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Comment: Informally written, and poorly formatted. I dream of horses (Hoofprints) (Neigh at me) 03:33, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
Golden Child Syndrome refers to a family dynamic where a child seems to be favored by their parents over their siblings as well as being held to extremely high standard. While not a mental health disorder itself, many had reported experiencing significant distress as an aftermath of relentlessly trying to meet their parents’ expectation at the cost of their own emotional health.
Cause
Deeply ingrained in their lives, the cause of Golden Child Syndrome is mostly rooted in one’s parents, who are likely to be narcissists. Instead of caring for the child’s needs and growth, narcissists tend to put the focus on themselves, viewing their offsprings as an extension of who they are. As a result, they are most likely to adopt an authoritarian parenting style
Demanding the little ones to follow their advice from casual habits to academic and future choices, controlling parents give little chance for children to discover their own identity. While the golden children may not fully feel comfortable with their overwhelming approach, it is unlikely that they rebel them due to the natural feeling of need to comply with the parents’ decisions in search for love and approval. In addition, the displayed compliance can also indicates the golden child truly believes their parents have their best interest in mind, that they are “correct”. Hence, the golden child would continue to follow their parents’ interference despite the draining emotional burden caused, resulting in Golden Child Syndrome.
Parents who feel insecure about their own may misplace their longing for success and greatness onto the young child, pushing the youngster to succeed in areas that they themselves cannot. This places an burdensome responsibility on the child, as they not only have to carry the unreasonable responsibility to maintain their parents’ happiness, but also meet with their impossible demands. Nonetheless, it is impossible to feel validated through another’s success. Hence, even if the child is able to grow up to become a remarkable model, the parents would still not think it as enough, worsening the great emotional burden of the child. The emotional manipulative nature of the relationship would keep the child stuck even after coming of age, leading to the Golden Child Syndrome.
While almost all parents would appreciate their child being a young prodigy, some parents take this to extra height. Believing their child to be unreasonably talented or intellectual, they believe that the child has the ability to attend great success in all aspects of life. As a result, they would continue to put tremendous pressure on the child, pushing them to pursue a high file in all the areas of life.
Only showing the tiniest hint of love and care when the child had done something they believe to be worthy of praise, the child of such parents would grow to believe that they are only worthy of love if they are good enough, tying personal success with affection. with the ever-growing demands of the parents and their sincere wish for approval, the child would pay unimaginable effort in making themselves worthy of love, resulting on Golden Child syndrome.
Parents who are perfectionists are likely to hold such standard to their children as well, expecting them to be flawless and all-rounded individuals. This creates a highly stressful environment that makes child believe that they are not enough, believing that they have to be as perfect as their parents force them to be to be worthy of love and acceptance, leading to significant burden of the youngster and the Golden child Syndrome.
Treating their child as their own trophy, some parents urge the child to achieve unbelievable success as a source for them to brag. Becoming a tool for parents to gain social approval, the child would be put under immense stress for success, resulting in Golden Child Syndrome.
Signs
Golden Child can appear in different ways, affecting the emotional and psychological health of the children, here are some of the in-depth descriptions of the signs of golden child. Golden child has strong and continuous need for validation. Approval and compliments from parents, teachers or maybe peers are frequently sought from them. They believe that their value is connected to what they accomplish, and ongoing validation is required that they have met the standard expected from people around them.Golden child is always surrounded by fear. They afraid and terrified failure rejection, and abandonment. They often feel terrified about failing in completing a task or make small mistakes which may disappoint people around them. Moreover, they often struggle and feel tense to try new things due to their terror in failure which may lead to them being rejected and abandoned by their parents.Golden child often strives for perfection in all endeavors. It is evident as they often pay attention to small details, and they have an unwavering quest for perfection. As they gain attention and love from people around them due to their outstanding capabilities, they will put in effort and strive their best to be perfect with no mistakes to get recognition from everyone. Golden child are often high achievers, standing out in academic, sports and other pursuits. In order to meet the rigorous expectation of their parents to get love and attention from them they need to surpass their peers.Golden child has weak sense of identity as they don’t express themselves in front of people. To avoid letting down people around them, golden child may hold back their emotions and viewpoints that might disappoint people around them. It shows that golden child value and prioritize other people’s thoughts and emotion over themselves. Expressing anger, sadness, or frustration could be challenging for them as these emotions may be perceived as indicators of weakness or defeat. Even pursuing their own dreams is harsh it may not meet the expectations from people around them. Golden child perform more mature than their peers, they are deemed as parentified. child. Golden children often fulfill their parents' aspirations, causing them to mature earlier than expected according to Janelle S. Peifer, PhD, LCP, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Richmond. They are more than willing to handle jobs with adult responsibilities such as taking care their young siblings rather than activities that are considered childish. A golden child who has been parentified often has to mature quickly to take on the adult responsibilities that are demanded of them.Golden child also tries to please the people around them. These children will go to great lengths to satisfy their parents and other authority figures because the consequences of disappointing them are so significant. It is their primary way to experience love and security. Golden child fails to accept criticism. As they are accustomed to praise and high expectations, might struggle with receiving criticism. Even constructive feedback and recommendations may be perceived as a failure or a personal assault.
