Parenting in a Pandemic World: A Spotlight on Parental Burnout

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, families across the world were suddenly locked down at home for extended periods of time. Parenting stress and exhaustion were on all lips, and interest in parental burnout boomed among professionals, the public, and the media alike. This spotlight is an opportunity for the emerging field of parental burnout, a context-specific condition characterized by overwhelming exhaustion in one’s parental role, emotional distancing from one’s children, and feelings of being fed up with one’s parental role. Parental burnout has severe consequences for parents (e.g., suicidal ideations) and children (e.g., parental abuse and neglect), and results from a prolonged imbalance between parenting stressors and resources, many of which were altered during the COVID-19 lockdown (e.g., working remotely, no childcare, less social support). These modifications make the COVID-19 crisis a highly relevant context to investigate parental burnout, and is explored in detail across these four presentations.

Group 1 will present data on the prevalence of parental burnout in 20 countries before and during COVID-19. Group 2 will present data on individual and family-level factors associated with greater parental burnout during COVID-19. Group 3 will demonstrate that adaptive emotion regulation strategies serve as a protective factor for parental burnout during COVID-19. Finally, Group 4 will examine parenting risks and resources on parental burnout during COVID-19, focusing on COVID-19 impacts to parents’ psychological health. Using data from several countries, these presentations highlight the importance of investigating parental burnout during COVID-19 and the resulting impact on parents and families.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Chairs

• Margaret L. Kerr, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Isabelle Roskam, UCLouvain

Individual Presentations

• More or Less? Prevalence Rates of Parental Burnout Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Presenting Author: Hedwig van Bakel, Tilburg University; Non-Presenting Author: Ruby Hall, Tilburg University; Non-Presenting Author: Coco Bastiaansen, Tilburg University

• The Lockdown: A Blessing for Some Parents, a Nightmare for Others! - Presenting Author: Maria Filomena Ribeiro da Fonseca Gaspar, Universidade de Coimbra (UC); Non-Presenting Author: Anne-Marie Fontaine, University of Porto; Non-Presenting Author: Moïra Mikolajczak, UCLouvain; Non-Presenting Author: Isabelle Roskam, UCLouvain

• Parental Burnout and Emotion Regulation During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Presenting Author: Dana Vertsberger; Non-Presenting Author: Anat Talmon, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: James Gross, Stanford University

• Parental Burnout During COVID-19: Balancing New Risks and Resources - Presenting Author: Margaret L. Kerr, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Tuyen Huynh, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Jiwon Yoon, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Nadia Al Nassar, University of Wisconsin - Madison