Parental Burnout
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
This opening line of Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities may be the shortest and most fitting way to describe parenthood in all its honesty.
Being a parent can be the most beautiful and the hardest job in the world. No matter how much they love their children, every parent may one day feel exhausted, fed up or like a failure. When this shows up as signs such as feeling emotionally distant from the child, being fed up with being a parent, or losing the sense of being a successful parent, and when it settles into the parent’s life too deeply to be described as a passing low mood, we can speak of “Parental Burnout”.
“Parental Burnout” is an exhaustion syndrome that results from prolonged exposure to chronic parenting stress, characterized by feeling overwhelmed, feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, becoming emotionally distant from one’s children, and feeling like an ineffective parent. Although in our culture parents rarely voice it, since being tired of being a mother or father is not well received by society, it is known that on average 20–25% of parents may experience parental burnout syndrome. This means that one in every 4 or 5 parents, at certain times while raising children, struggles greatly psychologically and experiences feelings such as weariness, helplessness and failure to an unbearable degree.
Parental burnout is different from the ordinary parenting stress every parent experiences. This syndrome is a mother’s or father’s response to a prolonged, stressful parenting period. A burned-out parent gradually withdraws from their relationship with their child and begins to lose their bond with them. The emotional bond between child and parent reaches the point of disappearing; the parent continues to meet only the child’s physical needs out of a sense of obligation, while avoiding the activities that would strengthen the emotional bond between them. As a result, the person begins to feel they are not a good parent, and the joy they once found in being a parent or spending time with their child gives way to a sense of suffering.
Every parent is exposed to a certain amount of stress while raising children. The intensity of this stress cannot be seen from the outside and is unique to each person. Different factors, such as the child’s temperament and developmental stage, and the parent’s personality traits, emotion regulation skills and ways of coping with stress, can affect the level of stress a parent feels. When not enough resources can be found to cope with this perceived stress, we can say there is a risk of Parental Burnout. The resources a parent uses to cope with the stressors they face while raising children can be seen as protective factors. Research shows that burnout can arise when a parent’s protective factors are too few to offset the risk factors, that is, the sources of stress.
Most studies on this subject today focus on the factors that drive mothers and fathers toward parental burnout syndrome. According to the findings, the following situations create a riskier environment for parents and increase their likelihood of experiencing parental burnout.
1) When the goal is to be the perfect parent.
2) When the parent has a neurotic disorder (depression, anxiety, etc.), emotional deprivation, or a lack of stress management skills.
3) When partners do not give each other enough emotional and practical support.
4) When parents do not receive enough emotional and practical support from other family members, friends and their social circle.
5) When parents have weak parenting skills and methods.
6) When they have children with special needs that make family life more difficult.
7) When parents stay at home or work part-time.
Of course, not every parent who has one or some of these factors will experience parental burnout syndrome. However, people who do experience it usually have some of the risk factors above.
Parental burnout can lead to depressive symptoms, patterns of addiction, sleep problems and conflict between partners. Thoughts of running away from home, neglect of the child, or violence toward the child are among its other possible consequences. For these reasons, it is a syndrome that needs close attention, prevention or repair, both for the parent’s health and for the child’s healthy development.
It is possible to prevent parental burnout or recover from it. One of the ways to do this, and the most comprehensive, is of course to get help from a therapist. However, in the rest of this article I will share some self-help suggestions.
What can be done to avoid this syndrome or recover from it?
1) You can make a list of your personal needs and plan how you will meet them. For example, if you need some enjoyable time for yourself, instead of putting it off, you can make realistic plans for how to make it happen.
2) You can identify which factors pose a risk for you and try to make changes related to them. Earlier in this article we listed some risk factors. A few of them may matter for you and may truly be areas that need work.
3) Building a social support network can do you a lot of good. This network can be made up of people who can be there for you both emotionally and practically, and who can lighten your load both materially and emotionally.
4) You should develop realistic expectations about parenting. You should not blame yourself for not being perfect, and should show yourself compassion as a parent. You can remind yourself that this is a hard job, that it is impossible to do it without mistakes, and that you can aim to be good enough rather than perfect, and you can work on the unhelpful beliefs you hold about this.
5) For the difficult moments with your children, you can choose a few sentences as mottos to calm yourself. This could be a religious phrase or a meditative sentence, or one that strengthens your patience or reminds you that this difficulty will pass soon and that much better things await you in the long run…
6) You can work on developing your stress management and emotion regulation methods and skills. For this, you can draw on different resources such as self-help books, psychoeducation programs or individual counselling. It will take some time, but it will be a very productive process.
7) You can try not to compare yourself with other parents. There may be parents who are better off than you, who have better means, who are raising children with easier temperaments, and who seem more successful. But it is important to keep the truth in mind: every parent is in different circumstances, and it is hardly possible to objectively determine who is doing better or who is happier. In short, comparing yourself with other parents will not be helpful.
Of course, we could add many more points. Frankly, there is no single, fixed method or recipe against parental burnout that works for everyone. A moment ago we talked about risk factors and protective factors. If you want to stay clear of parental burnout or overcome it, you should work at the same time to reduce the risk factors and increase the protective factors. Here is an example: let’s say you have two young children, your partner works, and you have taken on the job of caring for the children on your own. Looking after the children tires you out, and on top of that you cannot find any time for yourself. Going to a park for a quiet walk to enjoy nature, or meeting up and having fun with close friends, has become a dream for you. In such a situation, never leaving the house and cutting yourself off from life by devoting yourself entirely to the children is a risk factor. Meeting friends or taking a walk in the park, on the other hand, can be a protective resource for many people. In this case, applying options at the same time, such as finding a babysitter to look after the children or getting help with childcare from the parent’s own social circle, while the parent reorganizes their own social life, will offer protection against parental burnout syndrome.
Of course, each person should assess their own situation. Every mother and father has unique problems and unique life circumstances. So you can make a list of the things about parenting that challenge you and decide what you can do to ease them. On the other hand, you can also plan what kinds of life changes would make you feel good and positively affect your mental health and your ability to cope.
You don’t have to love being a parent. Every stage of life with children has parts that are very hard to bear. When you give yourself permission not to have to love every part of this process, you experience an inner softening and show yourself more understanding. You don’t become a mother or father when your child is born; you add the words mother or father to your titles. That is why preserving the many sides of your life will always make you feel good.
See you in our next article.
Psych. Malik Kubilay Çadırcıoğlu
Sources:
Mikolajczak, M., Gross, J. J., & Roskam, I. (2019). Parental burnout: What is it, and why does it matter?. Clinical Psychological Science, 7(6), 1319-1329.
Roskam, I., Raes, M. E., & Mikolajczak, M. (2017). Exhausted parents: Development and preliminary validation of the parental burnout inventory. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 163.
