A young carer is a child or young person under the age of 25 who helps look after a family member or friend with a long-term illness, disability, terminal illness, or substance misuse issues related to drugs or alcohol.

Young carers help their loved ones in many ways, and I am speaking from personal experience here.
My daughter was only 2 years old when she became a Young Carer
and I have often been asked
“Well, what could a young child do?”
The answer to that is simple if you’ve experienced this, and complicated if you haven’t.
Younger Young Carers often have an emotional supporting role; they can’t help but be affected by what’s going on at home, and therefore, they soon learn to be supportive in their own ways, such as keeping their loved one company while they watch TV. It might sound bizarre, but when you have a family member who struggles with anxiety or depression, for example, having a child sit with them to cheer them up can make all the difference in that moment, and being a carer means adapting from moment to moment each day.
Likewise, the child will be able to read situations and know when they need to be quiet, because their loved one needs some peace and quiet. Again, anyone who hasn’t experienced this might be questioning it right now, and if that’s you and you’re thinking ‘
“Well, a child should never be a carer.”
I would have to agree with you, but we don’t live in an ideal world. There aren’t enough professional carers to meet the need, and even if you do have the luxury of professional carers coming in, they are there for a limited amount of time, and then they’re gone.

I was once told by my daughter’s teacher that I should be shielding her from all of this. It just so happened that my family was in therapy with a neuropsychologist at the time (to learn how to find coping strategies). So at the next meeting, I put this to him and he told me that you cannot shield children from a family member who has a disability or illness of any kind. It’s impossible and far too complex. Instead, the child needs the right amount of love and support to help them cope with what’s happening at home.

Look at it another way…
If a family member of yours had a car accident today that left them with a permanent disability, would you love them any less? Was it their fault that they became disabled or chronically ill? Of course not! It’s no one’s fault, and the same is true in families where there are young carers present. No one asked for this to happen. It’s no one’s fault. The child still loves the family member just the same and wants to help them in any way they can.

The only difference between a child who is a Young Carer and a child who isn’t, is that the young carer has more responsibilities at home and needs more understanding from their teachers at school!