Robert Trout (00:01.345)
Hello and welcome to the Parenting Problems Today podcast where we delve into different issues that families are working with, with tweens, teens, and young adults. And today, Paul Arradondo and myself, Robert Trout, will be your hosts from the Parent Trainers team. And today’s topic is touching on something that we’ve kind of danced around in several episodes. And if you’re a listener to our podcast, you’ve heard Paul and I especially, we harp on this.
concept of parents taking care of themselves over and over and over again. So it came up as a topic of discussion of why do we keep harping on this? Why do we go into the like, you’ve got to do self-care? mean, self-care is mandatory for a process that involves behavioral mental health. But we’re talking about self-care for the parent in this. So today’s episode, we’re going to just give a general conversation.
and look at the signs and symptoms and kind of the whys when it comes to parent burnout. And parent burnout is really heavily, I’m going to say, diagnosed when you look at factors that are different than other mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety or, I mean, you name it, anything that might be going on.
And I want to make sure we start this conversation by saying, yes, it is possible as a parent, as a human to have depression and children. OK, so there are some like designated factors here when people, when clinicians and other individuals look at parent burnout that make this a little bit different and help us kind of designate what might be going on. Because parent burnout is part of a diagnostic tool.
linked to the family system itself. Okay. And I guess let’s go ahead and start there because for me, when I talk to parents about depression and anxiety for them, one of the designating factors that we get into is whether their feelings and their reactions and the processes that are often tied to depression and anxiety disorders, are they directly linked to their function, their job?
Robert Trout (02:23.873)
And their interactions with their children. Okay, so that’s directly linked to the role within the family system so Paul as we kind of jump into this I just want to ask like when you think a parent burnout if you had to give a definition What’s your definition of parent?
Paul (02:45.208)
My definition is…
Paul (02:50.966)
When a parent is burnt out, there is a diminished capacity to be in relationship with themselves first and then be in relationship with their loved ones. And that lower capacity leads to unfortunate communication challenges, unfortunate boundaries and consequences that are either overexpressed or underexpressed.
the culture of the family is impacted by the burnout and certainly the parent and their sense of role and willingness to participate in that role is also impacted.
Robert Trout (03:32.769)
Absolutely. Yep. Total agreement there. I’m going to say, let’s kind of jump from that definition straight into kind of the categories that a lot of parents need to understand as far as like doing self-diagnosis, like what’s going on for you, where are you at, what’s your energy level and capacity, right? What is your capacity to be a parent for this child? Because
Paul (03:56.14)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (04:01.089)
at least for me, and correct me if I’m wrong, what I have seen over and over again is the parent thinking, I’m supposed to be able to handle this, right? Fill in the blank, whatever this is. And the truth is, is that the child is commonly going through a mental or behavioral health process. Something’s happening neurologically, they have autism or ODD or some
Paul (04:12.972)
Right.
Robert Trout (04:30.177)
condition, some personality disorder or something, developing during those crucial years of being a tween teen and young adult where the brain is rapidly changing or slowly developing. Like we see it on all ends of the spectrum here. But all of that leads to this place for us when we’re working with a parent of looking and saying, okay, your child is struggling and they’re going to struggle. Okay, so we have to first build that
I’m going to say profile and say this person, this child to you as the parent is going to struggle. But we’re going to back away from that and say, how are you as a parent going to build the boundaries, the container and the process to support this person, this child, short term and long term. And for me, when we start talking about parent burnout,
We have to start looking at the state, the emotional state of the parent when they’re in proximity to that child. That’s one of the biggest indicators of something being parent burnout versus anxiety or depression, right? How we can separate that is you’re great during the day when your kid’s at school. You function, you go to work, you clean the house, you do whatever it is that you need to do, and you can find moments of
Paul (05:37.677)
You
Paul (05:44.482)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (05:55.423)
joy and listening to music and doing something for yourself or whatever those things might be. And then your child shows up and there is a switch, right? Like we see this switch in the beginning of burnout. Let me be clear about this. There are stages of burnout and in the beginning, the easiest way to recognize is then your child shows up and you become different. Thoughts on that, Paul?
