Exhaustion, anxiousness and negative thoughts can all indicate parent burnout. And yet, PARENTS NEED TO PARENT, they cannot give up. These practices will help when you are feeling down about yourself or parenting.

Six ways to stop parent burnout (or recover from it)

1. Use your Listening Partnerships

The cornerstone to getting the emotional support I need as a parent is Listening Partnerships. Having a regular, reliable time and space every week to bring my parenting stresses and worries has by far made the most difference to me. I am less reactive now and I have more capacity to meet the emotional needs of my children. Read more about how to find a Listening Partnership and join a supportive network of parents who are using this tool effectively to support their parenting.

2. Cultivate a gratitude practice – try this with your kids

Gratitude helps us remember the things that are going well, even if it is something small like noticing that you found five minutes to drink your tea while it was still hot! This can stop negativity spiraling.

Gratitude is also something you can do with your child as part of their bedtime routine.

You can share with them a few things that you appreciate about your day. You might like to include something you enjoyed or appreciated about your child. For example you could say “my favorite thing about today was giving you a big cuddle on the sofa after dinner”. Your child might join in with their own appreciations (but no need to force them to). Or you might prefer to keep your own gratitude journal and start or end your day by writing down a few things you are grateful for.

3. Reflect on your day

When you are plagued with parent burnout, it can be easy to focus on what didn’t go so well in our day and forget how much love and attention we offered our children, to redress this, in the evening, it can be helpful to take a minute to pause and reflect on your day. You might do this alone, in a journal or with your Listening Partner. Reflection can slow racing thoughts associated with parent burnout, and leave you feeling calmer and more positive.

I like to use these four steps:

Think about all you do for your children every day. Make a list of all the ways you took care of them from greeting them with a morning hug, helping them dress, preparing meals, organizing school bags, lunches, activities or play dates, helping them navigate friendships, planning their medical or dentist visits, offering them comfort, a hug or empathizing with them.

Now think about the things that didn’t go so well. You might like to imagine gathering all those things that didn’t go well into a basket or a jar. Maybe you spoke harshly, maybe you shouted, maybe you got frustrated and overpowered your child. Gather them all up and sit with whatever feelings arise. Feel how hard it is. Cry if there are tears there.

I imagine a good friend, or your own child as a grown up, coming to you with their basket full of things that didn’t go so well. Imagine what you would say to them and then offer those words to yourself. Maybe it would sound something like “I see how much you have done for your children today. You are a good parent. You love your children dearly and I know you did your very best. I’m sorry it has been so hard. You deserve much more support. I love you. Let me put my arm around you. Lean against me and see how it feels to be supported for a few minutes”.

Then release your basket full of things that didn’t go so well. You could visualize releasing them to the wind or pouring them into the ocean or burying them in the earth. Let go of them and ask your inner critic to step back a little and give you some space from continuously beating yourself up about the things that didn’t go so well.

4. Calm your nervous system

If you have a little time at the end of the day when the kids are in bed it might be all you can do to flop on the sofa and watch TV or scroll through your social media feeds. However, this type of downtime can stimulate your nervous system and deplete you further.

Instead, you could try taking a few minutes at the end of the day to calm and restore your nervous system. Restorative practices such as lying on the floor taking some slow breaths for five minutes, stretching or light yoga, meditating or a short walk outside can revive you and aid your sleep.

5. Prioritize sleep and keep parent burnout at bay

Lack of sleep propels parent burnout and makes it almost impossible to be emotionally available to our children. Getting seven to eight hours of sleep per night will help prevent parent burnout. This may be wildly unrealistic for you right now if you have young children who wake multiple times per night. If that is the case, it is worthwhile prioritizing your sleep in any way that you can.

That might mean asking your partner, if you have one, to do the morning routine while you take an extra hour in bed, going to bed a bit earlier instead of doing laundry or watching TV or finding someone to mind your children for an hour during the day so you can take a nap. If you aren’t getting enough sleep and it is impossible for you to get more right now, I want to acknowledge how incredibly difficult that is. I hope you can find ways to get the support you need and deserve.

6. Doing little something for yourself brings you all more joy

Doing whatever it is that makes you feel alive once or twice a week will help you feel more resourced as a parent and you will bring that joy with you into your family life. It might be a walk in nature, time at the gym, playing music, dancing, meeting with good friends, or nerding-out on parenting books.

This looks different for everyone so it is about finding out what is right for you.

Stuck on what to do? It is so easy to put our own needs last that we can lose ourselves in parenting. This makes it difficult to even remember the things we used to enjoy. If you are struggling to figure out what you enjoy doing you could make a list of all the activities you have enjoyed in the past or have ever thought about trying. Pick one that seems manageable and commit to carving out a little bit of time each week to do that.

Walking the path of being a gentle parent is often difficult and pushes us to the limits of what we are capable of. When we have those inevitable days or weeks when it all goes wrong and we feel like we are failing our children, it can be helpful to take a step back.

Remind yourself of all the times you have responded to your child with respect and understanding. Then look at it from your child’s perspective – they have a parent who loves them deeply, who is doing their very best with the tools and resources they have, who is committed to being a gentle and respectful parent, who often gets it wrong but does their best to repair and no matter what, keeps showing up day after day.

That is one lucky child to have you in their corner. Know that that is enough.

I hope these ideas have given you some hope that, with the right tools and support, it is possible to feel like an able and confident parent. I would love to hear what practices work for you and to help you feel resourced as a parent.

By Pamela Quiery

*Taken from Hand-in-Hand Parenting Blog