Parental burnout: what it is, causes, and how it affects fathers and mothers.

This is parental burnout, a form of discomfort generated by the psychological wear and tear of parenting.

Taking care of children can be very rewarding but also exhausting. Many fathers and mothers have to spend all day long worrying about what their children do and don't do, and in times of health crisis with confinements in between, this obligation has increased.

Spending more time with our children is what every good parent would like, but within limits. The little ones can be very demanding and that makes their parents suffer burnout, become tired and even irritable.

Parental burnout is a syndrome that affects many parents.It is a problem that has skyrocketed with the pandemic and can involve a lot of psychological and physical suffering. Let's discover the particularities of this syndrome.

What is parental burnout?

Having children is not an easy task. As much as they love them, all parents know that raising and educating their children is not a piece of cake.

It requires a lot of effort, love, time and energy, all invested until the little ones begin to take their first steps towards independence during adolescence and fly the nest as adults. But until that happens, fatigue can become a faithful companion for moms and dads....

It is normal to feel a little tired because we have had to help our children with their homework, take them to class, buy them textbooks, prepare their birthday... Although they bring us happiness and pride, having to take care of their needs is tiring, exhausting and can easily burn us out if we have to do it for too long. Every father and mother needs a time-out from their children.To stop putting up with them for a few hours, as ugly as it may sound to say so.

But fortunately for most parents there are kindergartens, schools and institutes. Those wonderful educational centers where our offspring spend the hours being a matter of teachers and professors. The teaching profession is very respectable not only because of the knowledge they impart to their pupils, but also because they have to handle the demands and needs of children of all ages.

However, there is a group of parents who have to take care of their children for longer periods of time, almost around the clock. Many boys and girls are unfortunate enough to have serious or chronic illnesses, medical conditions that require a lot of care. In many of these cases, one of the two parents has to stay at home and watch over their sick child.making sure they have everything they need. They are fathers and mothers who can suffer a lot of stress if, in addition to this, they have other obligations.

Parental burnout, also called parental exhaustion, is a very common syndrome in parents who are exposed to highly stressful situations in which they have to combine caring for their children with fulfilling other obligations, such as work or caring for other people. Originally, the term "parental burnout" came into use in the 1980s to refer to the stress syndrome suffered by parents in their children. stress syndrome suffered by parents of chronically or severely ill children who, having to act as their caregivers, wore them out physically and emotionally..

Symptoms and risk factors

The symptoms of parental burnout are similar to those suffered from work burnout, only with the difference that parents who suffer from this syndrome cannot "escape" or "take a break" from their children as easily as a person burned out by their work.. Among these symptoms we find

• Exhaustion
• Sadness
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Episodes of violence
• Sleep disorders
• Conflicts with partner
• Neglectful child care
• Feelings of guilt or shame
• High cortisol levels and increased stress.

Parental burnout can have several origins, which vary according to the type of family, the number of children and the historical moment that the family nucleus may be going through. There are several risk factors that increase the chances of suffering from parental burnout:

• Single-parent family
• Economic and labor problems
• Couple problems
• Child's chronic illness or disability
• Child's behavioral problems
• Low emotional skills.
• High parental perfectionism.

The characteristics of parental burnout

We can describe parental burnout as a three-dimensional syndrome in which we can identify the following characteristics.

Physical and mental exhaustion

Parents dedicate a good part of their time to the care of their children. This does not only imply investing a lot of time in childcare, but also willpower, patience, hours of sleep and physical and mental effort.

Add to this the stress of work problems, poor sleep hygiene and the feeling that you have no time for yourself, and the frustration turns into a strong physical and mental exhaustion. mental and physical exhaustion that brings with it potential psychological problems and mood alterations. and mood alterations.

2. Feeling of incompetence

Parental burnout makes the sufferer feel that he/she is failing his/her children. Feeling exhausted and grumpy from having to take care of them also causes the feeling that not enough is being done or that things are being done badly.

In addition, the belief that we should love our children unconditionally is often misinterpreted as doing things for them without feeling that we love them unconditionally. by doing things for them without feeling exhausted. This means that when a parent feels exhausted because their child tires them out, they fear that they are not doing it right, that they are a bad parent, or even that they do not love them enough.