Paul (06:22.89)
Yeah, I mean, more signs and symptoms of that that are kind of just so concrete. If your child has a cell phone and they call you and your heart starts to race before you pick it up, that’s a good sign. Or tension starts to arise in your body or your mind starts to become hyperactive. They don’t even have to be in the room. Just the recognition that they’re seeking you out can be enough to trigger you. And maybe there’s good reason, you know, they’ve definitely done things.
or you have concerns about behavior patterns or the situations in the environment they might be in and so forth. going back to the definition, this is about your capacity to manage things like your child calling you in distress, your ability to slow yourself down, your ability to take care of yourself, your ability to then meet them in a moment where…
You’re the developed nervous system. You’ve heard us say that many times. Neurologically, your brain is developed. They’re still struggling to understand which way is up when it comes to emotional processing and understanding how to be resilient. So that said, being able to take that step back and have a clear look at yourself. How am I doing in terms of my reactivity, my irritability, my…
my jumping to conclusions, my assumptive thinking. If you’re moving fast and you cannot slow yourself down, it’s a pretty good indicator.
Robert Trout (07:58.421)
Yep. And I guess let’s try to build a little spectrum for a parent here when they’re considering like what state you’re in. Because we’re talking about the parent mental health here, about the parent kind of their capacity overall to work with this child or the whole family system. And for me, if we look at the lower end of the spectrum where like this process is beginning for the parent, I’m going to put at the beginning of the spectrum of burnout, something to recognize.
Paul (08:07.405)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (08:27.369)
and that’s your irritability or your anger. That usually is one of the very first things to start to come out. And it’s directly tied, typically, to a feeling of hopelessness. We’ve gone through this a thousand times and nothing is changing. And I hear that a lot with parents that are in the very beginning stages of reaching burnout because they’ve reached that level of frustration.
Paul (08:30.35)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (08:55.393)
Anger and irritability where yep your child calls and your heart starts going because it’s like my god We’re gonna go through this again. Now. You’ve already predictively Placed a story on why they’re calling you like why this is happening right now So in the beginning of the spectrum of burnout I’m gonna put anger and irritability and like that hopelessness type feeling that’s starting to come out because you as a parent You want some these things to be different?
You want your relationship to be different, the behaviors to be different, the ability to be in relationship to be different. And that usually comes from a place of having some kind of like, wish our life looked like this, right? I wish we had this type of relationship. I wish you would go to school without this big fight about going to school. I wish, I wish, I wish. And it leads into that irritability, that anger, that hopelessness, all, et cetera.
Then we move towards the other end of the spectrum where this is unfortunately, unfortunately where most parents have to admit that they’ve reached burnout because on this end of that spectrum, they’ve really reached a level of emotional numbness, like giving up. They just don’t have anything left. So they shut down emotionally and that either leads to them just letting the child do whatever they want.
Paul (10:10.848)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Robert Trout (10:21.953)
because they don’t feel any energy to intervene or to process and do it. But also at this end, and this is the real heartbreak that I’ll talk to any parent about, looking at the parent has reached a place of guilt and shame that they have failed, right? They have failed as a parent. They don’t know what to do. They feel it’s hopeless, like all is lost in that because of emotional exhaustion.
Their tank is empty. They have nothing left to give to this child. Now, that’s a spectrum. There are things in the middle there and everybody’s a little different. So anybody listening to this, what I’m hoping we’re doing right now is just giving a like, hey, be aware that parent burnout is very real. In a professional sense, we talk about secondary trauma and different things that happen to professionals that work with mental health.
the time well as a parent it’s similar there are a lot of crossovers here but as a parent you are in this person’s fear in the mental health process all the time you can never take a break from it because you are the parent now within that though is kind of the reverse of what I just said where you can never take a break from it that’s actually not true that’s why I think Paul and I both
harp on this idea of self-care over and over and over again when it comes to a family systems approach of working with kids with mental health. And Paul, I’m going to pass it to you in this. With this question, when we find a parent that says there’s nothing I can do, and we start working in this like, well, actually, you can step away and start doing self-care, what do you think?
Well, what’s the first thing you’re going to do in this conversation about parent burnout to self care? How do you tie that together for a parent?
Paul (12:25.08)
Well, I think repeating what you just said around the shame and guilt and recognizing that some parents feel like it’s their role and they don’t want to have their child feel abandoned. so one of the, it’s kind of a funny way of saying it, but you can’t light yourself on fire to keep them warm. I heard that recently and I really liked that. You can’t light yourself on fire to keep them warm.
Robert Trout (12:47.105)
above that.
