Parent Recharge

Compassion Fatigue: it Happens to Parents, Too

Compassion fatigue has long been known as a risk for people who take care of other people, such as nurses, social workers, and firefighters. But it’s important to know that parents can experience compassion fatigue - and even develop burnout - too.

After all, parenting is the ultimate caregiving role. (And we can’t just say “I’m outta here!”)

What is Compassion Fatigue?

Compassion Fatigue (also known as secondary traumatic stress) is a chronic condition characterized by:

• Frustration

• Emotional depletion

• Exhaustion (physical and emotional)

• Irritability, impatience

• Feeling ineffective

• Feeling isolated

• Having little or no sense of personal accomplishment

• Lack of empathy and compassion

• Feeling joyless, and even hopeless

All parents have challenging days and experience some of these symptoms at some point in their lives, but having these symptoms frequently over an extended period can signal serious stress.

If these symptoms aren’t treated, they can develop into a mental health issue, such as depression and anxiety.

Could it happen to me?

Parents of children who struggle are at greater risk of encountering these problems. Studies looking at biomarkers in mothers of children with developmental and behavioral challenges found:

• Cortisol (stress hormone) patterns that look similar to those found in combat soldiers who have been desensitized to danger due to chronic stress exposure.

• Weakened immune systems, demonstrating a reduced ability to fight both bacterial and viral infections.

• Shortened telomeres, which is associated with advanced cellular aging (by as much as ten years in some parents).

• Poorer sleep quality, which can have negative health consequences.

Here’s how it happens:

Lack of support or validation

Many of us don’t have enough support and we’re hesitant to ask for help. We place impossible expectations on ourselves. Some of us try to keep our struggles private because we don’t want people to judge us or our kids. Some of us isolate because we feel like we’re under siege and the only thing to do is batten down the hatches. Going for days without getting a break is exhausting. Not having our efforts acknowledged and validated is discouraging.

Not seeing progress

We put all our emotional resources into helping our kids because we want them to thrive and we love them more than anything. But sometimes it can seem like all our efforts aren’t yielding any progress, or we get stuck in parenting patterns that aren’t effective. After a while, we start to feel despair. It can seem as if you’re pushing a boulder up the hill - over and over.

The “Giving Tree” effect

Parents like us often put everyone else’s needs before our own. Remember Shel Silverstein’s book about the Giving Tree? The tree gave the boy everything she had - apples, branches, trunk - until all that was left was a stump. Some of us feel guilty about taking care of ourselves when we could be doing “more” for our kids. We might hear about self-care, but actually practicing it seems indulgent - or impossible. We figure we’ll be fine “for now”... until the stress creeps up on us.

What you can do: