Fill To Capacity (Where Heart, Grit and Irreverent Humor Collide)
Podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference!Join visual artist Pat Benincasa in conversation with a riveting roster of guests to uncover extraordinary stories of everyday people. Listen as they share their quirky wisdom, unlikely adventures, and poignant life lessons! Fasten your emotional seatbelt for this journey of heart, humor and grit!
Fill To Capacity (Where Heart, Grit and Irreverent Humor Collide)
Silent Storms: Parental Burnout To Breakthrough
In this revealing episode, we go to the heart of a crisis too many parents carry in silence. Dr. Kate Gawlik—Doctor of Nursing Practice, researcher, professor, and mother of four—exposes the quiet toll of parenting—burnout and the loneliness no one talks about.
We dig into what the data reveals, how the pandemic reshaped family life, and what it means to juggle the nonstop demands of parenting, work, and school schedules. Kate doesn’t just study this—she’s lived it. And now she’s building real spaces where overwhelmed parents feel seen, heard, and supported.
She shares ways to reconnect, reclaim time, and take one simple step that can shift everything.
This one’s for every parent holding it together on the outside while quietly unraveling on the inside. You are not alone.
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Pat:
Fill To Capacity where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.
Pat:
Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome back to Fill To Capacity. Today we hit 100 episodes, so thank you listeners, and thank you remarkable guests. I really appreciate the fact that we've hit this milestone. So thanks again. Today's episode, "Silent Storms: Parental Burnout To Breakthrough." My guest is Dr. Kate Gawlik, a doctor of nursing practice nationally recognized nurse practitioner, professor and researcher. Oh, and she's a mother of four and she's sounding the alarm on something. Too many parents quietly live with burnout and loneliness through groundbreaking research and a deeply human approach, Kate is helping parents feel seen, heard and supported, but she's not just studying the problem, she's creating spaces where healing begins. So with that said, welcome Kate. I'm so happy to have you here
Kate:
And thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about this very important topic.
Pat:
So Kate, first of all, what drew you to focus on parental burnout and loneliness? Was there like a personal moment that sparked this work?
Kate:
Yeah, so really when I got very interested in this topic was during the pandemic, like many of us, I assume who are listening, I was in the middle of trying to home school my children who at the time that the pandemic hit were in second grade kindergarten. And then I had a preschooler and I had a baby. And so I was trying to home school all of them. I was trying to keep my job, I was trying to maintain a household, I was trying to be a spouse. I was trying to kind of hold the emotional I, I don't wanna say burden, but the emotional toll that it was taking on everyone. And I just had this moment one day when I'm like, I don't feel like I'm depressed. I don't feel like I'm anxious, like I feel like I am burned out. And I had heard that term parental burnout, and I heard it and I was like, that's it.
Kate:
That's what I'm feeling. And it was this moment. And I remember going to my colleague, Dr. Bernadette Melnick, who was dean of our college at the time, and I'm like, this is a problem. Like if I'm feeling like this, there are millions of other parents out there feeling like this too. And so we decided to embark together and kind of start to study this really more with the idea of having solutions and ways to help parents, but really also to connect them in knowing that they were not alone in feeling like that, you know, because you brought up the loneliness component and that's really how you feel when you're burned out. Like you feel like you're a bad parent, you're like, I used to be good at this and now I'm, I'm feel like I'm not myself. And that in itself can be a very isolating, lonely feeling.
Pat:
Now because of the pandemic, many, many workers left the workplace and worked remotely. In a 2024 Ohio State survey, you talked about how virtual life, online life has erased those small everyday moments like hallway chats, check-ins, that personal touch. And you noted that they haven't really returned now with so many people still working from home and living online, how do we begin to physically and emotionally reconnect in a world that still feels disconnected?
Kate:
Yeah, that's a really great question. And I do feel like the whole landscape of working parents changed literally in an instant. So many of us were in person and then all of a sudden we were thrown into this online environment. Not that our relationships at that time were severed because I think we tried to maintain them the best that we could. But so many venues for where parents connect were shut off. Where we would talk at birthday parties, where we would talk at sporting events, you know, all of these different things all of a sudden were just shut off. So you were very isolated in that effect. And I, I once saw a piece of research that said, you know, you need 50 shared hours in order to make a friendship. So a lot of those friendships that were, you know, kind of I think stemming or in the works or all of those were just cut off.
