New Research Finds That Most Parents Are Burnt Out

As the rush of another school year comes to an end, it is common to feel deeply exhausted— but you may be feeling a level of exhaustion and overwhelm that feels unmanageable.

If so, you might be experiencing parental burnout. Parental burnout is when parents become so stressed and overwhelmed that they cannot function as effectively.

Parents experiencing burnout may feel physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted.

Signs of parental burnout could include:

• Getting easily irritated with your kids

• Waking up exhausted at the thought of another day

• Feeling like you are in survival mode

• Losing your temper easily

• Feeling overwhelmed trying to balance the responsibilities of being a parent with other responsibilities

So is there anything we can do as parents? How do we get it all done without burning out?

A new survey conducted by researchers at the Ohio State University provides some insight into parental burnout and why it happens. This survey included 722 parents who voluntarily agreed to participate. Parents had children of a range of ages (any parents with children under age 18 were eligible to participate). Results were collected June to July 2023.

The main findings were as follows:

1. Over half (57%) of parents reported burnout. This is a slight improvement from the previous survey conducted in early 2021 when 66% of parents reported burnout. However, these numbers are still very high and suggest that burnout is a real problem among parents.

2. Parents were more likely to experience burnout when they didn’t feel like a “good parent,” felt judged by others, lacked time to play with their children, had a low quality relationship with their spouse, and felt pressure to have a clean house. The researchers suggested that burnout may be caused by both external and internal pressures and expectations.

3. Parent burnout is associated with more mental health concerns in children.Because this is only an association, we do not know whether parent burnout causes mental health concerns in children or whether mental health concerns in children cause parent burnout (or whether another factor causes both of them). Yet, this association raises further concerns about parent burnout.

4. When children participate in more structured extracurricular activities, their parents report more negative behaviors, such as diffculty concentrating being easily distracted, and teasing/fighting with other children. This may be because too many structured extracurricular activities interfere with quality family time and increase achievement pressure, which leads to anxiety and stress. Previous research suggests that this may be particularly true for preschool-aged children.

5. When parents spend more time in free play with their children, their children have fewer mental health concerns (such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc) and show fewer negative behaviors. Research finds that unstructured free play is associated with better quality parent-child interactions, play skills, and language. Research also shows that the amount of time a child spends in unstructured free play is associated with improved self-regulation later in life. Free play is essential in helping children to learn and practice new skills, particularly social and emotional skills.

6. Harsh parenting practices (such as insulting, screaming, criticizing, or spanking children) are linked with more mental health concerns in children.The researchers speculated that parent burnout leads to more harsh parenting practices which then increases mental health concerns in children.

7. A 10-question scale was created by researchers to measure the level of burnout in working parents. You can find the free scale in this PDF.

Overall Translation

This data is not published in a peer-reviewed journal (meaning it was not rigorously assessed by experts in the field) and only included parents who voluntarily chose to complete a survey. Further peer-reviewed research is needed, but this data along with previous research provides some insights into how parents can feel less burnt out.

Here are some research-backed tips for reducing the parental burnout:

1. Schedule one-on-one special time with your child. It can be so hard with all of the pressures on parents to spend regular “special time” with children, but it can have a huge impact on the parent-child relationship (and seems to improve behavior as an added bonus!).

Special time involves your attention fully focused on your child with no distractions— no siblings, no phones, no TV on in the background, no checking on dinner or changing over the laundry. Special time also involves following your child’s lead. They choose what to do and you just follow along—trying to avoid questions, demands or even teaching moments. Nearly every effective parenting program supported by research includes “special time” as an essential step, such as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy and the Incredible Years.

Research involving these parenting programs finds that “special time” alone (even before other elements of the parenting program are implemented) seems to significantly improve children’s behavior.

2. Decide on the “right” number of extracurricular activities for your family. There is nothing wrong with having your child participate in a few extracurricular activities every season— you just want to be careful that you are not overwhelming your child (or yourself)!

Too many extracurricular activities not only disrupts opportunities for free play but may also interfere with quality family time and increase achievement pressure. Have a family meeting to decide on the number of hours per week your child will engage in structured non-school activities and stick to this number.

This number will be different for every family since every family has different needs. Even after making this decision, pay attention to whether the activities add more stress or more joy to your family.

3. Let some things go. The results of this survey suggest that internal pressures such as worrying that you might not be a “good parent” and worrying about having a clean house contribute to parental burnout.

Think about what you are doing right now that you can let go of in order to have more quality time with your children or to feel less burnt out. For example, maybe having more frozen meals or fast food would significantly reduce your stress even it doesn’t feel like what a “perfect parent” would do.

4. Don’t worry about how others might judge you. The results of this survey found that parents were more burnt out when they worried that others would judge them.

Think of what you might be doing or not doing in a day that you do only because you are worried you would be judged negatively by others.

For example, if you need to answer work emails while your child plays on the playground, go ahead and do it without worrying that other people might be judging you for being on your phone.

5. Reframe how you view mundane parenting tasks and chores. Find ways to make boring parenting tasks and chores more interesting or be grateful for them. For example, find a podcast that you could listen to while you sit in the carpool line or reframe bedtime by saying that “I get to put my kids to bed” instead of “I have to put my kids to bed.” Then make an effort to focus on the positive aspects of this task rather than the negative aspects.

5. Take a different approach to self care. I personally hate the idea that incredibly busy parents who are already burnt out need to add self-care to their to-do list. The answer to parental burnout is not a spa day or waking up at 4am to exercise.

In fact, self-care might mean canceling on the spa or skipping your workout. Self-care simply means making choices that prioritize your mental health. One way to work self-care into parenting is to engage in activities with your child that you enjoy or that meet your needs as well.

For example, if you are an active person, have one day a week that you go on hikes or bike rides with your child even if it isn’t their first choice of activity. You could also try to engage in enjoyable activities while your child plays independently such as reading a novel or knitting. Self-care could also be as simple as listening to your favorite music instead of your children’s favorite music in the car occasionally or telling your children that they need to wait until you are finished with your dinner for you to help them.