Helping parents thrive so that families can flourish.
If you search for “mental health and wellbeing of parents TED talk” on YouTube, you’ll find thousands of results. The top videos feature titles like “How Families Can Support a Child’s Mental Health,” “How Parents Can Support Youth Mental Health,” and “Parent Practices for Child Mental Health.” While these are all valuable discussions on promoting family well-being, they often overlook a key audience: the parents themselves.
Parents being left behind seems to be a recurring theme. The U.S. Surgeon General even recognized the trend, recently publishing an advisory highlighting the urgent need to support parent’s mental health and well-being. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on August 28, 2024 how the United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, released a Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents. Forbes describes how the advisory calls for comprehensive support for parent’s mental health and how modern parenting is creating an environment of stress and anxiety. Amongst the Epidemic of Loneliness, NPR’s Steve Inskeep speaks to Dr. Vivek Murthy about how parents are experiencing loneliness at increased rates compared to their non-parent peers, with three out of four adults feeling lonely. Additionally, 48% of parents say that most days they feel completely overwhelmed by stress. These negative emotions bleed into decreasing the mental well-being of parents, which in turn affects children’s well-being.
The advisory lists some of those parental stressors including:
- Financial strain, economic instability, and poverty
- Time demands of both work and child caregiving (leaving little time for parents to foster friendships and recuperate)
- Children’s physical, emotional, and mental health
- Children’s safety
- Technology and social media
- Cultural pressures and children’s future
With a multitude of additional stressors on their plates, parents need additional support and resources to take care of their overall resilience and prosperity. Dr. Vivek Murthy explains:
“Raising children is sacred work. It should matter to all of us. And the health and well-being of those who are caring for our children should matter to us as well.”
Parents have and always will matter, and society must invest in strategies and initiatives that support parents and, therefore, support families. Below, we will discuss some ways parents can find strategies to increase their well-being and then ways society can assist parents in achieving their desired quality of life.
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Parents: What can you do for yourself?
Micro-breaks and moments of “self.” With a million things on their plates, parents seldom find time to have concentrated “me time.” According to Sara Huneke, micro-breaks are short, intentional pauses lasting only a few minutes. BBC explains how a series of micro-breaks throughout the day can have powerful effects on your mind and body. These micro-breaks should include something that brings you joy: getting up and walking around for 5 minutes, making yourself your favorite tea, watching a YouTube video that makes you laugh. These pauses in the chaos of the day are shown to reduce stress.
Collaborative self-care. Having time away from your kids may not be an option. However, there is still room to take a moment to yourself. Engage the family in dedicated self-care time. This may look like having “family reading time,” where everyone goes to their favorite place in the house and reads for thirty minutes. Or maybe a few times a week you have “fun time” where every family member gets to do what they find relaxing. According to the American Psychological Associate, self-care time with your children is essential as parents to get the benefit of time to decompress, while also modeling to your children how to create a positive and nurturing relationship with themselves.
Create a ‘dopamine menu.’ A dopamine menu describes a concept that has gained popularity recently where you curate a list of pleasurable, healthy habits and activities which are designed to naturally elevate dopamine levels. Jessica McCabe popularized the idea of a “dopamenu” to bring more joy into daily life. Psychology Today summarizes the parts of the menu:
- The main entree are high-impact activities that provide significant impact, like exercise and goal setting.
- The appetizers, which are quick boosts, meaning they are smaller activities providing a quick burst of dopamine, like hobbies, social interactions, or going outside.
Identify the activities that bring you joy and categorize those activities using the guidelines above. Put this list somewhere easily accessible (i.e. in the notes app on your phone), so when you need a happy boost, you already have something to guide you towards happiness.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. While you are doing super incredible things, you are not invincible. Asking for help is never a sign of weakness and can improve your health and the health of your family. Reach out to family, friends, or neighbors and ask if they would be willing to babysit swap or take the children for a few hours so you can run errands.
Check out Light Papers in the Light Lab for insightful conversations on family well-being topics.
The well-being of parents is the foundation of a flourishing family. As the U.S. Surgeon General recently emphasized, parental mental health is crucial for individual well-being and for the well-being of children. Whether parents prioritize themselves through micro-breaks, collaborative self-care, or reaching out for help, they are improving their well-being and modeling healthy habits and self-compassion for their children. As a society, we need to shift the narrative that it is not selfish to take time to take care of yourself.
If you have any questions or comments about the content in this Lightbulb Moment article, please get in touch with our Research Lead, Madeline Attianese, at mattianese@chsnc.org.