What is Stress Spiraling?
Stress spiraling is when a parent’s stress triggers a child’s stress, which then loops back to the parent, affecting the entire family’s dynamic. By stress, we mean the physical, emotional, or mental tension in response to changes or challenges, whether positive or negative.
Professionally, I have seen how stress can ripple through a family in an escalating spiral of tension and anxiety; for example, when a child is having trouble adjusting to a parent’s new work travel schedule and refusing to go to school.
Personally, I can still remember my mother dissolving into a heap of tears in the truant officer’s arms. After my father had passed, we moved to a new town, she went to work for a steel company, and I didn’t have it in me to get myself to a school where I knew no one. At least in my part of the world, people did not talk to their children about their feelings back then. Nor did they teach me how to draw on my internal and external resources to cope.
Enter “What’s Your Story?”— a personal development workbook designed to help children learn about their minds, navigate their emotions, share their stories, and build stronger, more resilient connections to themselves and their families, in school and life. If only my adult clients had the benefit of a few simple tips and techniques earlier on, they may not have struggled as much in their lives.
Old habits die hard, so why not teach the healthier habits of the mind sooner, giving the good habits the best chance to take hold and guide them in their lives? I will have much more to say about “What’s Your Story?” as we approach the launch—and warmly invite you to click here to be in the loop for book launch announcements and discounts.
For now, we all know that parental stress impacts the kids. What may be harder to talk about is how profoundly a child’s stress can affect the parents. It’s not that parents don’t know how stressful parenting can be sometimes. It’s more that the child’s stressful impact on the family can induce guilt. After all, they are just children, and we love them.
So, the issue might be avoided or mismanaged rather than effectively addressed. And then it festers. This stress spiraling doesn’t stop there—it spills over into the parent’s work life, further influencing the family environment in troubling ways.
The upside is that I’ve also witnessed how simple interventions can interrupt stress spiraling, bringing relief and harmony back to parents, children, and families. So, let’s take a closer look at how parents affect their kids and vice versa, and what can be done to help put kids, parents, and families on the best possible footing in their lives.
Table of Contents
The Impact of Parental Stress on Kids
The CDC reports that roughly 1 in 6 children aged 6-17 in the U.S. have a diagnosed mental health disorder, such as anxiety, depression, or behavioral disorders. And, the Children’s Society reports a 50% increase in the likelihood of young people developing mental health problems over the last three years, with five children in a typical classroom of 30 likely to have mental health issues.
Factors such as the pandemic, academic pressure, social media, and racial and ethnic discrimination, all play a role. So does parental stress—which can start in the womb, linked to neurobiological challenges, and can start in infancy, later linked to anxiety and behavioral problems.
When my daughter was born, someone gave me a beautiful poem, which I assume applies to Dad’s too, or whoever is closely associated with the child:
Baby’s Skies
Would you know the baby’s skies? Baby’s skies are mother’s eyes.
Mother’s eyes and smile together Make the baby’s pleasant weather.
Mother, keep your eyes from tears, Keep your heart from foolish fears.
Keep your lips from dull complaining Less the baby thinks it’s raining.
Much as I love this poem, there is something we need to qualify here. It is not recommended that parents try to completely hide and protect their children from their emotions, mostly because they can’t! Kids are intensely curious about what is happening around them, especially any tension that could feel upsetting or threatening to them.
Parents may feel stressed by time, money, career, marital and other relationships, health, and internal issues, such as self-doubt. And, even if it doesn’t manifest explicitly in the parent’s behavior toward the child, e.g., yelling or ignoring, their stress is still not lost on their child. Besides, there is a golden opportunity for role modeling when parents age-appropriately share with their kids that there is a problem and how they are addressing it.
As per the adage, when the plane is in trouble, we have to put the oxygen mask on our face first, before we can help our child, there is much that parents can do to alleviate some of their own stress that is impacting their child. There is walking in nature (take your kid!), exercise, meditation, music, journaling, yoga, reading, gardening, biking, whatever works for you.
