Final answer:
Immigrants in America often face a language barrier, resulting in a shortage of translators which leads to children acting as interpreters for their parents. This inversion of family dynamics can bolster self-esteem but may also cause short-term stress.
Step-by-step explanation:
One of the main difficulties that immigrants have to face when they arrive in America is the language barrier. In many public offices and hospitals, translators are available. However, with so many different languages spoken in cities, translators are often in short supply, so it is important that immigrants are accompanied by somebody who speaks their language. Difficulties may also arise in other spheres of life, such as going shopping or seeing doctors. In those situations, parents have to rely on their young children to be their interpreters when they need to communicate in English with other people. As a result, children become indispensable to their parents who must face all the household chores, including high-stakes situations such as solving problems in an immigration office or a bank, and other situations where they have to translate difficult words, such as a serious doctor’s diagnosis of their parent’s illness. In these scenarios, the dynamics of a typical family become inverted, as the children control their parents’ most important matters. Psychologists acknowledge that in the long run, translating for parents can buttress the children’s self-esteem and prepare them for future life, but experts are concerned that the practice may cause short-term stress and embarrassment, which may affect young children emotionally.