By Meryl Lammers, LSW, MT-BC
In August of 2024, the acting Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, issued an advisory on the health and well-being of parents in the United States. This advisory called attention to the growing rates of stress experienced by parents and the direct impact that stress has on childhood development and well-being. Parental stress, coupled with trauma can be a particularly challenging experience.
Sources of Sessors for parents:
1) Financial Strain, Economic Instability, and Poverty can make it difficult for many families to meet their children’s basic needs, pay for childcare costs, and provide for children’s health and education expenses. Financial worries continue to be a top stressor among parents.
2) Time Demands: The increase in time spent both on work commitments and with family responsibilities can contribute to work-family conflict, burnout, and stress.
3) Children’s Health, including mental health challenges, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and acute or chronic illnesses, can add to parental stress levels.
4) Children’s Safety: Parents report concerns about their child being bullied, abducted, or attacked. Firearm-related injury has become the leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents ages 1-19 and parents report that the possibility of a school shooting causes them significant stress.
5) Parental Isolation and Loneliness: Parents struggle with loneliness at higher rates than non-parents, which can exacerbate parental stress.
6) Technology and Social Media: The rapid adoption and evolution of technology and social media have been difficult and stressful for parents to manage, including by posing new risks to children’s health and safety.
7) Cultural Pressures and Children’s Future: Cultural expectations, societal norms, and pressure to meet perceived parenting standards can contribute to parental stress.
Offering Trauma Therapy for Parental Stress at the Phoenix Center in Media, PA or Online!
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Parental Stress and Mental Health
Chronic or excessive stress, coupled with other complex environmental and biological factors, can increase the risk of mental health conditions for individuals. Some of those factors include:
1) Exposure to Alcohol and Drugs
2) Discrimination and Racism
3) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Abuse, Neglect, Trauma, Death/Loss of Loved Ones
4) Neurochemical Factors influenced by genetics, epigenetics, and hormonal fluctuations associated with pregnancy and the perinatal period
5) Predisposition to mental health conditions
Disproportionate Mental Health Conditions Among Certain Parents and Caregivers
1) Community Violence: Parents who are exposed to violence (e.g., intimate partner violence), are incarcerated.
2) Racism and Discrimination: Parents who are of racial and ethnic minorities, are sexual and gender minorities, are immigrants, are parents and caregivers of undocumented children
3) Poverty: Parents and caregivers who live in low-income households, experience job instability or unemployment, and experience food insecurity.
4) Gender: Women in heterosexual relationships disproportionately carry the physical, emotional, and mental labor of childrearing compared to male counterparts.
5) Other: Parents who are divorced, are in the military or deployed, have disabilities or experience chronic medical problems or trauma.
Parental mental health can influence the emotional climate, responsiveness, and consistency of caregiving at home, all of which are crucial for a child’s emotional and cognitive development.
Impacts to Children
Importantly, how a parent’s or caregiver’s mental health affects their behavior and functioning is a critical factor in determining how it impacts a child.
Children of a primary caregiver who reported poor mental health were four times more likely to have poor general health (5.1% vs 1.3%) and two times more likely to have mental, behavioral, or developmental disorders (41.8% vs 21.0%). Additionally, these children are prone to cognitive, academic, and interpersonal struggles.
The mental health conditions of parents can pose greater risks for children when combined with additional risk factors like poverty, exposure to violence, and marital conflict, but they can be mitigated by protective factors like social support networks and positive parenting behaviors as well.
Government, health and social service systems, employers, community organization, schools, and even friends and families can all play a crucial role in helping support parents, which would require massive policy changes, allocation of federal and state tax dollars, and the overall shift in perception about parenting: It’s time to value and respect time spent parenting on par with time spent working at a paying job, recognizing the critical importance to society of raising children. These changes will take time.
Offering Trauma Therapy at the Phoenix Center in Media, PA or Online!
484-440-9416 | [email protected]
But parents can start to implement change for themselves now:
· Community Care: Parenting is best done with the support of other parents, family members, and friends. Seek out or create relationships with parents of children across age groups. Such community can provide opportunities to share your feelings, concerns, and challenges while also learning from the experiences of other parents. Fostering a supportive environment can help reduce the stresses of parenthood.
· Self-Care: Some activities that can help reduce stress include exercise, sleep, a balanced diet, mindfulness, meditation, and recreational activities that bring joy. Self-compassion is also crucial, as parenting is incredible stressful, and no one is a “perfect” parent.
· Education about appropriate health care from credible sources: FindSupport.gov
· Learn to recognize the signs of how mental health challenges manifest and when it’s time to ask for help: If you feel bad and are not getting better, you need and deserve additional care. Don’t be afraid to ask for support from a peer, family member, mental health provider, or any medical professional.
The stress of parenting
The stress of parenting, including challenges like child behavior, sleep deprivation, and financial strain, can act as a trigger for past traumatic experiences. For parents who have experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), parenting can be a particularly challenging experience. The stress of parenting may lead to a reactivation of PTSD symptoms, including intrusive memories, flashbacks, and heightened anxiety.
Trauma can be passed down through generations, meaning that a parent’s past trauma can impact their parenting style and their child’s well-being.
Parents may experience a variety of symptoms when their trauma is triggered, including increased anxiety, anger, or emotional numbing. When parents’ trauma is triggered, it can affect their parenting style, leading to difficulties in communication, discipline, or emotional regulation. If parents are struggling with trauma and its impact on parenting, it is important to seek support from mental health professionals or support groups.
Remember, caring for yourself is a key part of how you care for your family. If you are finding the stress of parenting is feeling overwhelming, call the Phoenix Center today to find out more about our compassionate trauma therapists and how they can help lighten the emotional load of parenting.
