238: Feeling exhausted and overwhelmed? Tools to help you cope

Emma 00:00
Hi, I’m Emma, and I’m listening from the UK. We all want our children to lead fulfilled lives, but we’re surrounded by conflicting information and clickbait headlines that leave us wondering what to do as parents. The Your Parenting Mojo podcast distills scientific research on parenting and child development into tools parents can actually use every day in their real lives with their real children. If you’d like to be notified when new episodes are released and get a free infographic on the 13 reasons your child isn’t listening to you and what to do about each one, just head on over to yourparentingmojo.com/subscribe, and pretty soon you’re going to get tired of hearing my voice read this intro, so come and record one yourself at yourparentingmojo.com/recordtheintro.

Jen Lumanlan 00:46
Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. A few months ago I asked listeners for feedback on what you appreciate about the show and what I could do to serve you better. A long-time listener who prefers to remain anonymous pointed out that I have a lot of episodes by now! Even though she’s been around the show for a while, she pointed out that when she starts listening to a new podcast she often feels overwhelmed by the back catalog of episodes and doesn’t know where to begin. Should she go back to the start? To the most recent? To some random episode that seems relevant to her? The listener suggested that I create a kind of map of episodes for new listeners, depending on their particular goals and what’s going on in their lives right now. I immediately saw the usefulness of the idea but it was hard to work it in to the schedule! In the early days of the podcast I used to worry that I would run out of ideas to explore but 230+ episodes later it hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t anticipate it happening anytime soon. And I already release so much content either every week or every other week, so it’s been hard to find a spot to start creating one of these – but finally I have a bit of a break in the schedule so here it is. If you’re feeling exhausted, and if it seems like you’re stretched too thin, or like parenting has become more draining than joyful, then this episode is for you. Maybe you’ve snapped at your child over something small and immediately felt guilty about it. Maybe you’re finding it harder to stay patient, to enjoy the little moments, or even to care about things that used to matter to you. You might feel exhausted and overwhelmed, and wonder: Is this just normal parenting stress, or is there something bigger going on?

Jen Lumanlan 02:21
In today’s episode, we’re going to take a closer look at what to do when you feel so exhausted and overwhelmed that it seems like you’re drowning. To do this, we’ll draw on several episodes that we’ve covered over the years. I’ll pull out the major ideas in each of those episodes and also direct you on where to find them, if you want to dive deeper. We’ll start by looking at parental burnout, and then at some tools that you can use to navigate situations where it seems like you’re drowning, whether or not you’re officially diagnosable with burnout. These include mindfulness, self-compassion, understanding your needs, and setting boundaries. So let’s begin with parental burnout – what it is, why it happens, and what you can do about it. We’ll explore how to recognize burnout in yourself, why so many parents are struggling with it, and the role that unrealistic societal expectations play in making it worse.
The overall idea that I want to leave you with in this episode is that feeling overwhelmed, or exhausted, or burnt out does not mean you are not a bad parent. You’re a human being with limits, and today, we’re going to explore how to honor those limits while still showing up for your children in a way that feels sustainable and fulfilling for you. So as we dig in on parental burnout, we’re going to draw on episode 111 on the topic of parental burnout where listener Kelly and I co-interviewed Dr. Moira Mikolajczak, who is one of the world’s leading researchers on the topic. Parental burnout as a state of extreme physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion caused by the chronic stress of parenting. It goes beyond everyday tiredness—parents experiencing burnout feel completely drained, like they have nothing left to give. Even basic parenting tasks, like preparing meals or responding to their child’s needs, can feel overwhelming.

Jen Lumanlan 04:05
There are four key symptoms of parental burnout. The first is deep exhaustion, where parents feel constantly fatigued, even after rest. The second is emotional distancing, where they withdraw from their children, not because they don’t love them, but because you don’t have the energy to engage. The third symptom is loss of joy in parenting—the things you once enjoyed, like playing or reading with your child, start to seem like burdens. And finally, there’s a painful contrast between the parent that you want to be and the parent that you’ve think you’ve become, often leading to intense guilt and shame. Parental burnout is not rare, but its prevalence varies widely depending on where you live. Research shows that in some countries, as many as 9% of parents experience burnout, while in others, it’s less than 1%. The biggest differences exist between Eurocentric countries—like the U.S., Canada, and much of Europe—versus non-Eurocentric countries in Africa and Asia. So why do parents in some places burnout more than others? One of the biggest factors is social support. In many non-Eurocentric cultures, parenting is more communal. Extended family members, neighbors, and even older children play an active role in raising younger children. Parents don’t carry the full weight of child-rearing alone, which helps prevent burnout. In contrast, parents in Eurocentric countries—especially mothers—often believe they have to do everything. They’re expected to work, to manage the household, to take care of their children’s emotional and cognitive development, and do it all without much outside help. And on top of that, we face intense social pressure to be perfect parents, which adds to the stress. The combination of high expectations and low support makes burnout much more common in Eurocentric cultures, where it seems like parents, and mothers particularly, are doing it all alone. Listener Kelly who co-interviewed Dr. Mikolajczak with me described her experience of what burnout was like, and I want to share that with you in her words:

Kelly 06:03
Yeah, so I suppose it has been growing for quite some time, maybe even up to 10 years in a lighter variance of it. I guess, for me, it was a combination of my characters, some health issues have been going through. Like I said, that the tough time the first year is my daughter really, really hadn’t opened and then some challenges that work. So it was really like a lot of things that were out of my control, but then combined with my response to them that just led to this burnout. And at most times, actually, I wasn’t aware of how much I was racing. And later my husband described it as if he was trying to stop a very heavy train and I just kept going and going and he couldn’t stop me. It was kind of weird because I just didn’t realize how I was doing. It was later when we talked about when I was a lot more calm. And he explained that to me when it dawned on me, I suppose. And it really hit me when I came back after holiday and went back to work and I felt quite okay at the start of the day. But when I came home, I was so shaken and stressed and I felt physically sick. And I just realized how much work was contributing to the story as well. And then finally, I had a breaking point. So just kind of when it already dawned that something was up. But then I had a breaking point about a month later when I was away for work. And I just had a blackout, total blackout. I was sitting on a wall there. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to go. I phoned my husband and he helped me to get to a train station and to find a train to come home and he came in the car halfway to pick me up. And then when I was in the car, I had more or less collapsed. I was crying for hours. I couldn’t do anything anymore. I was exhausted for the next few days. I was just in bed. I felt so sick as if I had a terrible flu. I was shocked because it was the day before I was quite well, lots of energy. And then suddenly, I couldn’t do anything anymore. And my body ache. I was crying, very emotional. It was, yeah, it was very weird to experience such a change in a short time.

Jen Lumanlan 07:59
Probably quite scary too I would think.

Kelly 08:01
Yes, yes. Although at that time, it was more – yeah, no I suppose it was scary. I feel like, I just let it come over me because I had absolutely no sense of what was going on anymore. Well, at that point, I suppose it’s still very important that at that point, I thought, it’s just one or two weeks of rest, and I’ll be okay again. And it took a lot, a lot of time to sink in that it wasn’t minor at all. And I still find it very hard to believe like, I’m still so tired mentally and physically, and we’re seven months in, I never expected that it would be so tough and big.

Jen Lumanlan 08:33
Not everyone experiences burnout like Kelly did; one research paper quoted mothers as saying they had strong mood swings and were violent with their own children, or felt so scared and destabilized that they stopped feeling confident as a mother, or felt very afraid of other people’s judgment and misunderstanding. And Dr. Mikolojczak emphasized that we’re talking about really extreme levels of stress here. Cortisol is a chemical that our bodies produce when we’re navigating stressful situations, and our hair contains a record of the cortisol levels we’ve experienced over time. She compared the cortisol levels of parents in burnout with parents not in burnout, and found that the parents in burnout had twice as much cortisol in their hair, and it was even higher than the cortisol levels of people who were suffering from severe chronic pain and marital abuse. Eventually this level of stress damages the body so you can’t produce any more cortisol, and then you don’t have any energy to face life or even get out of bed. Some of the most important risk factors for burnout include:
1. Perfectionism: Parents who hold themselves to impossibly high standards—whether it’s being a “gentle parent” all the time, never raising their voice, or always meeting their child’s every need—are at a much higher risk. The pressure to be “the perfect parent” makes it harder to step back, to take breaks, or forgive mistakes.
2. Lack of Social Support: Parents who don’t have help from a co-parent, extended family, or a reliable support network are much more vulnerable to burnout. Single parents, as well as immigrant and Black families who may lack economic security or community, are at greater risk.
3. Emotional Load & Mental Load: Beyond physical exhaustion, constantly worrying about your child’s well-being, their future, and managing a never-ending to-do list can be deeply draining.
4. Work and Parenting Conflicts: Parents who struggle to balance a demanding job with childcare responsibilities often feel pulled in too many directions, leading to exhaustion.
5. Parenting a High-Needs Child: Neurodivergent children or children with medical conditions can require extra energy and patience, making burnout more likely.

Jen Lumanlan 10:41
There’s a parental burnout test available that’s linked on the episode page that’s available in french and english. We talked about signs that indicate that you might want to take the test, because even though Kelly was in active burnout, she said it would never have occurred to her to take the test. As long as she had a tiny bit of energy left, she thought she could and should just keep going. And those signs are that you have fatigue that doesn’t go away with a few good nights sleep, and irritability beyond your usual baseline, so you’re becoming angry about little things that wouldn’t have made you angry before, and it lasts longer than a couple of weeks. If either of those things are happening, and especially if both of them is happening, I’d encourage you to take the parental burnout test. The full episode on parental burnout has more information about how burnout affects children, what to tell your kids about burnout, and some practical strategies for recovery. We also discussed the role of societal expectations on parents, and especially on mothers. One of the biggest contributors to parental burnout isn’t just the daily grind of raising kids, it’s the pressure to do it all perfectly. In Eurocentric societies, parents—especially mothers, are taught to believe that their child’s successes or struggles are a direct reflection of their parenting. If our child is thriving, we must be doing a great job. But if they’re struggling in school, having big emotions, not hitting milestones on time, it’s easy to believe that we are failing. And it’s not just an internal experience in our minds, there’s constant monitoring from schools, from doctors, and even from other parents. Did you pack a healthy enough lunch? Are you limiting screen time? Everywhere you turn, there’s another voice telling you what you should be doing. And then there’s social media. You log on, and what do you see? Picture-perfect families, homemade organic meals, kids playing peacefully, no tantrums, no exhaustion, no mess. It’s so easy to compare yourself and wonder why you’re not measuring up. And the weight of these expectations is relentless, and for many parents, it’s crushing. It creates an impossible standard where anything less than perfection seems like failure, pushing out more and more parents into burnout. And of course it seems like the problem is with us, and that it’s our thing to fix. That’s why we’re told that anti-depressants will help, and they do, for some people, but we get people to take medicines that affect their brains in ways we don’t fully understand instead of changing our culture so we actually support each other.

Jen Lumanlan 12:57
I’m going to give you some of the personal strategies you can use to address this sense that you’re drowning, whether or not you’re in official burnout, and we’ll conclude by looking at some cultural-level changes we can make as well. The first of the personal strategies we can use is mindfulness, which I have to say is one of those things I knew the benefits of for years, and I thought knowing the benefits of mindfulness was somehow enough, and I didn’t actually have to do it to get the benefits. To learn more about it, I interviewed Diana Winston, she is the director of mindfulness education at the mindfulness awareness research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, I wanted to know what mindfulness is and how it can help us. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your full attention to what is happening right now, without judgment or the need to change anything. It means noticing your thoughts, your feelings, and your physical sensations as they arise, and observing them with a sense of openness, rather than resisting them or pushing them away. It also involves curiosity, approaching each moment as if it were new, rather than letting past experiences or worries about the future dictate your reactions. Many of us spend much of our time lost in thought, rehashing past mistakes, planning for what’s next, or feeling overwhelmed by everything on our plates. Mindfulness invites us to step out of that cycle and simply be in the moment, whether that means fully listening to our child’s laughter, feeling the warmth of a cup of tea in our hands, or even noticing our own frustration without immediately reacting to it. Many people assume that mindfulness and meditation are the same thing, but they are closely related, not interchangeable. So mindfulness is a broad category that includes many different types of practices. Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but it’s also something that can be practiced outside of formal meditation. You don’t have to sit cross-legged on a cushion for hours to be mindful. Mindfulness is simply about bringing your full attention to the present moment. You can practice it while washing dishes, listening to your child, or even walking to the mailbox. Meditation is often used as a way to become more mindful, but mindfulness itself is more of a way of being, a shift in how you relate to your experiences, whether you’re sitting in stillness or moving through your day.

Jen Lumanlan 15:08
Parenting can seem like a constant juggling act, managing schedules, solving problems, and anticipating the next challenge before it even happens. It’s really easy to get stuck in a cycle of overthinking, and worrying about whether we handled a situation the right way or bracing ourselves for the next meltdown. Mindfulness helps us to break free from this pattern by creating a pause, a space between our child’s behavior and our own reaction. Instead of automatically snapping or shutting down, we can step back, take a breath, and respond with intention. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever get frustrated, but it does mean we’re less likely to react in ways we later regret. Mindfulness also supports self-compassion, which is crucial for parents who constantly believe they’re falling short. We’ll look more at self compassion in a minute. Being mindful isn’t about completely emptying your mind or achieving total calm; it’s more about noticing your thoughts without getting caught up in them. Episode 193 on You don’t have to believe everything you think gives you another path to doing this. And you don’t have to do it for hours every day to get the benefits of it. Short moments through the day can be just as effective. Parent Leonie, recently posted in the parenting membership about a process that she uses when she doesn’t quite have the energy for a problem solving conversation but wants to take the edge off her resentment that she’s feeling about a situation with her child. She says, think of the things your kid is doing that you are really starting to feel annoyed or resentful about. For me it was lying in bed for ages at bedtime and here I assume she means her child wants her to lie in bed for ages while the child tries to go to sleep but keeps talking and playing and doing other things that definitely aren’t sleeping, and hanging around while her child uses the toilet because they didn’t want to be alone in the bathroom. So Leonie goes on, now, think about some small aspects of self-care that you were wish you were doing but haven’t been doing despite wanting to. For Leonie that was pelvic floor exercises and moisturizing her face. Now, use one as a cue for the other. So Leonie says: “I do pelvic floor exercises while I’m in bed with her. When I’m waiting for my daughter in the bathroom, I moisturize my face. No, I didn’t magically love my daughter doing things after that but I did feel a little bit more competent in looking after myself, and a little bit less resentful about the situation. You could very easily adapt this to incorporate mindfulness into various aspects of your day, and course an added benefit is as you’re doing the mindfulness practice you’re almost automatically getting out of the stories in your head that are making lying in bed with your child and waiting for them in the bathroom so frustrating in the first place, which also helps you to improve your relationship with your child because you aren’t nagging at them to stop talking or hurry up on the toilet.

Jen Lumanlan 17:42
You can also try using grounding techniques to bring attention back to your body when emotions start to escalate. A simple grounding practice is to focus on the breathtaking slow, deep breaths and noticing the physical sensation of air moving in and out of your body. Another option is to bring awareness to physical sensations, like feeling your feet on the floor or rubbing your fingers together. These techniques work because they shift attention away from overwhelming thoughts and back to something neutral and steady, which helps to break the cycle of stress. Another powerful way to use mindfulness in parenting is to notice emotional triggers before they take over. Many parents find themselves reacting automatically to their child’s behavior, raising their voice, shutting down, or feeling overwhelmed before they even have a chance to think. Mindfulness helps create space between the trigger and the reaction. For example, if a child is whining or refusing to listen, instead of instantly feeling irritation and snapping, a mindful parent might pause, take a deep breath, acknowledge what’s happening, I might sound like, I’m feeling really frustrated right now. Simply naming an emotion can reduce its intensity, making it easier to choose a thoughtful response rather than reacting on autopilot. This is a big part of what we do in the Taming Your Triggers workshop, and I know it sounds trite when I say it here, oh, just pause when my child or my partner does something really irritating, just like that, like I haven’t been trying to do that all along. And I know it can seem impossible to do when you’re in the difficult moments, but there are things you can do that make it easier for you to access these tools in the difficult moments. For example, when we practice mindfulness throughout daily life, even in small ways. We bring attention to ordinary activities, maybe fully listening when our child is speaking, noticing the warmth of a hug. You might lie in bed when we wake up, and notice a sense of calm, and maybe put a hand on her heart to connect with your physical body. And then in a stressful moment, you can put your hand on your heart and you might find you can access the sense of calm that you feel in the morning, which helps you to create the pause you’re looking for. Once you have the pause, you can decide what you want to do next, instead of just reacting to your child’s behavior.

Jen Lumanlan 19:52
In the full episode on mindfulness we also look at the research on it, as mindfulness has been shown to help pretty much everyone with pretty much anything, but there are a number of methodological challenges that haven’t been fully addressed. Diana also led us through a short mindfulness practice to help you get started if you’ve never done anything like it before. I think the link between mindfulness and self compassion is really important, so let’s go to self-compassion next. I interviewed Dr. Susan Pollak, clinical psychologist and author of the book self-compassion for parents on this topic. Self-compassion is the ability to treat ourselves with the same kindness that we offer a friend, it can feel deeply unnatural, especially for parents. Many of us were raised to believe that being hard on ourselves is necessary for success, that pushing through exhaustion is a sign of strength, and if we struggle, it’s because we aren’t trying hard enough. Those beliefs shape our inner dialogue, and self-criticism becomes our default response when things go wrong. We tell ourselves: “I should have handled that better. What’s wrong with me?” instead of “That was a tough moment; I did my best.” In many cultures, self-compassion is simply part of being human, but in Eurocentric societies, it’s often seen as self-indulgent. We learned this from our parents and from teachers at school, who pushed us to work harder so we could be successful. On the recent masterclass that I led before the Taming Your Triggers workshop opened for enrollment, I coached a parent who had not experienced any kind of major traumatic experiences. Our trauma responses are often at the root of our triggered feelings about our children’s behavior but this parent found it a mystery because her parents were good parents. Her mom would tell her to do her best in school, which her mom intended to be reassuring, but this parent actually thought: “I don’t know what doing my best means. If I didn’t get a perfect grade then I should have spent more time studying, so I can be more perfect next time.” And this well-intentioned advice to do her best had led this parent into debilitating perfectionism, where every misbehavior, every rude reply from our child, every time her child refused to do something that the parent wanted would trigger the parent because clearly she was failing at parenting if her kids wouldn’t even do basic things right. We have a whole episode on perfectionism as well, which I’ll link to in the show notes, but the basic idea is that we try to be perfect so that we’ll seem lovable to others. When we’re young, we think that if we’re perfect enough then our parents whose attention we care about more than anything else in the world, will think that we’re lovable, and we’ll finally feel safe. We get lots of rewards, in the form of grades, praise, a spot in a good university, and a good job when we focus on being perfect. But eventually we find that we can’t be perfect forever, and then we’re faced with the idea that maybe we aren’t lovable at all. Most parents I work with know what compassion is. They know how to support their children and their friends, but they have the hardest time in the world turning that compassion back toward themselves. The idea of showing ourselves the same warmth and understanding that we show our children or closest friends may even seem selfish. But research of self-compassion doesn’t make us lazy or complacent—it actually makes us stronger, helping us handle stress, build resilience, and recover from difficult parenting moments more effectively. Learning to shift our inner voice from one of judgment to one of kindness can have a profound impact on our well-being and the way we show up for our children. So how do we actually do that? Let’s say you snapped at your child after a long day, or maybe you feel embarrassed by their public meltdown. In these moments, self-compassion can be a powerful tool to help you pause, reset, and respond in a healthier way. We begin by being mindfully present with our struggle, neither wallowing in it or pushing it away using coping mechanisms like doomscrolling or working. We acknowledge the difficulty, this is really hard. Recognize that all parents struggle and not alone in this, and offer ourselves kindness in doing my best, and that’s enough. Of course the judgments in your mother’s voice, in our culture’s voice, which have maybe all mixed up into your own voice might now say: “my best is clearly not enough.” But here’s the thing: you’ve been beating yourself up now for a while now how much you yell at your kids, right? And has it stopped you from yelling at them? If it had, would you be listening to this episode? Many parents find that when they switch from beating themselves up to having compassion for themselves, they’re able to make changes that they hadn’t been able to make before.

Jen Lumanlan 24:19
One strategy you can try to do this is shifting your inner voice. So instead of berating yourself for a mistake, try speaking to yourself the way you’d comfort a friend. You can imagine having a friend who calls you and describes being in a situation that’s just like the one you’re in right now. What would you say to them? How would you comfort them? If you write this down, you can then read the words as if someone else had written them to you, and then remind yourself that they are your own words of compassion. Rather than pushing these feelings away or feeling guilty for having them, self-compassion allows us to recognize them without judgment and choose a more mindful, intentional response. In the end, being kind to yourself doesn’t just help you, it also teaches your children how to navigate their own challenges with resilience and self-acceptance. I looked at the topic of self-esteem in children way back in episode 17, which was an early one where I thought the episode was going to be super easy to research. I would just look at the evidence on why self-esteem is a good thing, and how to develop it in our children, and I’d be done. Instead I found that the research base is highly equivocal, and I was shocked to find that overall it suggested that self-compassion was a far more useful skill to have than self-esteem. So by practicing self-compassion ourselves, we also model how to do it for our kids. In the full episode on self-compassion we also looked at the concept of equanimity, which means finding balance and calm in the midst of chaos, and did a mindfulness practice to help us find it, as well as looking at ways to make self-compassion part of our daily lives.

