YAY, IT’S SPRING BREAK!

May 9

Remember when Spring Break was fun anticipation of the beach or somewhere exotic or just watching Spring Break on MTV? Now it’s “where are we going that’s kid friendly?” and “will Hope’s allergies cooperate with the weather?”

Yes, things have changed and yes, we do love our kids! For goodness’ sake I went vegan to conceive and possibly had the most healthiest pregnancy! (Disclaimer: for kid #2 I did none of these things and enjoyed many fast-food items that could be delivered to me.)

Now back to Spring Break—I just realized that I put so much energy into wondering if the kids would be ok that I didn’t think about “would I be okay?”

I’m now a single parent, I don’t have family that lives close, yet I want to make this break the most amazing for my kids. But what about me? I’mstressed because I took a week off from work “to rest” and now I find I need another week off “to really rest” while the kids go back to school.

I’m tired, I don’t want to exercise or simply do anything. My therapist said that I had fallen to parental burnout.

But these were the kids I begged God for and now I’m too tired for anything? What am I supposed to do now?

So, in search of what to do, I turned to my trusted friend, the internet, and started doing some serious research because there must be a better way to maintain sanity and raise children.

An article in the American Psychological Association’s website cites, Burnout, is a syndrome characterized by “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a decrease in self-fulfillment,” and is a result of chronic exposure to emotionally draining environments (Rionda, I. S., et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 18, No. 9, 2021).

Research by psychologists at the University of Melbourne confirmed those findings in their own study, with all participants reporting higher levels of mental distress during the pandemic but parents of school-age kids reporting much higher rates. The researchers estimated that more than one quarter of Australia’s 1.5 million working parents with kids ages 5 to 11 experienced high levels of mental distress during the pandemic, and working parents who were also the primary caregiver were four times as likely to suffer as working parents who weren’t simultaneously tending the children (Melbourne Institute, 2020. Abramson, 2021)

Okay, so now I know I am officially “burned out”, so now what? Back to research…Psychology Today notes, “To prevent parental burnout, self-care must be prioritized in order to re-energize and be present for one’s children.” (Jenny Yip Psy.D., 2021) .

Alright, so how do I prioritize myself and when do I do this when there’s no family around? The Psychology Today article also luckily gives a few practical tips to reclaim your sanity and happiness away from the kids.

 Date Nights

 Girls/Boys; Day Out

 Time Alone

Fantastic! But we still haven’t solved that I have no one to keep the kiddos with while I go off to get my life together. Luckily there’s options and here’s how we found support through Birdie Break.

“Birdie has sitters in neighborhoods across the country that have a reverence for spending time with the next generation.

Accessible through a user-friendly app, parents can find sitters, sessions, and scheduling options for every need.”

Excellent! The main point of solving parental burnout is to ask for help. You do not have to be everything to everyone all the time. Go see a show, have brunch, or just sit down at a coffee shop by yourself…but just go. And you can get verified sitters through Birdie’s user-friendly app.