Every word you say to your child, every reaction you have to their tears or their mess or their need, becomes material their developing brain uses to answer questions they cannot yet put into language. Questions like: Who am I? Am I worth staying close to? What happens when I fall apart? They are not choosing these conclusions. Their nervous systems are drawing them, the way roots grow toward whatever water is available. This is why what you say in the ordinary moments matters more than the big speeches. Correction is not just behavior management. It is authorship. You are co-writing a self. Parentification is one of the clearest examples of how love and burden can become confused. When a child is asked, directly or indirectly, to hold what they were never built to hold, they will often try. They can perform competence. They can become the steady one, the invisible one, the one who reads the room so no one else has to. But they cannot actually meet those expectations, not developmental...