You’re exhausted and fed up as a parent. Your energy and motivation have evaporated and you’re feeling more irritation than love for your children. You can’t sleep and so you’re googling ‘Am I in parental burnout?’ at 2am.
I’m glad you’ve found this. I’ve written this article to help you find out the answer.
Burnout has been talked about in the context of stressful jobs for decades – perhaps you imagine an overworked doctor or nurse struggling to find the energy and compassion for their patients that they once had. Or a high-achieving executive who’s sacrificed everything to get to the top and now their body has collapsed and they can’t get out of bed.
Burnout happens when you’re completely invested in a role which is really important to you but which places more demands on you than you have resources to deal with.
So, yes, parents can feel burned out.
We lavish cards and gifts on new parents congratulating them on their ‘bundle of joy’ but anyone who’s ever been responsible for the physical, emotional, social and educational wellbeing of a child knows that the truth is a little more complicated.
Having children dramatically increases your responsibilities and the demands on you whilst simultaneously reducing your precious resources of energy, time and money.
For the most part, parents have the resources to deal with the stressors they face. When the balance is tipped the other way, then parental burnout is the inevitable result.
So, it’s not a moral issue but one of balance.
I don’t believe in ‘bad parents’, only parents who aren’t getting enough support.
Any parent can find themselves falling into parental burnout if the demands on them start to outweigh the resources they have to deal with those demands.
Let’s check out the 4 main signs and see whether you recognise any of them in yourself.
1 - EXHAUSTION
Most parents are tired, we know this. It can be really tricky to get enough rest and sleep as a parent, especially when you have very young children.
But most parents don’t feel completely exhausted, at least not as a default setting.
Parents that are burning out or are burned out feel exhausted.
Physically and emotionally exhausted.
I mean, wake-up-the-morning-and-just-can’t-cope-with-the-idea-of-another-day-of-childcare-exhausted.
The kind of exhaustion that makes you feel so wired that you can’t relax or sleep well and none of the sleep you do manage seems to refresh you properly. It feels like you just don’t have enough to give anymore.
This level of physical and emotional exhaustion is the first sign of parental burnout developing – if you feel like this then you need to figure out how to nip it in the bud fast. You need to prioritise recharging your emotional and physical energy levels before exhaustion starts to morph into…
2 - EMOtional distancing
Exhausted parents who feel completely drained by parenting often feel like they have no way of getting a break, no possibility of recharging.
Parenthood is a job like no other – you can’t book a sick day, take annual leave or apply for another job in this role.
Your children continue to depend on you to meet their physical, emotional, social and educational needs.
The grind of parenthood has to continue no matter how tired you’re feeling.
Feeling trapped in this way can lead to resentment and irritability – you may start to notice that you’re always in a bad mood around your children, that you’re snapping at them more, yelling or using harsh discipline.
Burned out parents find themselves going through the same routines, almost on autopilot, ticking off the jobs that they need to get done for their children.
They’ll feed their children, dress them, take them to school etc but that these jobs take up all their remaining energy.
Something has to give. So, the emotional connection between them gets numbed out – they feel an emotional distance from their children, they don’t ask about their day, they don’t enjoy activities together, they don’t feel the warmth and joy they once felt which leads to…
3 - Loss of pleasure
Exhausted parents who are just about surviving and have become emotionally distanced from their children are miserable.
The joy, laughter, connection and pride that comes from parenting children has evaporated so all that’s left is the stress and grind.
This naturally leads to all the pleasure being leached out of parenthood.
The kids have become a long to-do list and an aversive source of stress. The parent is miserable but so now, are the children.
Nobody’s happy when parental burnout gets to this level.
4 - CONTRAST WITH THE PARENT YOU WERE
It’s important to remember that these signs are a contrast to how the parent used to be.
Most burned out parents start out as extraordinarily loving and committed parents.
The kind of parents that hope and plan for a baby for a long time before they have one.
The kind of idealistic and hyperinvested parent who has all the parenting books and wants to do the very best they can for their children.
The kind of parent that puts themselves last, overextends themselves and starts to burn out when the stress they’re under isn’t matched by the resources they have available.
We’re not talking about bad mums or deadbeat dads here.
If you never cared about or for your kids, you don’t get burned out.
These are not bad parents but parents who need better information, resources and support to achieve a better balance between their parenting stressors and resources.
PARENTAL BURNOUT IS SERIous - YOU MUST GET HELP
Do you recognise any of these four signs in yourself, at least temporarily?
If you do, please seek help for the sake of yourself, your children and your partner if you have one.
The whole family will benefit from you getting the support you need and deserve.
It’s important to get the support you need, even if you’re ‘only’ feeling exhausted at the moment.
Exhaustion isn’t any fun on it’s own but it can also progress to worse problems if it’s not nipped in the bud.
Exhaustion is one of the first signs of excess parental stress, it’s often coupled with irritability. As parental burnout progresses, exhaustion and irritability increase until you start to feel miserable.
You can start to notice physical symptoms like headaches, insomnia and autoimmune conditions.
Your physical and emotional exhaustion can lead to you becoming emotionally distanced from your children.
Parent-child relationships depend on emotional connection and warmth.
Becoming emotionally distanced from your children can lead you to become aggressive and hostile which can lead to emotional or physical child abuse.
Alternatively, you can become more withdrawn and cut off which can lead to child neglect which can be just as damaging as abuse.
Partner relationships also suffer with partner conflict and affairs being more common in burned out parents.
Finally, parental burnout is associated with an increased risk of alcohol abuse and suicidal thoughts.
Parental burnout can get very nasty for everyone involved. It’s important for the whole family that parental burnout gets addressed.
The Parental Burnout Quiz
Curious what your own parental burnout score is? Download the free assessment and get your score – plus expert tips on how to reduce it.
How to get the help you need
Parental burnout is a serious problem; it will hurt you, your child and your partner if you have one.
It’s really important to get the help you need. But it can be really hard to know where to turn. You’re in the right place here.
I have a specialist interest in parental burnout and these are the steps that I recommend to parents who are looking for help
- LEARN ABOUT PARENTAL BURNOUT. Download my free parental burnout quiz and I’ll send you emails with tips on reducing your stress. You can also learn more about parental burnout at this website run by the world leading researchers in this area, Isabelle Roskam and Moira Mikolajczak.
- SPEAK TO SOMEONE YOU TRUST. Speak to someone you trust about how you’re feeling and discuss what help you need. Often just starting the ball rolling talking about this is the biggest hurdle. You may be surprised by how helpful and relieving it is to speak to someone. Make sure this person (your partner/friend/sibling/parent) is someone you trust to listen nonjudgmentally and compassionately to your difficulties and who is able to help you make a plan to tackle your problems.
- SPEAK TO A HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. Not got someone in your life who you feel able to talk to about this (this is so common) or feel that you’re in more urgent need of professional help? Then please speak to your GP (or Health visitor if your child is under 5) and tell them how you’ve been feeling. You may feel worried about bothering them but please be reassured that a large proportion of the work done by GPs and health visitors is about people’s mental rather than physical health. They’ve heard it all before, they won’t be shocked and they will want to help you.
- GET IN TOUCH WITH ME. If you’d like to speak to a specialist clinical psychologist (with training in diagnosing and treating parental burnout) then please get in touch with me, I’d love to help you out if I can.
Parental burnout is associated with a greater risk of suicidal thoughts and child abuse and neglect.
If you’re struggling with thoughts about hurting yourself or you’re becoming harmful to your children then please seek urgent help.
You can make an urgent appointment with your GP, phone NHS 111 or Samaritans on 116 123.
Please seek the help that you need and deserve.