Kate:
And so those people that maybe would've become better friends all of a sudden that wasn't a a possibility for people. And so all of those things just were kind of shut off in that instant. And again, it kind of put parents into this world of being by themselves all the time or being with just their children. And you know how often I think parents feel like, oh my gosh, I have all my children here, but how lonely do I feel? So sometimes it's not about just being in a room full of people. You can still feel lonely or being just with your kids. You can still feel very lonely even when you're with other people. Yeah.
Pat:
I like how you preface before that when you were raising the kids and doing all that during COVID, while you were a spouse, you were still working, you have a age range of children that demand age range appropriate attention. And so parents were really juggling that and then they had to be responsive to their workload too.
Kate:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was taking meetings from my closet or the bathroom during that time. Yeah. Because again, when you have children that are those ages and they're that needy, it really is difficult to try to maintain boundaries. And I can't even tell you how many times I would be on a Zoom meeting and I would have to turn off my camera and say, I just, I need a minute because somebody was coming in or whatever, you know, coming to find me. And I think in some ways that was good because it took that stigma away, you know, of like, oh, the children need to be quiet all the time. They can't, they just don't know how, and, and so when we were trying to kind of fight that battle, and I, I do feel fortunate that I had worked with a lot of people who were parents, so they were understanding about those types of things.
Kate:
But the reality of the situation was it was still incredibly difficult. I had reached a point where I had decided that I couldn't really work when my kids were around, so the majority of my work would take place after they went to bed. So that toll was then on me where I was staying up until 12 or 1:00 AM you know, every night to get my work done, to just turn around and have to be up, you know, six 30 or seven with the kids. I didn't have to leave the workforce because I did have flexibility. But you know, for example, my sister did, you know, she had to quit her job because she didn't have childcare and there weren't childcare options at that time and everything, you know, and that was similar to a lot of people during that time-frame. And all of these things have definitely contributed to burnout and also to loneliness. Yeah.
Pat:
One of the things when, uh, researching your, all your material and your writings, I was really struck by the how it was rooted in experience and it was humane. You're not doing esoteric scholarly research from a distance you were living it.
Kate:
Yes, I was hundred percent living it. I remember there was one day where my husband and I were standing in the kitchen and we were just, you know, in the midst of it, right in the midst of the chaos and trying to work and everything. And I remember, remember he looked at me and he said, can you believe that we do this every day? And for some reason that moment really stands out to me because I actually sat there and thought about what he said and I was like, no, like I can't believe that this is like our day to day where it feels like this and this chaos and this lack of control that we were feeling. It was almost like palpable, like you could almost feel it in the air, but I, I really did have that moment of being like, no, like I can't believe like we do this every day. Like it's so exhausting.
Pat:
Yeah. Yeah. I wanna flip this because right now employers on a corporate level, state and federal level are telling employees you have to come back to the office now, like within the next months or few months you have to come back. Now parents have gotten into the routine of as post COVID allowed kids to go back to school, parents were working remotely. So if they had a small child in the house or a baby that saved on childcare, if they're taking care of an elderly parent, that made it feasible if you will. So now that they're being called back, do you think this shift of saying, Hey, you gotta come back to the office, is adding a new layer of stress for the parents?
Kate:
Yeah, absolutely. This is happening even in my community, people have been talking about this and it's kind of like when COVID ripped the rug initially and made us all work from home. It's kind of like doing that again to parents because a lot of parents now have adjusted to this lifestyle. They've gotten used to being able to do and have the flexibility. So I do think there is definitely beneficial effects to being in the office. I don't think personally with my career that I would've been able to do half of the things that I've been able to do had I not been able to work from home. So I just feel like there has to be some kind of balance there. And one of the biggest things that parents need is flexibility. Flexibility and balance. Like they have to be able to leave on time, they have to be able to attend sporting events, they have to able to do those things. And so I think the, the fine balance there is really individualized and it's working with that individual parent to say, how can we best support you? You know, and how can we make this work? And so I hope that companies are doing that. I think a lot of them are not, but the companies really that wanna keep that talent and keep parents where they are being most productive is they're the ones that are gonna gonna work with them and help them to find that that balance.
Pat:
Yeah. In a lot of the post COVID data, they're showing that, if I could say one of the positive effects of the COVID time was that people that were working remotely began to see or feel a shift in their focus because they were rooted in the home. Did they really wanna do a 45 minute commute day in, day out? Did they really want to be on call from the corporation twenty four seven digitally? When you start asking these questions, a lot of people really felt that, Hey, I, I don't wanna work this way, I don't wanna commute. Maybe we get rid of the second car now, maybe we don't need it. So there was kind of this shift in focus and sensibility about where workers choose to be. Would you agree with that?