And, of course, especially if you are short on time, there is my favorite, the 30-second mindset reset I call Power Breathing, which you can access here. Stress is everywhere, and all families experience it. Even positive events, if they call for a change in routine, can be stressful too. Vacations are a great example of that.
So, it’s not whether parents are stressed, but how well they are demonstrating to their kids that—even though they may be having big emotions themselves—nothing they can’t handle. Now let’s add the children to the list of what stresses parents.
The Impact of Childhood Stress on Parents
In 2008, we learned that happiness is a U-shaped curve over the lifespan. The finding, which has remained stable over time, is depicted here below:
As you can see, happiness dips during the child rearing years, which may be the parental burnout years. Although there is some debate, experts refer to parental burnout as a condition distinct from both job burnout and more generalized depression.
Robyn Koslowitz, Ph.D, talks about people who find going to work a day at the beach compared with trying to meet parenting expectations, challenges, and demands. So, it’s not the job. And, in many cases, it is not depression either. She makes the distinction this way:
If I tell a clinically depressed person that I’m hiring a nanny, a housekeeper, and a personal assistant to take care of 95% of their daily hassles, and I’m sending them on an all-expenses-paid vacation to an exotic island resort, they will likely show up to that resort, get into bed, and sleep. They will not be able to muster up interest in the opportunities at the resort. Even the five-star cuisine won’t tempt them.
If I do the same to a burned-out parent, the outcome would be very different. Sure, the first day or so, that parent will need to rest. But after that, it’s “Resort, here I come!” The burned-out parent reassured that their children are in good hands and work is handled and that they are free to engage in self-care will proceed to do so. Burnout is context-specific for the burned-out parent. This means that it’s a different condition than depression and needs to be recognized as such.
So, what is all this exhaustion about? For starters, the average adult makes roughly 35,000 decisions a day. For parents, there are decisions about what to feed them, how to dress them, school activities and choices, play dates—and then for the older kids, there is college, driver’s license, and social media, to name a few. No wonder doctors are now talking about a condition they call “decision fatigue.”
And, some of it is coming directly from the kids. The birth of a sibling can produce unpleasant and unwanted behaviors. So can sibling rivalry, the challenges of special needs, a sensitive temperament, or a day at school gone bad, in the schoolyard or class. And here is how it can start to feel, according to researcher, Moïra Mikolajczak, PhD:
These parents will tell you, ‘I love my children, but I can’t stand being around them anymore; actually, I can’t stand being a parent anymore,’ Mikolajczak said.
To make matters worse, parenting has practically become a competitive sport. Parents want to be seen as good parents, in their own eyes and the eyes of others. But filled with shame and guilt at falling short in their own eyes, parents may distance themselves from their children to conserve energy if nothing else, meanwhile producing even more behavior with which to contend.
And there we have the stress spiraling we are talking about. So what can help?
Breaking the Negative Cycle of Stress Spiraling
How can parents transform stress spiraling into a story of growth, connection, and greater happiness? Well, even small changes can make a big difference in a family’s well-being and resilience. What’s Your Story? aims to build just that with practical exercises about everyday matters for kids in school and life. Again, click the link and I will keep you posted.
Your child can either do these on their own, or it can be something you do together. Advanced reviewers are saying there is much in this read for adults too! Another small shift with a huge potential impact is for parents to repeat back to their children what they have heard them say.
Too often, parents try to talk sense to their children, let’s say in the middle of a meltdown—when the child is in no condition to hear, let alone understand and accept, the parent’s logic. This leaves children feeling alone with it all, exacerbating the behavior the parent was trying to calm.
When the parent repeats back what the child has conveyed, it is like first taking the child’s tender heart by the hand and then leading it to a calmer, happier, more rational place. And just one more thing for now: Pew Research Center found that “88% of parents agree that having children is one of the most important things they have done, suggesting that the joy and fulfillment of parenthood outweigh feelings of regret for the majority.”
This means there is an 88% chance this applies to you. Remember that when you need it. Remember your why. And Enjoy!
Love,
Madelaine
Photo by Freepik
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