Parental burnout has probably always been a part of raising kids.
After all, it’s a 24/7 job with no real breaks. You’re still on duty when your kids are asleep, listening in case they wake up with nightmares or a stomach bug. When they’re at school, you get a string of notifications about bus changes (my kid doesn’t even ride the bus, and I get these almost daily), test schedules, and other activities.
However, it seems like there’s particularly a lot of it these days, with the U.S. government recently recognizing parents’ stress as reaching crisis level, financial strains at extremes, social media heavily influencing kids, and a seemingly infinite variety of worries about our children’s futures.
What can we do?
Parental Burnout is Widespread And Serious
An article published in the Journal of Pediatric Health Care earlier this year reported that 65% of working parents say they’re experiencing burnout.
There are several risk factors, such as lack of access to child care, financial stress, and a lack of access to a social support system. Many of these factors are exacerbated right now, with budget cuts affecting child care programs and potentially school lunch programs and grocery prices soaring.
While this is hard on parents, it also puts kids at risk. The same report found that parent burnout “was significantly associated with greater risk of child maltreatment,” with parents experiencing burnout more than three times as likely to physically harm their children (including slapping, spanking, and even burning a child), around twice as likely to criticize and insult their children, and almost 3 times as likely to scream or cuss at their kids, compared to those who did not report burnout.
What Are The Signs & Symptoms?
How can you tell if you’re suffering from parental burnout?
If your child is 8 years old and you’ve been exhausted for eight years, it might be hard to define the line between general exhaustion and absolute burnout.
According to Newport Healthcare, three basic symptoms characterize parent burnout. They are:
- Overwhelming exhaustion, particularly related to parenting roles and tasks
- A feeling of emotional disconnection from your children
- Feeling ineffective as a parent or incapable of parenting well
As you can see, these feelings can be distressing even when felt in isolation or momentarily—when they’re combined and ongoing, it’s quite the emotional struggle.
How Is Parental Burnout Different From Your Usual Exhaustion?
In general, exhaustion is considered temporary, while burnout is chronic.
If you wake up on Tuesday still tired from Saturday, that leans more toward burnout than exhaustion. If you routinely wake up tired, stressed, and defeated, you might be experiencing burnout. While exhaustion might make you want a day off to sleep or a long weekend to relax and do nothing, burnout might make you fantasize about crawling under your pillow, hiding, or finding a nice cave somewhere and abandoning civilization.
Burnout can also cause a parent to suffer symptoms that are more commonly associated with mental health diagnoses, including chronic anxiety and depression, difficulty concentrating, sleep struggles, depersonalization, and dissociation.
Can We Stop Parental Burnout?
Your parental burnout didn’t happen overnight or even in a few weeks. For many parents, normal levels of exhaustion escalated into burnout during the more isolated stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the symptoms still haven’t eased. Others were already suffering from it.
That means you need to understand that you won’t cure it overnight, either. Instead, this is going to be a long process that requires constant maintenance.
However, the good news is that psychologists do have a list of strategies for reducing burnout to a manageable intensity.
Give Yourself Some Grace & Understanding
Several of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) recommendations for addressing chronic parenting fatigue involve being a little more forgiving of yourself and giving yourself a little space to relax.
The first is to “stop saying should.”
In other words, stop beating yourself up for not living up to your expectations. Okay, sure, you’ve set a standard that you should feed your kids vegetables with every meal, and today you’re exhausted and have just served them chicken nuggets and French fries.
Instead of saying, “I should have…” the APA recommends rephrasing the thought in a way that’s not guilt-centered and shame-inducing, like “It would be nice if I could.”
You could even try appreciating your efforts and rephrasing that thought as “I feed my kids vegetables frequently.”
Another is to find time for ‘microbreaks.’
This might mean giving yourself permission to lock the bathroom door and wear headphones for a few minutes (provided your kids are safe), or stopping in the middle of cooking dinner to step outside, take a few deep breaths, and enjoy the sunshine. It might mean subscribing to a podcast that offers daily affirmations or uplifting news or stories, or taking a break during your day to stretch, drink water, and focus on yourself.
Seek Support (Social And/Or Professional)
The more we discuss it, the less stigma there is for parental burnout.
You can spend time with friends exchanging stories and lifting each other up. You can post anonymously on the internet if you’re still afraid of social repercussions, and hear from other parents who are also beyond overwhelmed. (They probably serve their kids chicken nuggets in front of the television just as often as you do, and for the same essential reason.)
If you need more support, there’s no shame in seeking therapy for yourself or as a family.
Individual therapists can support you in finding ways to take care of yourself, and family therapists can help find ways to manage parenting and family conflict that don’t leave you feeling (quite) so exhausted and defeated.
Find The Good In Your Parenting & Your Kids
The APA recommends focusing on the most meaningful aspects of parenting.
Stop and think about the best qualities of your children and what you love about them. For this, I like the Glennon Doyle quote:
“Don’t let yourself become so concerned with raising a good kid that you forget you already have one.”
Sure, your toddler had a small tantrum about not getting a cookie before supper, but she also tried to give you half of the cookie when she did get it for dessert. Your teen didn’t put his laundry in the dryer, but he also volunteered to push his little brother on the swing at the playground.
You are getting this right, and you have to give yourself credit.
The Ongoing Work Of Defeating Parental Burnout
The APA recommends that parents find the small, continuous changes they can make.
That might mean hiring someone to clean your house once a month, or limiting the number of extracurricular activities your child can be involved in at once. It might mean sitting down with your spouse and making an agreement that they take over cooking one more night a week, or that they do the morning dropoff and you do afternoon pickup.
It might mean planning to go to the gym once a week and utilize their childcare or having your teen babysit for an hour or two once a week while you go to a book club, craft group, or just for a walk.
Defeating parental burnout requires you to find some space for yourself and to believe that you deserve it.