Paul (12:52.18)
That actually is just this recognition that when we are trying to love, we’re trying to care take, we’re trying to be responsible, quote unquote, responsible to our loved ones. One of the most responsible things you can do is modeling self-care, modeling the appropriate boundaries around communication, around…
you being even available, not to say that you’re going to abandon them. It’s more about assertive communication for the sake of you being able to meet them in a future moment. So this goes back to many of the aspects of the training that we offer and, you know, a very
simple concept, but you know, very profound in its impact is this understanding of important versus urgent. I think a lot of parents who are in burnout think every moment is urgent. Think every moment has so much weight. This is the moment that I connect with my child. This is the moment that they first, that they finally understand. This is the moment where things change, where I show up in a better way. And the pressure that that puts on parents to show up
is it’s unrelenting. And ultimately, it doesn’t serve you nor your child. So this idea of important versus urgent, know, not to say that those moments aren’t important, they’re just not urgent. So burnt out parents often have this sort of grasping sort of energetic to it, or like this idea of like, my God, this one more time if I could just, right? And
Robert Trout (14:16.722)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (14:42.658)
That in itself, kids feel that. They see that, especially if they’re teenagers, they understand it. So being able to understand that your child is witnessing you and understanding how to be with you, and they’re creating a story of who you are to them with every interaction.
So being able to take that step back and have some perspective and slow down, I mean that is the first step in any of this is take deep breaths. Again, it’s not urgent. We can pause in the moment and we can talk ad nauseum about what pausing means and how to do that. But I’ll toss it back to you, Rob.
Robert Trout (15:06.048)
Yes.
Robert Trout (15:25.729)
Yeah, well, I want to make sure that parents hear this, parent burnout is also one of the things that a lot of kids in their mental health, right, a diagnosable process, personality disorders, different kind of, I’m going to say goal seeking behaviors from the child, they’re trying, they’re trying.
Consciously or unconsciously it can go both ways But that mental health drain that process is happening very often is trying to create the container of you being burned out Okay, because if you give up if you stop fighting That brain that’s struggling wins You’re not yelling at it to get out of bed every morning and go to school anymore. Yay right like
This isn’t about you like not being a good parent or not having the energy to succeed or the capacity or skill. This is about understanding that you maybe are behind the eight ball because it’s this process that’s unfolding behaviorally or neurologically has been putting you in this position over and over and over again, a little bit at a time over the long game.
Okay, see this parent burnout is mostly a result of a process that happened over a long period of time, a year, two years, five years, 10 years. We see this as something that happened incrementally for most parents. And in that case, that’s where that awakening is of saying, okay, how do we counteract that? And whether you like it or not, the first step to intervening with the child,
is gonna be the parents stepping up and saying I have to take care of myself. I have to be strong enough to be something other than what I’ve become in the circle that we just keep looping in as a family. Okay and that’s where we look at family systems where one leads to another to another to another to another and very often this is where we hear things from the parents saying I feel so trapped. There’s nothing we can do. There’s no hope. There’s
Robert Trout (17:43.989)
Like all these statements that make us go, hold on. Some behavior pattern has developed where everyone in the family is in their place to support that behavior pattern. And you have to have the energy and the foresight to step in and say, okay, I’m gonna take care of myself. I’m gonna get some of my energy back. I’m going to work on my life and stability and my resources for me.
Okay, step one is me. I have to step into this in a powerful way. And then I can turn back and look at what’s happening and looping within the family system and start interacting differently, putting in boundaries differently, putting energy into the place differently. And Paul, you’re absolutely right. A part of that is the kind of reflective process where the kid goes, look at that. That’s, I see self care.
And they can maybe learn something from that self-care and from that practice and what they’re seeing you do, that modeling that you’re doing for them is only going to be helpful in the long game. And it can’t be a, I’m going to give my last energy to their process because that’s just going to get eaten up so fast that nothing’s going to change and you just kind of keep sinking into it. So,
Paul, pass it to you with this. I know of three basic things, right, that I witness behaviorally for a parent when they’re like, well, am I burned out? Right? You know, like, have I reached that point? And I’ll often go into this idea of saying, OK, let’s look at it in the sense of, have you lost your motivation for your own life, development, hobbies, skills?
