Parental burnout or parent burn syndrome

They began to talk about it, but currently the paradigm of postmodernity in the West has entailed a series of changes in the way in which family relationships are organized and the concept of parental burnout. Since the end of the last century we can observe how new family organizations are introduced that adapt to a changing society whose foundations are restructured as a result of technological, economic, political and social advances that organize the lives of individuals.

In this context, new ways of relating, new psychological states, etc. appear. And the one that we will address here is burn out, understood as a psychological state of discomfort that inhibits the capacities for healthy parenting in such a way that it ends up being experienced as something tedious, difficult and stressful.

Changes in parental functions that can cause parental burnout

In our opinion, some of the most relevant changes regarding parental functions are:

• Change in the roles that each one adopts with respect to the family: archetypal examples would be the executive mother and the householder father.
• The rise of learning methods and the emergence of the belief that children have to learn when the younger the better, a maximum of things
• Appearance of technological objects that mediate inter-family communication and the way in which parents interact with their children (tablets, mobile phones, etc.)
• Introduction of external agents to supply parental functions given the limited availability of parents (babysitter, grandparents, nursery, etc.)

These changes and others frequently reduce their quality and potential structuring and provider of good mental and emotional health in favor of adaptation to a society that, on the one hand, sells hundreds of thousands of educational products and methods and, on the other, puts sticks in the wheels for the establishment of a healthy, stable and warm parent-child relationship that is rewarding and structuring for all members of the group and thus avoid an overflow that today is known as syndrome of the parental burnout

What are the basic functions of good parenting?

Numerous essays, manuals and treatises have been written on the subject, however, here we will summarize it in two very simple points:

• Accompany and enhance the development of the child's abilities: In his now classic "The Art of Loving" the famous psychoanalyst, sociologist and humanist philosopher Erich Fromm dedicates a chapter to the love between parents and children. The distinction he makes between the concepts of "driving" and "education" is very illustrative. According to Fromm the parents' role is to educate whose central axis lies in promoting the development of the individual so that they can bring out their abilities and thus be able to move through the world safely and happily. This point implies developing a true interest in the genuine interests of the child and for this a relationship of genuine trust must be established. In contrast, driving only refers to instilling moral norms so that the child avoids doing what is considered to be wrong and does what is considered to be right without having to show any interest in his internal world or in his own potential.

• Provide a stable and continuous affective security context during its development: To explain this point we will cite the three illustrative concepts developed by the renowned English pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicot, for whom the main functions of the mother, in the first instance, and of the father in the second, are: the “holding” or support (connecting with the states internal child, contain and respond to their anguish) the "handling" or manipulation (interact with him, stimulate, caress, play, etc.) and finally the "object presenting" (accompany him in his encounter with external reality and development of their own creativity).

   

  What is parental burnout and why does it appear?

  In this article we will refer to parental burnout as a psychological state of discomfort that inhibits the capacities for healthy parenting, being experienced as something tedious, difficult and stressful. We can attribute the causes of parental burnout to either internal or external factors.

• Internal factors refer to parenting disorders or psychological difficulties that affect the organization of the relationship, if applicable, it is advisable to attend a specialized psychotherapist.
• External factors would have to do with the arrangement of family life. Any disposition that does not meet the emotional needs of children and parents in a harmonic conjunction is liable to generate burn out. By this I mean, above all, a key question:

How to prevent parental burnout?

For the proper functioning of the family, it is essential that stable parent-child play moments that allow the creation and development of a bond of trust and affective security that both need to live from the enjoyment of the relationship, thus making it stronger and able to tolerate the problems of the busy day to day. We underline "both" because it is not a one-way link where one depends on the other. The emotional and relational health of the mother and father also depend on whether they can feel that they are being good parents. The father and mother also need to be given feedback by the baby or child, who responding with babbling or smiles to their attention makes them feel that they are doing it well. This fact, when it occurs continuously, provides satisfactory experiences of fatherhood and motherhood that are progressively internalized, thus establishing the establishment of a feeling of a happy father or mother that allows better toleration of eventual organizational difficulties that may arise, in addition to all the benefits it has for the child and its development.

• Parental burnout refers to a psychological state of discomfort that makes it difficult to carry out a healthy parenting that, instead, is experienced as something complicated and stressful.
• Today, with changes in the father-mother roles, the rise of new learning methods, the use of mobile devices, the importance of the role of babysitters, nurseries ... parent-child relationships suffer in their role as providers of good mental and emotional health .
• Encouraging moments of play and sharing between parents and children is essential to create spaces of enjoyment that allow them to cope with the day to day.

Enric Artés

Specialist in Clinical Psychology