How To Recover From Parental Burnout
December 18, 2020 Adrienne Brown 0 Comments
In this article, you will learn strategies on how to recover from parental burnout. As I showed you in my previous article about parental burn out, it is a real thing.
Parents all over are having to deal with this problem on one level or another.
According to the experts, parental burnout is something that you will need professional help in order to beat it. I am sure that for some people that is true.
But for many people, you can learn how to recover from parental burnout, with a lot of self-care and with cultivating a mindset change.
The First step to recovering from parental burn out
The first thing that you will have to do is to evaluate both yourself and your current situation. Take out a journal or something similar.
Write down your thoughts, your feelings about love, hope, desires, anger, stress initiators, feelings of failure and anything else that rev up strong emotions within you.
Now, let me tell you from the start that I am not a licensed therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist. No, not at all, but what I am is a 58-year-old mom who has beaten parental burnout.
I have been able to conquer great adversities in my life using the methods that I am about to share with you.
Eliminating unnecessary responsibilities
Now that you have evaluated your present life situations and responsibilities, take a good long look at what you wrote down. Let’s see what we can get rid of, throw away or delegate to someone else.
The initial place you want to start the elimination is with the stress initiators. What are these things?
- Can you name them?
- Can you remove them?
- Can you delegate them?
This may seem trivial, but believe me, this is the first place that everyone has to start if they want to learn how to recover from parental burnout. If at all possible, you must eliminate the stress-causing task .
Now, name them by writing them down in columns labeled: Remove from life & Delegate to someone else.
You will begin to recover from parental burn out by ridding your life of these unnecessary responsibilities.
Let your children do the little trivial things that will become huge stress eliminators for you.
My trivial is their training in confidence
When you are cooking and you need potatoes or carrots peeled, let your kids do that! I do this all of the time.
My children peel, chop, fill the pot with water, open cans, wash dishes, sweep the floor, mix simmering pots….etc. Anything like that is trivial for me, but confidence-builders for them.
Many nights I set my kids up at the table to help me prepare dinner. They do the prep work, while I do a workout.
I promise you if you train your children to help you in this way, you will eliminate loads of stress.
Find a way to keep everybody in the same viewing area. This way you can keep an eye on them and work your body at the same time.
If this is not possible, recruit your husband to sit with them while they prep the meal and you work out.
Ladies, I even have my children prep my workout time!!! I kid you not! My son moves the kitchen chair out of my way, my daughter gets me cold water, my son put my hand weights on the table while my daughter gets my journal and pencil. Girl, the workout is key!
Preventing parental burnout before it starts
That is one way I beat parental burnout before it starts. Once you get your family trained on what you need to function at your best, it is for their benefit too. This is something that a mom has to get the family to understand. A woman can’t walk in her motherly role if she is stressed, hurting or angry.
I will continue teaching you how to recover from parental burnout in my next post, meanwhile, start by getting the little fire starters down on paper.