Jen Lumanlan 25:54
The next idea I want to look at is on the topic of needs. We spend quite a bit of time on the show looking at our kids’ needs, and there’s a reason for that. Very often, when we’re having a difficult interaction with our kids, we have needs for things like ease, collaboration, and harmony with our kids, as well as time for our work, for rest, and for self-care. They’re resisting what we’re asking them to do because they have needs maybe for things like connection and autonomy, and when we see that and help them to meet their needs, our needs come along for the ride. Remember the story from my book Parenting Beyond Power, about parent Maria who was in an endless fight with her daughter Isabel because Isabel refused to get dressed in the mornings. When she finally asked Isabel why she didn’t want to get dressed, Isabel replied: because I like knowing you were the last person to touch my clothes in the morning. Isabel had a need for connection, and as soon as Maria helped her to meet that need by hugging Isabel’s clothes, there was no more struggle. Maria’s needs for ease, collaboration, harmony, and time to herself work to get ready were met. If we’re really struggling right now and it seems like we’re drowning, focusing on our children’s needs is definitely going to help, and also looking at our own needs is going to help more effectively. I had a conversation on this topic with Mara Glatzel, she’s the author of Needy: How to advocate for your needs and claim your sovereignty. We looked at why parents and especially mothers struggle to prioritize their own needs, how societal conditioning teaches us to suppress them, and what we can do to reclaim our right to take up space in our own lives. Many parents struggle to acknowledge their own needs because they’ve been conditioned to believe that being needy is a flaw. From childhood, many of us were taught, either directly or through societal messages, that prioritizing ourselves is selfish, and that good parents, especially mothers, should always put others first. This belief leads to a pattern of self-neglect, where parents push their own needs aside in favor of meeting everyone else’s. But ignoring needs doesn’t make them disappear; it only causes resentment, exhaustion, and eventually, what a shock, burnout. Instead of viewing neediness as a weakness, we can begin to see it for what it truly is: a desire to matter, to be seen, and to be cared for just as much as we care for others. Without realizing it, many parents pass down the same self-neglecting patterns we were taught. When we constantly push through exhaustion, skip meals, or suppress our emotions to keep the peace, our children absorb the message that ignoring our needs is normal. If they never see us take a break, set boundaries, or advocate for ourselves, they learn that a parent’s needs should always come second to those around them. Then when they become parents themselves, or maybe even before that, they end up repeating the cycle. Many parents resist prioritizing their needs because they believe that everyone else is managing just fine without doing so. It can seem isolating to step away from the norm when it seems like other parents are holding everything together, and it also makes it really hard to ask for help when nobody ever asks us – which must mean that they don’t need help, right. But just because self-sacrifice is common doesn’t mean it’s healthy or sustainable. A useful question to ask is, “If this way of doing things actually worked, wouldn’t I feel better by now?” If constantly putting others first led to happiness and balance, more parents would feel fulfilled instead of exhausted. Breaking free from patterns of self-neglect can be uncomfortable at first, but it ultimately leads to a greater sense of stability and well-being. Parents who acknowledge their needs don’t just benefit themselves, they also create an environment where their children learn that self-care and boundary-setting are normal and necessary parts of life.

Jen Lumanlan 29:34
A common barrier to prioritizing needs is the belief that there simply isn’t time, that between work, childcare, and household responsibilities, there’s no room for self-care. But waiting for the perfect time to take care of ourselves is a trap because there will always be something demanding our attention. We might think: “I’ll take care of myself when things calm down,” which means: when the dishwasher is fixed, and we aren’t attending a child’s birthday party every weekend, and my child will actually stay in bed without coming out 300 times in the evenings, and so on, and so on, and so on. But then the microwave breaks, and our child makes new friends who also have birthdays, and they grow out of one behavior we find irritating and grow into another one. So instead of waiting for things to calm down, we can look for small, sustainable ways to integrate self-care into our current reality. We might imagine a long period of time off work to rest or take a vacation, and then remind ourselves that this is impossible, and then just kind of sigh “well I guess I can’t do anything, then.” Instead, we can look for ways to get just 1% of what we want. So if we find we’re often thirsty because we aren’t making time to drink, we might carry a bottle from room to room or leave bottles around the house. We could step outside for a breath of fresh air between calls, or maybe take a call while walking. This afternoon my daughter wanted a pillow fight and I wanted to exercise, so I said yes to the pillow fight and used it as a warm-up for my workout. That strategy met her needs for joy and play and connection, and my needs for connection and movement. Win-win. But I don’t want us to fall into the trap of thinking we should work on meeting our needs so we can show up as a better parent. To me that’s a nice fringe benefit; the actual reason I should work on meeting my needs is because I’m a whole person and I deserve to get my needs met simply because I exist in the world. And you are a whole person and you deserve to get your needs met just because you exist in the world. And the same goes for every other parent and every other person. One need that often goes neglected is the need for joy. Many adults struggle to reconnect with joy because we’ve been conditioned to prioritize productivity over play. Our parents and teachers and culture taught us that activities that we did purely for enjoyment, things like dancing, painting, playing games were a waste of time unless they served a practical purpose. Maybe you had one of those frivolous hobby and your parents said: “How are you ever going to make money doing that?” Maybe a teacher encouraged you to focus on a major that would give you higher earning power than a topic that really interested you. So you figured you’d do that for a while, and then you got promotions and raises and before you knew it, you were 20 years in to a career doing something you never really wanted to do and don’t find much joy in. But joy is not frivolous; it’s essential for well-being. When we take time to explore their interests, even in small ways, we reconnect with parts of ourselves that often get buried under daily responsibilities. Experimenting with new hobbies, movement, or creative activities—whether it’s gardening, roller skating, or learning to play an instrument, can bring a sense of renewal. It also benefits children, who see firsthand that adults are allowed to have fun and pursue personal interests outside of work and parenting. Making space for play and joy isn’t just about relaxation, it’s about reclaiming a sense of self beyond the roles of caregiver and provider.

