5 signs you are experiencing parental burnout
Parental burnout is an unspoken pandemic. Many working parents are in survival mode, zoned out and just coping with the day to day demands of playing multiple roles and meeting their children’s needs.
Often parents try to do everything they did before having kids, while raising kids to succeed in a highly competitive environment. Many give up their social and love lives to cope with the new load of responsibilities. While much of you life is dedicated to parenting, It’s important for kids to understand that you have a life of your own too. It’s also crucial to have a refuge you can dive into when things get overwhelming.
Let’s explore a few ways to spot parental burnout.
What are the signs of parental burnout?
1. You’re exhausted and don’t sleep enough.
It’s normal to feel physically tired as a parent - you don’t have the same energy levels, and you’re running on less than 6 hours of sleep constantly. Even when you get extra sleep, you never feel fully rested. Often, however, it’s the emotional exhaustion that takes over. Your mind is often foggy and you find it difficult to process new information and make decisions.
2. You often feel emotionally distant from your kids.
No parent wants to admit they have thoughts about escaping family life, but this is much more common than most think. You want your life back, and think about what it’s like to not have to constantly sacrifice yourself for others. As a result, you are physically present with your kids, but are just going through the motions on autopilot.
3. You’ve stopped to finding time for self care.
Many parents stop taking care of their health and wellbeing to make time for the kids and their needs. However neglecting self care and hobbies really accelerates burnout. Once you’re burnt out, you’re too exhausted to keep up your self care. It’s a vicious cycle. You may have stopped exercising, taking classes, scheduling beauty appointments, or doing hobbies you enjoy.
4. You don’t really have a social life anymore.
You’re often too exhausted to think about going out in the evenings or weekends, so you’ve stopped spending time with friends. Schedules are too hard to coordinate so it’s become easier to work out on your own instead of going to a yoga class with a friend. You don’t want to burden others with your parenting concerns, so you don’t update them as much. Over time, you feel more lonely and isolated, and wonder if this is what parenthood is really like.
5. You’ve lost confidence in who you are and your ability to parent.
When parents have too much on their plates, and they no longer have the same levels of organisation at work, socially and at home, they question their abilities to create the life they want. Raising kids comes with many challenges, and parents can feel their family life is out of their control. This has a huge impact on their confidence levels which makes it more difficult to take care of themselves. Again, vicious cycle.
The takeaway
We are social beings who can only thrive with social support, so your friendships are important, and being busy with kids does not mean cutting your social life out, or that all social events must involve the kids. Remember, kids want to see their parents happy, not burnt out champions. We hope this was helpful is bringing awareness to your current situation and where you may need to realign your priorities. In the next article, we will explore what solutions to parental burnout looks like and how you can lead a more balanced parenting life. Stay tuned!
If you need support, we offer 1:1 parent support sessions to help you relieve the stresses of parenting long term. Simply get in touch with us and we’ll find a time!