Almost 90 percent of parents these days experience what a study refers to as parental burnout. This is a result of several factors, including the challenges that come with having two working parents.
Parental Burnout
The Business Performance Innovation Network conducted a survey, including interviews, with 2,000 participants from the United States and Canada to determine the percentage of parents who experience parental burnout.
Of the participants, 14 percent admitted that they experience it frequently while 34 percent said they have it sometimes. Only 21 percent said that they do not go through some degree of parental burnout.
The survey enumerated the factors that can cause parental burnout. The top cause at 33 percent is the lack of cooperation from teenage children who are influenced by digital distractions.
The second factor, which accounts for 29 percent, falls on exhaustion and pressure from work and home. Another cause, which also accounts for 29 percent, is due to financial pressures and concerns.
Social media also plays a role, as well as the challenges that come with having two working parents. Other factors include the increasing prevalence of emotional, mental, and behavioral problems in children, and worries over school safety issues.
Effects On Daily Life
According to BPI, parental burnout is a major issue for modern American families and a serious challenge for Corporate America. It affects how parents go about their daily activities, especially with work. Parents experience a reduction in work productivity, high levels of anxiety, insomnia, and depression.
The survey further revealed that 40 percent of the parents admitted that it has significantly affected their lives at work and at home. They constantly feel anxious and worried (45 percent), they have lack of sleep (17 percent), and they feel depress or feel unhappy, (38 percent). Parental burnout can also affect the relationship between husband and wife (12 percent).
Parents who suffer from parental burnout go through some level of emotional distress. They experience several symptoms, the common being frustration with parenting tasks (33 percent) and constant exhaustion (26 percent).
Meanwhile, other symptoms include the lack of fulfillment as a parent (24 percent), not parenting as they like to (29 percent), anxiety over children's development (23 percent), and inability to deal with daily commitments (17 percent).
To combat parental burnout, the parents in the survey resort to different means, including taking the time to relax. Some exercise to release the stress, while others talk to friends, or see a physician to address the symptoms. Other parents also read self-help books or seek professional advice.
