Tackling Parenting Burnout. Burnout stems mostly from work-related factors. Stress, too much overtime, pressure, career anxiety, not taking vacations, or a combination of any of these factors can lead to burnout and eventual ineffectiveness.
Unfortunately, burnout can happen outside of formal work scenarios as well. As COVID-19 shifts family dynamics and imposes new roles on already highly preoccupied parents, it’s become impossible to ignore the realities of parent or parenting burnout.
In a 2020 survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association, researchers found that 66% of parents consider the 2019-2020 school year to be extremely stressful. Meanwhile, for 77% of parents of 8 to 12-year-olds, the uncertainties involved in the school year of 2020-2021 has already been a great source of stress. While these numbers are alarming, they underscore one of the keys for tackling parenting burnout. If you’re a parent who’s been spread too thin from juggling various immediate responsibilities, you are not alone.
It takes a village to raise a child
This old adage rings particularly true in times of crisis. Don’t be afraid to ask fellow parents, guardians, and teachers for help. Nowadays, this is easier to do thanks to online social platforms like Social.mom. As a social media network designed specifically for moms to connect, this platform can help you find babysitters, local deals, activities for moms and their kids, or genuine friendships with fellow parents. Humans are naturally social creatures. Having others to help with parenting duties, give practical advice, or even just to casually chat with can greatly improve the way you handle the worst effects of stress.
Scheduling downtime and self-care
Remember that self-care is child-care. Parents who don’t give themselves downtime and moments of self-care are more prone to burnout and reacting in ways that can hamper or damage a child’s development. “If you want to do the right thing too much, you can end up doing the wrong thing. Too much pressure on parents can lead them to exhaustion which can have damaging consequences for the parent and for the children,” details Moïra Mikolajczak of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. “Parents need to know that self-care is good for the child and that when they feel severely exhausted, they should seek help. Health and child services professionals need to be informed about parental burnout so that they can accurately diagnose it and provide parents with the most emmawatson-fans.com care.” This brings us to another viable way of tackling parenting burnout.
Getting professional help
There’s no shame in reaching out to a professional therapist or psychologist. When seeking the assistance of someone who’s actually trained in helping people deal with stress and burnout, it’s important to check their credentials before getting a professional opinion. You can widen your search for the right therapist/psychologist if you also vet those with online degrees, which today are as legitimate as traditional degrees.
Following the digital migration of education, physical universities have joined long-standing online universities in offering legitimate and web-based programs for therapists/psychologists in training. The University of San Diego’s tele-mental health counseling program for instance includes practicum in the form of giving online counseling to locals who can’t afford such services. Under the supervision of licensed clinical counselors, the university offers much-needed help to the community while simultaneously giving their students the best online training as future therapists. Likewise, Maryville University’s online psychology degree program has intensive, web-based courses on behavioral healthcare for individuals, communities, and families. And much like the brick-and-mortar University of San Diego, the fully online courses at Maryville University are vetted by organizations like the American Psychological Association. In short, you can rest assured that therapists/psychologists whose degrees and licenses were acquired online are just as good if not better than those who were trained more traditionally.
Online-trained psychologists may also fare better when giving tele-mental health counseling to either you or your children over the net. With social distancing restrictions still in place, new technologies play a huge part in how you can navigate parental burnout. Use the tech you have at home to find and speak with a professional therapist, stay connected with your local parent community, and find ways of spending downtime or taking care of yourself. While these tips might not solve all your problems, they can certainly make you a better parent to your child during this uncertain ‘new normal.’
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