Jen Lumanlan 32:45
My own personal joy practice at the moment is sourdough bread. I’m usually about five years behind major trends, so I’m right on pace with the sourdough. We have a new neighbor who learned to bake at the beginning of the pandemic because he didn’t have a kid at the time, and I thought to myself: “Why didn’t I learn to bake during the pandemic?” and then I remembered I was working 16 hours a day creating resources to help parents. At one point I wrote 50,000 words in a two week period. It met my needs for doing meaningful work, but there was not a ton of joy in it. My neighbor and I had chatted about baking and my husband bought me a couple of cookbooks as a gift. So now I’m on the very tail end of the sourdough bandwagon, and I’m really enjoying it! Another reason I hadn’t done it before was that I don’t actually like sourdough very much, but I’ve learned that the way you treat the starter can shift the flavor of the bread from a very sour San Francisco style sourdough, which I don’t like at all, to a quite sweet levain. My early attempts were pretty sloppy, and adding flour to a sloppy dough somehow just seemed to make it stickier, so I’ve learned how to hold 10% of the water back and only add it if I need it to, which I rarely do. Today I made a cranberry walnut levain for the first time, it’s the first loaf I’ve made with some oil in it, and it was a bit more sloppy than I expected, but now I know I can rescue it at the end with a longer bench rest and multiple pre-shapes before it goes in the bannetons. And if all of that sounded like absolute gibberish to you then it would have to me a couple of months ago as well. My neighbor cheerleads my successes and problem solves the loaves that don’t rise, and I have to say that the moment when you pull the top off the dutch oven to see what was the impact of all the little decisions you made over the last two days about whether things were ready and if they were the right texture and if you need to do a little more of this or pull back a bit on that is really pretty fun. So I hope there’s something in your life that brings you joy right now and if there isn’t, starting something that makes you feel joyful could be really important for you. If you’re thinking there is absolutely no way I could add anything else to my plate right now, least of all something as frivolous as joy, then the final idea that we’re going to work through today is boundaries. I talked about boundaries with life coach Xavier Dagba during the pandemic. We began by discussing the difference between boundaries and limits. I know these words are often used interchangeably, but they are actually very different and mixing them up makes it harder for us to meet our own needs.

Jen Lumanlan 35:05
Many parents enforce limits with their children, like setting rules around screen time or bedtime, but struggle to establish boundaries for themselves. Limits are external rules meant to guide a child’s behavior, while boundaries are personal standards that define how we allow ourselves to be treated and what we are willing to give in relationships. The key difference is that limits focus on controlling another person’s actions, while boundaries are about self-respect and honoring our own needs. For example, a parent might set a limit by saying, “No screens after dinner,” whereas a boundary might sound more like, “I’m going to take 15 minutes to myself before I help you.” I know parents are often confused about when to use limits and when to use boundaries. I have a whole flow chart on this in Parenting Beyond Power, and I’m going to try to describe part of it to you. We always want to start with trying to meet both people’s needs in an interaction, just like I was able to meet my need and Carys’ needs through a pillow fight earlier today. Problem solving in that way, whether we’re doing it formally through a conversation or whether we just kind of do it implicitly, like I did, where I just saw how the strategy she was requesting could also help me meet my needs, is where we want to spend the vast majority of our time. It feels good to get our needs met, and we resist when our needs are not met. Most parents I work with are using limits as their primary disciplinary tool and when we’re setting a limit, we’re trying to change someone else’s behavior. Nobody likes that, so the less time we spend doing that, the better off our relationships are going to be. So we start by trying to meet both people’s needs but maybe there are times when we just can’t see how to do it. When this happens, and I’m the person most affected by it, my next best tool is a boundary. That’s when I say, effectively: “I hear you asking for joy and play and movement right now as you’re asking me for a dance party and I’m so exhausted that I cannot find a way to make that work for me. I’m going to set a boundary to protect my need for rest, and if I have enough energy in 15 minutes then I’ll do a dance party with you.” Hopefully we’re also looking at why we’re feeling so exhausted that we can’t do a dance party and we’re taking steps to not let ourselves feel so run down that we can’t see a way to do it, if it’s something we are otherwise willing and able to do. We might also consider if our child has a need for connection if there are quiet way that we do have the capacity to be able to do that and meet that need. There are times when we can’t set a boundary because the thing we want to change is outside our body. We know we’re setting a boundary when we say: “I’m not willing to…” and then follow it with a specific action that our body will or won’t do. The English language allows us to say: “I’m not willing to allow you to jump on the couch” but even with that linguistic trickery, it’s still a limit not a boundary. Pretty much any time there’s a “you” in a sentence like this, we’re looking at a limit rather than a boundary. Maybe we are willing to let the child jump on the bed, if it’s more stable than the couch, or we could offer to have them run around outside, or we could run with them outside, if our need is to protect the couch. If your needs are for quiet and mental space then that won’t work, and you moving to another room could meet your needs and your child’s needs. Of course, your child might be jumping on the couch knowing they aren’t allowed to do it for the express purpose of getting your attention, because they have a need for connection. In that case, you moving to another room is not going to meet their need. Again, we’re looking for any one of a likely multitude of strategies to meet both people’s needs and only if we can’t do that do we look at a boundary, and only if a boundary isn’t appropriate do we look at a limit.