Let’s look at this diagnostically. Have you lost motivation not only to help your kid, but to help yourself? That would be level one. Level two is looking at have you withdrawn from everything outside everything and everyone typically outside of your immediate least your your immediate circle of control within your family, right? So it’s just you and your kid now, right? If that’s the case, then that’s a severe sign of parent burnout.
Robert Trout (20:08.193)
because you withdrew from your friends, withdrew from activities and the life because you put everything into this one thing. And the last thing would be looking at kind of your like, have your life circumstances changed? And this is sleep patterns, fatigue, like, are you different than you were two years ago in the sense of how easy it was for you to take a day off work or to sleep?
or to eat regularly or etc. And those to me are some of the primary things I can like hold up as a mirror like have these things change. And if the answer to that is yes, you’re in that parent burnout spectrum somewhere typically for me. Thoughts on that or something to add?
Paul (20:58.894)
100%. I think those three lenses are spot on. If I was to add something to that, what I would encourage in terms of self-reflection is have you stopped asking for support? Like have you stopped resourcing? I mean, it’s kind of conversely one of the things that you said, Rob, which is have you withdrawn?
have you like isolated yourself with your family? And so I consider those two different things in terms of asking for support and isolating. So that would be one thing to pay attention to because again, a lot of parents feel like they’re all alone with their children. And again, that level of responsibility and that level of burden becomes exhausting.
because they think they are the solution. The parent must be the solution. And if they can’t fix it, then it’s their problem. They’re the problem. And so I think this is a good point to take a step back to and support parents who are coming to this conversation, maybe not with kids with mental health crises, maybe kids who are just kind of hard, you know, or they’re a product of their environment, you know, or they’re
Gosh, there’s succumbing to social media pressures. These are kids that are being raised in an environment that folks our age didn’t deal with. So the burnout is understandable for parents. I want to have that caveat in there. This is a time that is unprecedented. We don’t have a historic reference for how to raise children. mean, we’re learning more and more.
We’re getting more and more data. People are doing the research. mean, anecdotally as well as quantitatively, like the research is showing up. And, and this is hard. Like the, the idea of technology and the distraction and you know, gosh, kids don’t go outside much anymore. And how that has changed family culture and socialization and so forth. So parents,
Paul (23:11.982)
are coming up against things that, you know, they can’t resource outside to get super clear understanding of what’s going on. But that doesn’t mean that resources are ineffective. So being able to stay connected, you know, whether it’s for your own self-care, you going out and having a lunch date with a friend or you going on a date with your spouse.
Those things are so important in the midst of your child struggling. So this is going back to the boundary piece. So when it comes to creating the space for yourself, it’s… gosh, it is so important to pause and take a big step back into objectivity.
because I think oftentimes we get stuck in story and we get stuck in assumption and we get stuck in the emotionality of it. And one of the things that you were saying earlier, Rob, is recognizing that we can get caught in these cycles.
and understanding that your child is trying to catch you up in those cycles so that they can have some freedoms, so that they can have a sense of control. And I think one of the most challenging things for any parent, especially a parent who’s burnt out, one of the most challenging things to come into objectivity with is, it’s actually not about me. It’s not personal.
So being able to take that step back, even if they are saying things that are directly about you and your parenting, about who you are or who you aren’t.
Paul (24:56.032)
It’s still important to take that step and get back and go, okay, what’s underneath that statement? What are they actually wanting? What are they grasping for? Get underneath the verbiage that is potentially hurtful, most oftentimes hurtful. Get underneath the language and understand, okay, after they said that thing to me and I blew up and they were able to rationalize or effectively point the finger at me and then walk away, then what did they do? They got to go play video games.
for an hour. They got to walk out the front door and go hang out with their friends for the rest of the night. That’s what they wanted. So that’s one of the first things about moving out of burnout is slowing down and moving into objectivity, slowing down and taking care of yourself, understanding that you don’t need to push the river. know, Rob, you said also this is the short game and the long game.
So we’re in this for the long haul. It doesn’t need to be grasping at every single moment. It’s about slowing down, taking a deep breath, and being able to be present as much as you possibly can in that given moment.
Robert Trout (26:11.826)
Absolutely. And I think, you know, just flowing from that is kind of, I guess my final thought on this, which is for the parent that’s listening, first of all, let us be the ones to say, this is normal. burnout is not a judgment. It’s a normal process. my God. Almost every parent I meet.