Effect
Growing up in a detrimental environment, the deeply ingrained hurt during childhood would not simply disappear when they grow up. Instead, the shadow of their childhood would still have severe damaging effects in the golden child’s lives.
Growing up having to meet the needs of parents instead of their own, the golden child would likely to become parentified, viewing it as their fundamental responsibility to satisfy the needfulness of those who are supposed to take care of them. As a result of parentification, the golden child would have to step into an adult role much sooner than they are ready, causing significant detrimental effect on their psychological development.
Having to meet the unrealistic expectations of parents for the tinniest bits of affection, the golden child is likely to be immersed into a toxic amount of chronic stress from an early age, which is extremely harmful to their psychological and physiological development as a whole. Unmanaged, such distress would prevail even when the youngster becomes an adult, continue to cause them harm.
Being told that they should excel in all categories In their lives and held up to unrealistic expectations, the golden child has an increasing risk of becoming a narcissist themselves due to tying up self-worth with achievements. While this does not necessarily mean that all golden child would end up to be narcissistic, the probability that they would take after their parents’ parenting style and treat the own offspring the same way they were treated do raise concern.
Although not all golden children would inherently mentally ill, their exposure to toxic parents during critical developmental periods would have significant impact on their mental health in general speaking. They may adopt unhealthy coping mechanisms and emotional response, which increase their likelihood of psychopathology as a whole.
Growing up experience in the withdrawal of love and limited affection, the golden child has an increasing risk of developing insecure attachment style, including anxious attachment, avoidant attachment and disorganized attachment. This would severely impact their ability to form healthy, functional relationships of all kind, limiting the social support they can get when it is much needed.
Treatment
Currently, there is no specific medications for golden child syndrome but there are some ways to alleviate the symptoms.
Staying away from toxic relationships can help patients to safeguard their personal space. Adults, especially the parents who are trying to manipulate the patients, have intruded into the patient’s mindset. Loss of individual will leads to severe conditions so patients should set up suitable social boundaries. The boundaries have to be prominent and clear such as stating which issues are not up for discussion. If the parents ignore the patients' assert, it is suggested to stop communication for a short period of time. Entire disconnection with the parents is necessary if the situation continues. It is tough to sever a relationship but maintaining a healthy metal wellbeing is the top priority.
Additionally, patients should listen to their hearts and respect for every emotion they come up with. It is of vital significance to neglect the thoughts of others that make the patients feel stressed out. Instead of living up to others' expectations, the patients need to focus on individual needs.
Practicing self-love also plays a key role in patient recovery. Patients can encourage themselves by having some small trearts when they are in low spirits. In order to achieve inner peace, meditation can be carried out.
Reaching out to the professionals including social workers and therapists is crucial if self-healing is not effective. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) are the common treatment to patients' trauma. The above therapies aim to help the patients to manage their emotions, integrate their experience and address their painful memories.
References
edithttps://thriveworks.com/help-with/children-teens-adolescents/golden-child-syndrome/
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a40314500/golden-child-syndrome/
https://www.charliehealth.com/post/golden-child-syndrome