Jen Lumanlan 38:36
So now we’re clear on what a boundary is and how and when to use it, let’s look at why we default to limits so much. We don’t look for strategies that meet both of our needs because many parents I work with tell me: “I didn’t even know I had needs before I found your work.” So if we don’t know we have needs, how can we possibly meet them? Setting boundaries sounds simple in theory, but in practice? It can feel really uncomfortable. Many parents, especially moms, have been taught that their value comes from how much they do for others as we’ve mention previously. There’s this idea that good parents should always be available, always patient, and always putting their kids first. And if you set a boundary you might feel selfish or guilty, like you’re doing something wrong. On top of that, a lot of parents avoid boundaries because they’re afraid of conflict, what if their child pushes back? What if their partner doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to make space for us to meet our needs? But the truth is, putting yourself last doesn’t make you a better parent. It just makes you exhausted. Again, popular advice tells you to set boundaries because it will give you the energy to be a better parent. That’s fine if it does, but I hope you’ll first look for ways to meet both people’s needs in the struggle you’re having, and if that fails then set a boundary to protect your needs because you are a whole person who deserves to have your needs met. So what happens when parents don’t set boundaries? Well, first off, exhaustion. Without clear boundaries, it’s easy to slip into a cycle of constantly giving, saying yes to everything, and never getting a moment to recharge. Over time, this can turn into frustration and resentment, even towards the people we love most. Have you ever snapped at your child for interrupting you, not because what they were asking was unreasonable, but because you just had nothing left to give? That’s what happens when our needs are chronically unmet, and when we haven’t set boundaries to protect them. And it doesn’t just affect parents, kids pick up on this dynamic, too. When they see that their parents’ needs don’t seem to matter, they might grow up thinking that ignoring their own needs is normal. This can end up in a whole host of places where we don’t want to be. Imagine your child as a 10-year-old and their best friend says: “I won’t be friends with you anymore if you don’t steal that candy.” Imagine our teenager who is in an intimate relationship with someone who says: “If you don’t perform this sex act on me then I won’t love you anymore.” What do we want our kids to do in those situations? If they don’t understand their needs, maybe for integrity, for emotional and physical safety, and if they’ve witnessed hundreds of incidents where their parent has ignored their own needs in favor of others, they’re going to be much more likely to just go along with whatever the other person says. If we want them to learn how to stand up for themselves, we can’t just tell them: ‘stand up for yourself.’ We have to stand up for ourselves.

Jen Lumanlan 41:24
If you’re not used to setting boundaries, the idea of suddenly saying no can feel overwhelming. But boundaries don’t have to be drastic or rigid, they can start small. A great first step is simply noticing where you feel frustrated, angry, or resentful. Those feelings are usually signs that a boundary is needed. Maybe you’d like to reclaim a few minutes for yourself before diving into your child’s demands. Maybe you’d like to try a regular practice like exercise or mindfulness and want to carve out some protected time to do that. The key is to communicate clearly, don’t assume your kids or partner can read your mind. Try something like, “I love spending time with you, and I’d like to have 10 minutes to unwind before I can be fully present.” Or: “I want to spend 15 minutes meditating quietly each day. How can we make that happen?” Maybe you’ll find a way to meet multiple people’s needs , your kids might join you for your mindfulness practice, Carys joins me with my stretching practice in the evenings. If they don’t want to join you, they may push back on you taking time for yourself. You might then start to ask: “Am I worthy of taking this time to myself?” Many parents I work with initially aren’t sure how to answer that question. That is probably a topic for another episode, and it’s also exactly the kind of thing we dig into in the Taming Your Triggers workshop…in the meantime, if you have to take this time for your kids, so you can be a better parent, then do that. I’d rather you back your way into it using the excuse of being a better parent than not do something for yourself at all. And then there will be a longer practice to work on understanding these feelings of unworthiness so you can do things you enjoy simply because you enjoy them, because you’re a person who has needs and you deserve to get those met.