Paul (26:28.216)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (26:37.161)
reaches some level of this spectrum at some point. Whether their child’s struggling with something severe or neurological or whatever it might be, all the way to the, God, these kids just take a lot of energy, right? Like that whole spectrum of like, what’s this kid demanding or needing? And how do we structure our lives around it? Because this is where a lot of things tie together that you’ve heard from our podcasts and our coaching and our trainings at parenttrainers.com. Like there’s a reality here.
Paul (26:50.423)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (27:07.657)
where every parent needs to realize that our world has restructured in the last hundred years, where a lot of parents today are parenting alone. There isn’t that community or centralized family, larger family groups, all influencing these kids. Very often it’s the single mom and the one kid. You know, that, that scenario or something like it, whatever the scenario is.
It plays into this like it’s just different than it used to be, which is why when we have these conversations, a lot of parents are like, my God, how did I fail at this? And we’re like, well, you didn’t. You just are trying to do something that really is unmanageable in our culture where there’s somehow this expectation that’s developed or you were supposed to be super mom or super dad or whatever it was. And you’re supposed to raise this great kid with no problems and everything’s going to be perfect.
Paul (27:44.078)
you
Paul (28:01.846)
Right.
Robert Trout (28:07.029)
Well, the reality was that was never the case ever. Even back when, you know, large family groups, everyone’s having eight, 10, 12 kids, you know, et cetera, a hundred years ago where it’s like, look at this large family group and everybody’s roles and all these types of things. Guess what? People struggled back then too. It just looked different. So this is just a developing lens of our society and looking at parenting. So parent burnout is just this recognition that
Here’s something we’re finding that’s happening for most parents at some point during this process. And step one is to realize that you’re in it. That’s just step one. So I invite you to look at what we’ve talked about today and to hold space for this reality that you may need to slow down. Step two is to take care of yourself and replenish your resources, your energy, your thoughts, and your plan.
And very often it’s develop skills, develop new ideas and processes to interact with what’s happening for this kid. Because very often that’s what we hear later down the line is, God, I wish I knew about this 10 years ago. Well, learn about it now. Don’t wait. Don’t think, I have to just do it my way and figure it out. There are solutions and tactics and strategies and processes to support kids.
who are ADHD or autistic or school refusal or depressed or etc. There are skills and tactics for this. So seek out new abilities while gaining the energy, knowledge and ability to be present, to work with this kid. But if you wing it, you just keep losing a little bit at a time. It’s that whole like, want to solve this now.
Paul (29:36.942)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (30:03.061)
You’re not going to. This is a multi-year, multi-energetic resource process for both the kid and you. And if you can hold space for that, then you can develop yourself into a person who is supportive, who has the container and the boundaries and the process and the intervention strategies to support the mental health, behavioral health, or just energetic process that’s going on for your child.
Paul (30:05.39)
you
Robert Trout (30:32.139)
That would be where I guess my mind leads us to this is you feel hopeless, but you’re not. You just have to realize what you need to do for yourself and that you can learn to be different. That’s what this is really.
Paul (30:49.772)
I guess my last thought is going back to something I said earlier, you can’t light yourself on fire to keep others warm. You only have so much fuel. If you’re not refilling your cup, you’re not able to give, right? And so to make parenthood sustainable, it takes taking that objective step back and understanding how to best appropriately apply your energy and your intent.
So seek out the support around how you make that reality. Seek out support systems to help you set the scaffolding up. Because if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably feel like there’s no support systems and no scaffolding and no way to find your way into even just healthy conversation with your child. So.
Whether it’s with us or other professionals or community members, pastors, so forth, recognize you’re not alone. And again, take that step back and slow down. And I just want to leave a parting thought in terms of taking space in a graceful fashion as a skill.
because we are afraid of abandonment and what that impact could lead to with our loved ones and ourselves. And so if you are going to take space, meaning walk away from an argument that is not productive or communication that is not effective, if you’re gonna walk away, say, love you, I need to take space. This isn’t working. I’m coming back later to have to reengage when we’re both calmer.
give them the understanding of your intent. If you walk away without any sort of verbiage or any expression of coming back, it is abandonment. So this is one skill, the first skill of many that we can talk about in bigger conversations. So it is about self-care.
Robert Trout (32:58.987)
Come find us at parenttrainers.com. Take a training, learn some new skills, ask questions, join the community to meet other parents who are struggling, because you’re definitely not alone. We look forward to seeing you there.
