When Adults Use Children To Meet Their Emotional Needs, What Happens?

Children are often used by adults to meet their emotional needs if the adult does not have another adult to turn to. This generally happens in the case of single parents, wherein the parent, if he or she has no one to go to, seeks solace in someone who is closest to him or her, in most cases it being the children or child. For parents who do not have much of a social life, children are the only source of company that they have.
Also, adults when faced with a grievous loss or a tragedy or any kind of disarray in their lives, it is often the children that they turn to, owing to the close bond between parent and child that exists since birth.
Sometimes parents in their need for company often stifle their children with love, the consequences of which are not always favourable.

It's probably not good...The child may become codependent in adult life due to this role reversal.  Children are not mature enough to handle this responsibility,that's what adults are for.