3. Emotional distancing from the child

When parents do not have enough resources to handle the care of their children, stress and anxiety appear.. These feelings directly related to fatigue can deteriorate the relationship with their children, since they do not feel like having them around or do not answer them in a good mood because of their exhaustion.

Children may see in their parents people who are always grumpy, and parents may see their children as a source of discomfort despite wanting the best for them. All of this can lead to emotional distancing of the child, who fears that his or her parent will not respond well to him or her.

It is very important to note that suffering from parental burnout is not synonymous with being a bad parent, much less with being a bad parent.. To be exhausted by the upbringing has nothing to do with the love or the relation of the parents with their offspring, but it is linked to the work for having to educate them, to take care of them, to take them to the school, to watch that they do the duties, to take care of their diet, to favor their learning, to make sure that they are healthy... They are many small problems that, accumulated, can turn into a ball that makes us suffer to the margin of how much we love our children.

Parental burnout and pandemic

Until not long ago this syndrome was relatively little known, being manifested among parents with children with disabilities or in family nuclei with high dysfunctionality. In families without problems both parents who worked outside the home and those who did not always have time off from their children. The children went to school, and then maybe they stayed home or maybe they went outside to play with their friends. But there was something that changed everything, so much changed that parental burnout became more general: confinement.

Overnight our lifestyle changed radically.. Every adult who did not have an essential profession had to stay at home, either teleworking or staying in job limbo without knowing what was going to happen to his or her job. Children also had to go home, perhaps with joy during the first moments of the pandemic when classes were cancelled, but as time went by the burden of not being able to go out even for a walk would affect them and their parents.

Containment measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been a real headache for many families. Parents, who had to work from home, also had to act as improvised teachers of their children who, although they received the lesson virtually, the doubts about a math problem and a language problem went to the nearest adults of reference. All this without being able to rest from each other, because they shared space 24/7.

Parenting is exhausting, but doing it in a context of general crisis such as a pandemic makes it even more so. Teleworking is an added factor to parenting.How many parents had to make sure their children attended virtual classes while they had a meeting with their bosses via Skype?

Anxiety, overwhelm, frustration... childcare fatigue was not long in coming. The only free time was to go shopping and, if we were "lucky", to wait in line at the supermarket for longer without having to put up with our children. Parental burnout skyrocketed without the need to have a child with health problems, but simply by having him or her at home every day. In the case of large families, the situation was even more stressful, since there were not enough adults for so many children.There were not enough adults for so many children.

How to avoid parental burnout?

It is clear that raising a child is never easy, especially when there are situations that increase stress as in the case of the current pandemic. But as with everything in life prevention is our best ally to avoid suffering a case of parental burnout, by detecting the symptoms quickly and attacking them.We can quickly detect the symptoms and tackle the problem as soon as possible. In this aspect the couple is key, since it is the closest person who can detect how their spouse is exhausted due to the care of the children and can put themselves in their place.

The couple should look for moments and spaces for one of them to disconnect while the other takes care of the children, taking turns. In this way, the children are still taken care of, but at the same time one of the adults finds a moment of rest and peace that serves to replenish his or her energy after a stressful day of dealing with the children and other obligations.

It is essential to talk about this problem with other parents, who will surely have experienced it on more than one occasion and may have found strategies to reduce their stress. It can also happen that these same parents offer to take care of our children when we have other chores, doing us a favor that we can return in the future either by taking care of their children or helping them in whatever they need.

But we can also reduce our stress while we are with the children.. This may seem contrary to what we are trying to achieve, reducing the stress associated with caring for the little ones, but it is worth saying that we can all let off steam at the same time while having fun and turning a potentially stressful moment into a pleasant one. A good way is to exercise with the little ones, something that will help us release tension and also tire the children out, making them less of a chore afterwards.

If the cause of our stress is that our children have behavioral problems, in addition to consulting a specialized professional, it is a good idea to introduce rewards for good behavior. Children sometimes find it difficult to behave well, especially if they see it as an obligation empty of meaning, however, if we turn it into something that brings a reward later we can make them behave better. Some tasks for which they can be rewarded are doing their homework, collaborating at home, not bothering when parents are at the computer...