Child adultification

Childhood adultification involves children being exposed to adult knowledge and engaging in behaviours understood as adult-like (such as taking on caregiving or provider roles in the family).

Based on ethnographic research with low-income families, Burton theorizes 4 types of childhood adultification:

1) Precocious knowledge: witnessing situations and acquiring knowledge that are advanced for the child’s age.

2) Mentored adultification: when a child assumes an adult role with limited supervision from an adult.

3) Peerification/spousification: when a child behaves more like a parent’s peer or spouse than like a parent’s subordinate (takes on role of quasi wife, husband or confidante).

4) Parentification: when a child assumes a full-time quasi parent role to their siblings and parents.