Not quite an inner child

Everyone does the best they can.  What else can they do?

But some are more sensitive than others and that can work both for and against them.  Parents cannot give what they do not understand the need for and they give what they do not understand the danger or injurious nature of.

Just taking a child somewhere they can have fun, or buying them things is a sort of benign neglect. Children need people that actually help them understand who they are and what they need.

Children don't always know when they are tired, or what their body needs to eat, or how to prepare for life after childhood. Even adults don't always understand these things and so adult children are born.  People not necessarily traumatized by brutality, but by benign neglect.

One of the worst parts of being an adult child is not even knowing they exist. Once that is acknowledged there is still a lot of work to be done, because children of all ages are all different.

Relying on just one person to care for that little one, play with it and love it for exactly who it is, so that the rest of the adult can go on leading a grown-up life and being productive, is almost impossible.

A really great support system includes lots of different resources, but the important thing is that it is tailored to the needs of each particular person, adult, or child.