Kate:
Oh, a hundred percent. And I think that was a very positive thing that came out of it, is allowing people to reassess that for themselves and spending more time with their children. I think for parents that are not burned out can be very beneficial. And I think the burnout cycle can kind of fluctuate with where you are personally. You know, there's a lot of, it's multifactorial, right? But I think for a lot of parents, especially like for example, my husband would leave every day probably around seven 30. He wouldn't even really see the kids in the morning and he wouldn't come back until probably five 30 or six because again, he had that really big commute. I think that's similar to a lot of parents. Yeah. And think about, you know, the amount of time that you're missing being with your family and having those really special moments with your children being at their sporting events and doing all of those things. So yeah, I think that actually is a very positive thing that people have. It's allowed them to kind of re-frame what they're willing to do for their job and how they can make things a little bit better as far as, you know, their work life balance.
Pat:
Now in your recent national survey you found that about two thirds of parents, 66% said the demands of parenting often feel isolating and lonely. When you first saw that number, that's a high number. What went through your mind?
Kate:
I can actually also relate this back to a story with myself. When I had first had my daughter, so she's my oldest, I was the first of my family to have a child. I was first of my friends to have a child and I didn't have anybody I knew with children. And that was a very lonely feeling. It was very lonely and it was very isolating. And I remember finally when my daughter was around 18 months, we moved to a new community and before we were actually in the house, I remember searching like all over to try to find some kind of group or something like that that I could join. And I remember one time saying to my husband, yes, I like want this for our daughter to like participate in this, but like it's actually really more about me getting to know some people and getting to know some friends that have kids that I can relate to, that I can talk to about these things that having a toddler is like, and you know, everything like that.
Kate:
But doing that and actually taking the steps to really try to find ways to connect with people is hard. And that's just not something I think all the time parents, they have so many other things on their plate that's just not a priority. And so they just continue to be lonely. What I have found now, having older kids now my daughter is 13, is that it is really about that shared time. So you can't just go to the park hoping to meet a friend, you have to be places with people time and time again. And that's how you develop your friendships. And so I've found that the majority of my friends now are actually my daughter's friend's parents. So that has happened. But again, it's been gradually over time and now I feel like I have really great friends and really great support. But that definitely took time and effort to build those relationships. And so parents who are feeling lonely, that is something that I can't stress enough, is it's about shared time with people. Yeah, yeah. And you're not always gonna connect with people, but you eventually will find the people that you connect with too.
Pat:
In an article in April of 2024, this really blew me away. You said loneliness can have the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. When you share that with parents, how do they respond?
Kate:
And you know, the, the crazy thing is that study I think has been replicated several times. So that is something that we show over and over. And one of the key factors of being in, when you look at longevity, how long people live is their connections with other people. So it really does have an impact on so many things. When you look at loneliness, it impacts your immune system, it, it impacts your heart, it impacts your mental health. So there's just so many things that it's been shown to impact that I absolutely can see why it's equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Pat:
Now I wanna go in a different direction about over-scheduled lives of parents and kids. My focus first is on the parents and then we'll get to the kids. Do you think the relentless pace of modern family life, two working parents or a single parent packed schedules, constant demands, feeds into the deep sense of isolation that so many parents report feeling?
Kate:
Absolutely. And this is one of my other areas where I feel very passionate about is the fact that we, many of us live in this achievement culture. So we want the best for our kids. And so we wanna make sure that they are in every activity they're getting, every opportunity that is put out there for them. And we know now through research that this kind of achievement culture can be just as toxic as kind of being on the other side of the spectrum where you're in a very low resource, poverty stricken environment. So that to me is also, that should be very eyeopening to parents. Like, why are we doing what we're doing? I feel like I have conversations constantly about parents struggling to get their kids to their sporting events 'cause the kids don't wanna go. And that always just, I just hear that and I'm like, oh my gosh.
Kate:
Like I get that sports are extremely protective, especially as kids get over and everything like that. But not when they're younger and they're being forced to go into practice three days a week. That just isn't what kids need to be doing. And we're seeing all of these really high levels of stress and mental health issues in our kids. And part of it is, is this over-scheduling that happens. And really another area that I have started to get into a little bit more are all the benefits of play and the fact that our kids don't have this free time to just play, to use their imaginations and everything is so structured that they are not given those opportunities and that is one of their main sources of learning. One of their main sources of learning how to regulate themselves. One of their main sources of being able to have and build relationships with other kids. So we're just seeing this lack of this pre-play time out there and this constant over-scheduling and direction by adults.