Jen Lumanlan 43:00
Before we wrap up for today, I want to acknowledge the societal level factors that lead to poor boundaries, us not knowing our needs, and why we have to use tools like self-compassion and mindfulness to try to avoid burnout. One of the biggest reasons so many mothers particularly feel overwhelmed is the deeply ingrained expectation that we should be able to do everything, to raise children, to manage the household, maintain a career, support our partner, and somehow still find time to take care of ourselves. These expectations are not just personal pressures; they are reinforced by a culture that subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, assumes that caregiving should fall primarily on women’s shoulders. Even in households where parenting is meant to be equal, research shows that mothers still take on most of the invisible labor, keeping track of schedules, remembering appointments, managing emotions, and handling the countless small details that keep a family running. The weight of this responsibility can feel exhausting, yet it’s not often enough acknowledged as a legitimate burden that needs to be shared. At the same time, mothers are often told that asking for help or taking time for ourselves is selfish. From a young age, girls are conditioned to believe that our worth is tied to how much they can give to others. This makes it incredibly difficult to set boundaries or prioritize our own needs without guilt. While fathers are often praised for being involved parents, mothers are expected to be the default caregivers, and when we struggle, we are more likely to blame ourselves rather than question the unrealistic expectations placed on us. This double standard leads to burnout, not because mothers are doing something wrong, but because we’ve been set up to believe we should be able to do it all, without adequate support. On one hand, this is why practices like mindfulness, self-compassion, and boundary-setting aren’t just about personal well-being—they are active reclaiming the right to have needs, to rest, and to exist as full human beings beyond motherhood. When mothers begin to set boundaries, ask for help, and carve out space for ourselves, we aren’t just making parenting more sustainable, we’re also challenging a culture that benefits from our unpaid, unseen labor. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and these patterns run deep, but even small shifts, whether it’s refusing to take on more than we can handle or letting go of perfectionism can help break the cycle. No parent should have to navigate this alone, and acknowledging these systemic pressures is the first step toward creating a more balanced, fulfilling approach to parenting. And on the other hand, these individually focused actions will never be enough by themselves. Employers have become really enthusiastic about mindfulness practices over the last few years, because they want us to mindfulness ourselves into being able to cope with the massive stresses they put on us, because it’s a lot better for them if we can mindfully cope than if we either burn out or they reduce our workloads or give us adequate time off to actually live our lives. I definitely don’t want you to leave this episode thinking that the tools we’ve discussed today are actually going to solve the problem of everyone’s parental stress and burnout. These tools are going to make it a bit easier for us to function in a culture that otherwise tells us not to have needs. We also have to shift the systems that make parenting so overwhelming in the first place. One way to start is by openly talking about the unrealistic expectations placed on mothers and pushing back against the idea that good parenting means constant self-sacrifice. In a world where things are being torn apart around us right now, thinking about better parental leave policies, affordable childcare, and workplace flexibility can seem a kind like of unrealistic dream. But we can still take actions on a smaller scale, in our local communities, to create more support networks—offering childcare swaps, sharing household labor more equitably, and normalizing the idea that parenting is a shared responsibility, not a solo endeavor. So let’s not praise men for babysitting their own kids, and let’s ask for help from our partners. We can acknowledge that we both may have unmet needs in the relationship, and we’re willing to help them meet their needs if they’re willing to help towards us to meet ours. We’ll have more tools coming up related to working with partners on these kinds of issues in the next few weeks.

Jen Lumanlan 47:11
Change happens both at the personal level and the collective level, and by recognizing that overwhelm is not just an individual failing but a structural issue, we can start working toward a future where parents are better supported, emotionally, practically, and systemically. So let’s sum up where we’ve been in this episode. We began by exploring the deep exhaustion that comes with parenting when it seems like you’re constantly on and barely keeping up. We looked at parental burnout—what it is, why it happens, and how societal expectations, perfectionism, and lack of support make it worse. Then, we considered mindfulness, which helps us create a pause between our child’s behavior and our reaction so we can respond more intentionally. We explored self-compassion, a tool that allows us to be as kind to ourselves as we are to our children and our close friends, helping us recover from difficult moments instead of spiraling into guilt. We discussed needs, and how parents, especially mothers, are conditioned to suppress them, even though acknowledging and meeting our needs is essential for long-term well-being. We also examined boundaries, which protect our energy, prevent resentment, and model for our children how to advocate for themselves in relationships. We concluded that while individual changes can make parenting more sustainable, they don’t exist in a vacuum, systemic issues also play a huge role in why so many parents feel overwhelmed. The lack of structural support, from inadequate parental leave to the high cost of childcare, places an unrealistic burden on families, especially mothers. By recognizing that this isn’t just a personal failing but a broader cultural issue, we can start advocating for change, not just in our own homes, but in workplaces, communities, and policies that shape the way parenting is expected to function.

Jen Lumanlan 48:59
I’m going to leave you with three practices and actually a bonus practice as well that you can try to bring the ideas in this episode to life for you. Our easiest, ‘curious’ level practice is naming your feelings. When you feel overwhelmed, pause and name your feeling: “I’m feeling really frustrated right now.” Research shows that simply acknowledging emotions reduces their intensity, making it easier to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively. You can also let your children hear you do this, modeling emotional regulation in a way they can learn from. Our medium, ‘learning’ level practice is to set a small, daily boundary for yourself. Pick one small area where you need a boundary and hold it. Maybe you take five minutes to drink your coffee while it’s still hot before responding to requests, or you tell your child, “I’ll help you in a moment, but I’m going to finish this first.” It might feel uncomfortable at first, but consistency helps to reinforce that your needs matter, too. Our ‘growth’ level practice to really go deep on supporting you is to find at least one joyful activity for yourself. Reclaim a hobby, activity, or moment of fun that is just for you. It doesn’t have to be big, maybe it’s reading a book for 10 minutes, dancing to a favorite song, or trying a creative activity you used to love. If joy feels impossible right now, start small, and build up to something you can do on a daily basis. The goal is to reconnect with yourself outside of being a parent, because you are a whole person, and you have needs, and you deserve to get those needs met. And if you really want to go out on a limb and do something revolutionary, you might consider asking someone in your neighborhood for help. Asking for help does not make you weak. Imagine how you feel when someone asks you for help, most people feel honored to be asked. When you ask for help, you give that person permission to ask you for help in the future, and that’s how real community is made. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode. I hope you’ve found it useful, and that you’ll dig into the full episodes I mentioned if you want to learn more about any of these topics. You can find all of the episodes I mentioned in the show notes, just search for episode 238 in the search box at yourparentingmojo.com/episodes

Emma 51:16
We know you have a lot of choices about where you get information about parenting, and we’re honored that you’ve chosen us as we move toward a world in which everyone’s lives and contributions are valued. If you’d like to help keep the show ad-free, please do consider making a donation on the episode page that Jen just mentioned, thanks again for listening to this episode of The Your Parenting Mojo podcast.