Parents Beware of Stress and Compassion Fatigue

Compassion fatigue is a term that refers to the state of people who become tired of taking care of others. It has become widely accepted that therapists, nurses, and first responders go through compassion fatigue. However, Jane Baker, a family counselor who works with troubled teens in a residential therapy program of The Pinnacle Schools in north Alabama, states that professional caregivers are not the only ones who experience this type of emotional exhaustion.

Parents of adolescents, particularly teens who are troubled, also get to the point where they are stressed-out, and when this happens they need to take time out for themselves and seek support. Caring for others takes its toll and results in a condition often referred to as burnout. Parents caring for troubled teens and adults caring for their parents can suffer from this.

Compassion fatigue can manifest itself in symptoms strikingly similar to depression. These symptoms can include:

• A marked change (decrease or increase) in appetite

• Irritability

• Changes in sleep patterns (sleeping too much or too little)

• Feelings that the person is developing unpleasant characteristics

Dealing with teens is in itself an often complex task, but parents who are taking care of troubled children or children with special needs have an even more stressful challenge confronting them. This applies to parents of children with autism, learning difficulties, depression, and behavioral problems. It also holds true for those whose children have issues such as self-harm. This kind of torment was once described in a blog by a tired Michigan mother who was caring for an autistic teenage daughter. Using “Status Woe”, her blog, she poured out what she referred to as her “battle fatigue” after her daughter’s failed murder-suicide attempt in 2013.

Baker states that it is essential for parents in this situation to make an impartial assessment of what they are going through and address it. Failure to do so will eventually breed resentment toward the person the caregiver is taking care of; this would be an unhealthy and undesirable state.

Baker says that one of the things parents can do is to examine their schedules to see if these are over saturated with chores and activities. According to her, it is necessary for parents and caregivers to place importance on meeting their own emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. It is also important for parents and caregivers to accept the fact that they cannot always be all things to all people.

Baker works with youth at the Elk River Treatment Program where she is family services coordinator. In her experience, she has seen that both professionals and parents often ignore their own health and rarely seek help for themselves. In the long run, this neglect makes it harder for them to take care of their children. Parents who do not take care of themselves will find it increasingly difficult to be totally and patiently engaged with their children. This is why in flight emergency instructions always caution parents to put on their own oxygen masks before seeing to the children in their care.

Parents and persons in caregiving professions can begin with small changes that will amount to taking better care themselves and eventually their children. These changes can include eating right and doing some exercises such as yoga.

Parents can also seek out support organizations for parents of children with issues; these can be productive for as long as they do more than allow members to vent. Other sources of support are relatives, friends, and church groups.

People who are providing long-term care will find that they won’t be able to indulge in activities they enjoy as often as they used to, but it is important that they do not totally abandon these or other sources of rejuvenation. People who lose sight of the pursuits that offer them enjoyment will become drained. Baker likens the danger of exhausting one’s store of energy to a paper cup with so many holes their energy is emptying far more quickly than it can be replaced.

As parents and caregivers review their own schedules, they must ask themselves what they can and cannot change; what things they can let go off in the meantime. This is essential to making even minor changes that can spell a big difference in relieving pressure from an overburdened schedule. Sometimes, schedules become crowded with so many activities because parents assumed that this is how things should be. A review of what families can let go will often lead to less hectic days when families can have dinner together and reconnect instead of being always on the go.

Parents need to look at their family’s schedule to make sure people are not so busy their lives are ruled by outside activities. People need to spend time with their families, and it is up to parents to see to it that children’s schedules are not so busy there is no time for family to simply relax and be together.

April is Stress Awareness Month, and professional counsellors say that in order to solve the problem of stress and its results, people must first see the problem and seek help. Parents and individuals in situations where long-term care is demanded of them must learn to balance their daily lives so that they can take care of themselves – even if it means letting go of some things or delegating some tasks to others.

Approximately 700 youths from all over the United States have undergone the Elk River Treatment Program of the Pinnacle Schools. The residential program is designed for adolescents from age 12 to 18.