Pat:
Yeah. And that you've segued into my next focus on kids and you've, you're touching on it. I remember growing up, we left the house in the morning, jumped on our bikes and came back just before dark. And it was kind of a free range outdoor time and it was understood in the neighborhood that that's what kids did and the parents got it. And everybody knew that. Now today, as you're talking about their days are so structured, school after school, care clubs, sports, weekend tournaments, when you bring up sports, they're not just joining the hockey team or the basketball team, they have to go to special camps so that they can compete to get into high school or middle school sports. So this hyper scheduled life trickles back to the parents and the parents are trying to run around, trying to keep up driving them on the weekends or doing whatever they need to do.
Pat:
The kids, it's like as you, you talk about play and now I'm an artist and I've taught art and college level and high school level for 30 years and there has to be some kind of life of the imagination whether you're an artist or not. And so when little kids are in the sandbox and they're dragging the, the shovel through the sand, like making a truck, you know, and lifting it up, no one's tapping Sally on the shoulder saying, now honey, now you have to take that and make it into a building. And then when you're done with that, then you have to go get another pile of sand because you can't have just one building, honey, you need no, the kids in there making whatever they wanna make. And that's a beautiful, beautiful way for the mind to explore and interact with the world. And that seems to be dissolving.
Kate:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you said the thing about imagination, and I can't remember who said the quote, but they said imagination is more important than knowledge. And I do definitely see a lot of our kids are lacking that ability to abstract that abstract thinking and that risk taking because they again aren't being given the opportunities to kind of utilize this creativity because they're so structured. And I could go on and on about the positive, uh, effects of play from cognitive development, talking about problem solving skills and using that creativity, social skills, emotional regulation, self-confidence, self-esteem. All of those things are all related to play. And another thing that it really affects too is brain development. So play really stimulates those brain neuronal pathways attributed to the term neuroplasticity, right? So that's the brain's ability to form and then almost recognize these synapses. That's how their brain actually grows By having this neuroplasticity and play really promotes all of those things.
Pat:
What I see an offshoot, again through my years of teaching this hypers, scheduling also feeds into students and perfectionism as an art teacher, some of my biggest challenges came from high GPA academic students. When I gave them a painting project that called for imagination, interpretation or storytelling, they'd ask, what are the exact steps to do this? They weren't interested in creative latitude, they didn't wanna risk failing. They were chasing perfection, not exploration. But here's the exciting part. Given enough time and space in class, something started to shift. They began to relax, take risks, and tap into a part of themselves that wasn't about the grade, it was their own creativity.
Kate:
Well, and I will tell you this story, I remember happening with my son. I had gotten like a little thing, it was a barn and then there were a bunch of different stickers and you could put, you know, all the animals at different places in the barn. And I was sitting there with him and you know, my brain is like, okay, you put the horse in the stall and you put the hay on the ground and I look over and he has the horse like on sitting on top of the barn. And my, you know, like I was sitting there and I said that perfectionist part of me wanted to be like, you put the barn in the stall, you know? And instead I said, what is the horse doing? And he said, oh, he's flying <laugh>. That was such a good moment for me, like an aha moment of being like, this is what kids should be doing.
Kate:
Right. And I don't know if you've ever heard of that, that experiment they do where they give a bunch of adults and a bunch of kids a paperclip and they give them like two minutes to figure out all the different things that they can do with a paperclip. And like on average the adults, it's something like eight things they figure out to do with a paperclip and like a kindergarten class it's like 20. That just really goes to show how limiting our creativity gets as we get older. Yeah. And anything we can do to foster that creativity in our younger generation, we should be doing it.
Pat:
Yeah. Now I wanna go to a trickier situation. Why do you think it's so hard for parents to say out loud, I'm burned out, I, I, I'm, I'm just stressed to the max. What are we afraid of if we say that out loud?
Kate:
I think there's such a stigma around parenting and I think the influx of things like social media has really exacerbated this problem, right? You'll be on Instagram or something like that and you'll see these pictures of everyone doing all of these wonderful things and everybody's so happy and it's not real life. And I think a lot of us know that it's not real life, but it's, it's hard to say, well they look so put together and so happy as a family. Like why is this not the case for me? Right? And so that can be a very challenging thing for parents to actually recognize that and to really recognize and have the self-awareness to just say, this is coming from me and I, I don't ever want to parent shame because so hard. So that's not what I'm doing because I also think that a lot of my research anyway of what we've seen is that we don't know what the chicken or the egg is in a lot of the cases, right?
