Surgeon General’s Warning:

Last month, the U.S. Surgeon General released an advisory stating that parents experience such elevated levels of additional distress compared to non-parents that parenting stress is now considered a public health concern (full text here). Most parents of children under 12 will not be surprised to learn that their lives are considered stressful, but a health risk? That’s a kick in the pants.

It turns out that the multiple time demands that parents, but not non-parent adults, experience related to their children’s well-being and safety combined with financial pressures, job stress, and other factors lead parents to report an average of 15% more daily stress than non-parents their age. About half of parents report that they’ve felt “totally overwhelmed” at least once in the last week, compared to about half that number of non-parent adults.

Many of the stressors parents face are structural (lack of paid family leave, lack of government help with daycare, etc.). These larger issues require a lot of long-term advocacy, voting, and policy improvement to address. But what about TODAY?

Parenting Stress, confidence, and child misbehavior:

When the adults in the house get overwhelmed with the stress of day-to-day life, children know it. They don’t always understand, but they sense a shift in the vibe at home. Many times, the shift to a more overall anxious/worried feeling in the house can lead to acting out in children. Adding a shrieking, refusing, melting down kid to the already fraught vibe is, of course, helping nothing.

Over time, this can lead parents to feel less confident in their skills. This also raises the overall distress level, which, of course, causes parents to lash out more quickly at kid’s antics, makes kids more likely to act up, and not comply with parent’s demands. A nasty cycle of stress-acting out-lashing out-feeling bad about it-acting out can get started very easily. Breaking it can be difficult, even once you realize this is what’s going on.

Quick temporary fixes:

A few quick resets can sometimes take the overall temperature of things down enough to give the adults time to get their brains back online. Sometimes using one or more of these might push the reset button enough to get back on track.

• Call a general time-out. Instead of keeping an argument going, especially if you’ve had the same exact one a thousand times, next time everyone is upset and coming at each other, call a time-out. Everyone in the argument then goes off to do something that helps them reset – maybe taking a walk, a bath, watching a funny video, calling a friend, whatever is needed to settle body and mind enough to return to the topic with your whole brain working. 30 minutes is usually a decent reset time, but it can be shorter if needed.
• Call a re-do rather than giving out consequences- for small upsets, like yelling at a sibling, walking by a mess without cleaning it, cheating at a game, etc., try offering your kids a do-over. Wait a beat after the thing happens, then say, “Hey, did you notice x? Let’s try that again”. Using a calm, not blaming voice is key here.
• Have a “date night” with each kid, one-on-one. This can be tricky to schedule, but if you have kids who are over about 4, it can be a great way to reconnect in a fun environment. Maybe you and the oldest go get ice cream, or you and the youngest go for a bike ride, just the two of you. Being stressed out can make us forget we really do like each other sometimes.
• Dump rules that cause more problems than they solve. Household rules should be there to make life easier. If you have some rules that seem to cause more arguments than meeting any specific goals, consider dumping them. Just because your parents made you and your siblings do all of your homework immediately after school doesn’t mean you have to stick to that now. Maybe your kids need a snack and a nap before they tackle homework. Dropping what’s not working can be half the battle sometimes.

Getting outside support:

Sometimes parenting is extra hard. Lots of things can cause parenting to go from hard to truly complex. If that’s happening for you, it may be time to find a therapist who can help. Here are a few examples of parenting challenges that might need outside support from a professional;:

• Your child appears to have multiple sensory aversions (loud sounds make him wail for an hour, tags in shirts make her cry, he only eats 4 foods, toothpaste gets squirted in the toilet because it’s “sticky”, etc.).
• Your child appears to be a lot more rigid than other kids their age.
• Your child doesn’t just get mad, s/he rages for hours with slight provocation.
• Your child hits/kicks/bites you or other adults at any age, or is aggressive with other kids over about age 6.
• Your child is a terrible sleeper, insists on sleeping in your bed or you staying in theirs, has constant nightmares or terrors and is always cranky and tired.
• Your child appears to have more fears than other kids their age to the point that their fears cause the whole family to do things differently.
• Your child’s behavior appears to be levels worse/more severe than any other kids’ their age.

All of these are symptoms of problems that can be supported and redirected IF we can figure out the underlying cause. No parent, not even therapists, can accurately diagnose their own kids. It’s too hard to see patterns when you’re in the pattern.

This is where parenting therapy can be a lifesaver. Parenting therapy with me entails looking at your own patterns and unmet childhood needs and noticing those reflections in the here-and-now, referrals for assessments as needed, concrete, specific direction about how to handle difficult situations, and maybe most importantly, validation and empathy. I use telehealth to make parenting therapy convenient and simple to access, anywhere in NC. Parenting IS stressful, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Let’s talk: https://drcatherinetucker.com/home-page/therapy-services/