When you are feeling exhausted by parenting.

You are tired at the end of a long work day. Dinner is done. Kitchen is cleaned...so exhausted, can’t barely think… you hear a knock at the door…

“Mum I am so upset and I don’t know why….”

You wake up thinking about all the things you have to do that day. Breakfast, load of washing, shower, dress for work, okay will just make it out the door on time. Where is everyone?...

Look in the teen’s room. “Mum I don’t want to go to school today. I just can’t”.

Teenagers can have the worst timing with when they want to talk to us.

It is so exhausting when they are going through difficult things and want to talk to us late at night or first thing in the morning.

The exhaustion is real and parenting in the “real world” is so much harder than parenting in theory.

Here are some tips about how to feel less exhausted and be the parent you would like to be.

Be kind to yourself. Parenting is so so much harder than it ever has been. Reminding yourself of this and taking some time to honour how hard it is can reduce the internal stress. Saying something to yourself like “This is so hard that all I want to do is go to sleep and now I have to listen to them talk about their feelings. Deep breath. You’ve got this. It’s hard but you can do a little now and more later”.
Seek support from supportive people. Often when we feel unsupported and keep giving and giving we reach a point of having had enough and can lose it at our family (…or is that just me?). Yelling at the family when we have had enough and telling them that we are overwhelmed and exhausted rarely has the outcome we want. Seeking the support of someone supportive to listen and understand before we hit our peak of exhaustion helps.
Have some family routines of connection. Having a daily time set aside where your teen can talk to you sometimes reduces the “out of hours” requests for support. Make this a regular predictable 5-10min time where you and your teen chat or share a moment together. Let them know this is a purposeful set aside time so that they can know when they can get your attention when they need to.
Look after your physical body by sleeping, resting, eating, exercising. Consider how good you are at meeting your own needs. If this is difficult for you start with making sure you take the time to sit and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. If sleep if a problem for you there are lots of psychological strategies that can help.