Freud claimed that there were three particularly complex trades: the psychoanalyst, the educator, the parent. After more than a hundred years, being mothers and fathers is configured as an increasingly demanding challenge. Frantic life and work rhythms, economic concerns, cultural and social fragility, crisis of training and educational institutions, make stress levels more and higher in parents. When the challenges are thus pressing that they feel impotent and dominated you can configure a real Emotional exhaustion typical of parental burnout.
In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing the time to share within domestic and family boundaries, dividing itself between work, tasks, remote lessons, daily tasks in often reduced spaces, has expanded the size of the problem by turning on the spotlight on the theme of parental burnout (of Fiore et al., 2021). This contribution wants to be a synthetic practical guide on how face parental stress In order to prevent burnout.
What is parental burnout?
Parental Burnout is a condition of psychological malaise that occurs when the negative sides of being parents are perceived as more numerous and intense than the positive ones (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018). It is a state of deep tiredness, which involves the perception of a detachment from the children and to have doubts about one’s parental skills (Roskam, Raes & Mikolajczak, 2017). The only to think of the role of mother or father causes discomfort and tiredness and, in some cases, this condition can lead to the physical or psychological abuse of their children.
Although in parents, a stress share linked to liability and tasks is common, when stress intensifies a chronic situation of imbalance between requests related to the task of being a mother or father and individual resources (of Fiore et al., 2021) can take over. Consequently, a state of:
- intense exhaustion linked to the parental role with gradual disengagement;
- feeling of emotional detachment from the children;
- accentuated doubt about their own abilities to be a good parent.
These characteristics are clearly highlighted in the works of Mikolajczak and Roskam (Mikolajczak et al., 2019; Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018) who have deepened the theme of parental burnout, inspired by studies, research and detection tools of Christina Maslach on stress and work burnout.
In essence, the difference with work burnout is the source of stress. The feeling of being overwhelmed by tasks and requests which above the resources perceived, in one case it concerns their professional role, in the other the parental one.
THE Main risk factors may concern:
- Psychological factors: personality traits characterized by neuroticism, negative emotions, stress, intrinsic and socially prescribed perfectionism;
- Environmental factors: lack of work, having a part-time job, economic difficulties, absence of social support, female gender (mothers are more likely to develop burnout), presence of children with special needs (of Fiore et al., 2021).
Causes of burnout in parents.
There family management It often adds up to Work determining high levels of stress. Work precariousness, with the concerns related to the possibility of losing use, contributes to increasing pressure.
The change in the social context sees new family problems. A family increasingly monadic, isolated It is not very inserted into a community context, transforms grandparents into the only points of reference in terms of social support to the nucleus.
In some cases, also theat low knowledge of the care practices Burnout can be determined by the child, especially with the eldest son (Mikolajczak, Raes et al., 2018). There Difficulty accessing services (for example kindergartens and nests) often makes it difficult to manage timing and the overlap of parental tasks with work roles.
In a scenario of enormous complexity also the parental role is affected by expectations and judgments which can feed a sense of inadequacy with respect to the image of the ideal parent proposed by the company. Finally, as mentioned, aspects of personality (For example, neuroticism, perfectionism and difficulty in emotional regulation) can represent risk factors for the parental burnout.
Symptoms and alarm signals of the parental burnout
Of followers i main symptoms Not to be underestimated if you are experiencing a situation of chronic stress in reference to your parental role:
- Feeling of being emotionally unloaded and exhaustion;
- Feeling of being tired from awakening;
- Feeling of not making it anymore;
- Feeling that being parent requires excessive commitment;
- Perception of children as difficult;
- Feeling of being ineffective;
- Feeling of not being able to face problems calmly;
- Feeling not to be at ease and not to feel pleasure in being with their children;
- Deflexion of mood, sleep alterations, anxiety, irritability, relational problems with the partner, depression up to suicidal ideation.
Strategies to manage parental burnout
When stress becomes continuous and constant over time, more easily you get to experiment with the feeling of not having sufficient resources to face it. In these situations the risk of parental burnout is concretized. Which strategies Can they help to face it?
- Take care of yourself: cure sleep, nutrition, the balance between work and private life, one’s interests carving out of free time;
- Look for help in a support network and support for example by connecting with other parents;
- Redefine expectations About one’s parental role, moving away from ideals of perfection that feed a sense of inadequacy (psychotherapy and parent training can help);
- Redefine the priorities focusing on what is important;
- Learn to recognize emotions, resources and limits by promoting self -awareness of oneself (also in this case the psychological support can be precious).
How to prevent parental burnout
Here are some Practical strategies which can be useful in prevent parental burnout and in the reduction of stress:
- Refresh expectations about its parental ideal far from ideals of perfection built by the company;
- Set up daily routines sustainable with balanced and planned commitments avoiding excessive rigidity at the same time;
- Involve the partner and family in the care activities of children delegating tasks and functions;
- Communicate In a clear way to the partner their emotions, their labors;
- Safeguard the possibility of living quality time in the company of children savoring joy and light -heartedness;
- Protect personal time and energies learning to say of no refusing excessive commitments;
- Create and food Support networks that allow you to remain connected with other families;
- Take care of yourself also through mindfulness or meditation activities;
- Identify personal resources and strengths;
- Try organizing daily agendas by predicting time for itself and time to spend with the family in addition to the one dedicated to work.
When to contact a professional?
On what occasions is it useful to contact a psychologist for parents?
In the event that it stress becomes chronic and the feeling of being overhanged constantit may be useful to contact a professional for a path of psychological support or psychotherapy. The intervention of an expert becomes particularly important if they emerge depressive and anxious symptoms who tend to increase the emotional distance from the children.
There psychotherapy and the parent training In fact, they can help to understand the relational and emotional schematisms that are activated automatically and that must be transformed, to renovate expectations about their parental role, to recognize priorities, but also individual resources and limits, to improve the communication of needs, emotions and needs. Contacting a professional can make you feel less alone in facing the difficult profession of being a parent.
Cover image: Peopleimages
