beneficial. Remember, I've just outlined 3 versions. Your version of your main role will have its own face. Seeing your role can help you recognize when you re-enact it in our current life. For example, you may identify as the one who mainly stayed neutral in the family. You were not particularly rebellious, nor were you particularly aiming to please. Now when it comes to how you view yourself, you may see yourself as somewhat aloof and separate from others, maybe just doing your own thing, alone, but like 24/7. Then sometimes, you may experience a desire or a wish that contradicts your view of yourself. Such as wanting to be recognized and praised for something. Now because you believe you are your role, chances are, you feel like it is not for you. So I would invite you to challenge yourself whenever you notice that you think, speak or behave in a similar way to how you were in your childhood and just recognize the limitation to begin with. Observe and recognize that there is more to you.
You are not in the same situation
as you were in your childhood. You absolutely can take the initiative to change
those patterns that re-enact the old programming. Change begins with a decision
to go towards something different. Step by step. Catch yourself being the role.
Each time you do, ask yourself who are you in that moment, without the role.
And then, do, think or say something that you would not normally do. Trying
something else that is outside of the role as much as possible will begin
shifting your experience towards more choices and more freedom to be who you
choose to be now.
- Maarja Lall
