Burnout as an obstacle to parenting in families at risk of child abuse or neglect: Associations unique from parent mental health symptoms and child externalizing

BACKGROUND: Parental burnout refers to exhaustion, emotional distancing from children, and an arc of decline in parenting capacity. Although burnout is known to be elevated among parents of children with externalizing problems, there has been little investigation of the unique role of burnout in parenting practices. OBJECTIVE: To determine if parental burnout - unique from parents' mental health symptoms and children's externalizing behaviors - relates to more negative and less positive self-reported parenting behaviors. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The participants were 140 Australian caregivers referred to a parenting support program because of substantiated child abuse or neglect or due to a combination of family stress and a child with significant externalizing behaviors. METHODS: Caregivers completed a survey to report their burnout, personal mental health symptoms of depression and anxiety, the focal child's externalizing behaviors, and positive (e.g., warmth, involvement) and negative (e.g., coercion and hostility) parenting behaviors. RESULTS: Total burnout was uniquely associated with parental reports of decreased positive and increased negative parenting behaviors in hierarchical regression models controlling for child age, welfare referral, parent mental health symptoms and child externalizing behaviors. Other findings from these models showed that parent mental health was uniquely associated with less positive parenting, whereas child externalizing behavior was uniquely associated with more negative parenting. When the interaction between total burnout and child externalizing behaviors was tested in these models, it was not significantly related to positive or negative parenting behaviors. Additional hierarchical models considered the four burnout subscales. Two subscales were associated with less positive parenting - emotional distancing and self-contrast (a perceived arc of decline in parenting), and two subscales were associated with more negative parenting - exhaustion and self-contrast. CONCLUSION: Parental burnout has unique associations with decreased parental warmth and support and increased hostility and coercion towards children in at-risk families.