Burnout isn’t always about work. That new mom for whom you just threw a “welcome back” party – the one with the increasingly dark circles around her eyes? And that dad with three kids under 10, who looks like he’s struggling to stay awake during afternoon meetings? Parenting burnout, not work burnout, is what’s hurting these people.
A recent study of parental burnout published in Frontiers in Psychology found that the symptoms mirrored that of work burnout: exhaustion, emotional withdrawal, and feelings of inadequacy. The study found that 12% of parents surveyed suffered from high levels of burnout – that is, experiencing all of these symptoms in a single week.
