“Y’all are savages,” says Evie, a skinny 9-year-old prone to spontaneous dance. His opponent, a freckle-faced boy named Charlie, waits a few feet away, ready to smash cars together. Ronan grabs a handful of toy cars and kneels on a clinic floor at Texas Neurology in Dallas. Caregiving is a task that children like Ronan and Keaton take seriously and something that their mom hopes will shape them into empathetic, strong young men.īut getting there first involves a daily struggle to balance being a kid with living in a very grown-up world. Kavanaugh and other researchers say the number of young caregivers is growing, and they need support. “They exist in the shadows,” said Kavanaugh, an associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

They’re often too young to drive, and their work frequently goes unnoticed outside the home. These children help cancer patients, military veterans, grandparents with heart disease or autistic siblings.

Some kids are the only caregivers patients have, while others fill in when visiting nurses or other help is not available. may provide some form of care at home, according to researcher Melinda Kavanaugh. As many as 10 million children in the U.S.