Kate:
You can have children that are more difficult, right? One of the main risk factors that our research found was parents that have a child with ADHD, they have 10% higher rates of burnout than what the average population is. So that was like 77% of parents with a child with ADHD had symptoms of burnout. Or if you have a child that has anxiety, those were also much higher rates. So what is the chicken or the egg? We don't really know. And that's why often when you start thinking about how do I get out of this cycle? You have to do it together. Like it has to be kind of a joint family thing. And the biggest thing is in my mind is always going to be prevention, right? If you start feeling like you're getting burned out, you have to be able to identify that and to have the self-awareness because it can get really tricky when you get into a cycle of burnout to get out of it.
Pat:
Well that leads me to your six week parenting program to build connection and reduce isolation. Will you tell us about the program and what surprised you the most about what came out of those parenting gatherings for that class?
Kate:
So I think one of the ways and the, one of the most powerful ways that we can mitigate parental burnout is through connection. So a lot of those classes are that the course, you know, that we developed was really about getting parents to open up about what is it they're dealing with right now. And I think the beautiful thing about the class is that when you have a bunch of parents together, it's like, this worked for me doing this or this was helpful at this point in my life. And so kind of exchanging those types of ideas and just also knowing that there are parents out there that are struggling just as much as you. I think pairing parents, like I gave the example of having children with ADHD pairing parents together where both of those parents have a child with A DHD is also very powerful because they're dealing with a different set of stressors.
Kate:
And I think parents that don't have a child with a ADHD are dealing with. So helping to find that connection and we just would kind of pick a different topic for each week, like positive reinforcement communication. So there was a different topic and then we would kind of do like a, a parent challenge for the week. So like one of the weeks we would just say this week every morning that your child gets up, you know, tell 'em you're happy to see 'em. So kind of shifting relationships, trying to get out of maybe some of those habits that have developed between the parent and the child. And really just focusing again on that connection piece I think is really where parents tend to start thriving. We talk a lot about ways to decrease stressors and increase resources, which I think is also a really big part of helping with burnout too, is really individualizing how that looks for parents. 'cause everyone's gonna have different stressors, everybody's gonna have different resources, and how do we maximize those to help decrease burnout? So a lot of that talked about during the course as well. And then just giving parents a space to be themselves and to have no judgment coming from the other parents.
Pat:
I think what's so powerful many things about this is that this cultural expectation for parents to have it all together and maybe that comes out of popular culture. I'm talking about the golden age of TV parenting starting in the 1960s up through the nineties, featuring moms and dads who had all the answers to life's little messes. And they always got cleaned up by the end of the episode. Leave it to Beaver father Knows Best the Donna Reed show. My three sons, the Andy Griffith show, the Brady Bunch Little House on the Prairie, the Waltons eight is enough family ties, the Cosby show growing pains, who's the boss? Full house family matters, step by step boy meets world seventh heaven. This steady stream of picture perfect parenting shaped generations of expectations, leaving today's parents feeling like they're supposed to hold it all together even though the world changed.
Pat:
So this thing floating in popular culture is that yeah, you have to have it all together and you're the parents, you'll figure it out 'cause parents figure everything out. But with this class, what I love is that you're validating each parent's actual experience and you're validating that if you connect with each other, it's okay to talk about these things and see that, whoa, we're in this together. I mean it, it's not isolated. Parents around the world deal with this kind of thing. But what you're setting up is a scenario where they can feel bold enough trusting enough to share in this class that they don't have it all together or their frustrations. And I also like the fact that you give them methods, you're giving them tools, anybody's struggling. We need tools to deal with it. And so that validation of being seen and heard is what you're offering.
Kate:
And another thing that I think is kind of maybe one of the more startling things for parents that we talk about is expectations. And you know, everyone's like set high expectations. If you don't set high expectations, you won't attain them. You know, like all of this. And my messaging is actually, if you set too high of expectations, that just leaves not only the parent but also the child to chronic low self-esteem. Because oftentimes they can't achieve these expectations and frustration. And there has to be a balance. You also don't wanna set the expectation too low, too, right? Because then that actually can limit the child's ability to grow and everything like that. You kind of have to sit in the middle and you really wanna look at child development, which I feel like as a parent, every parent should have like a child development class because I can't tell you how liberating it was for me to learn that tantrums are normal.
Kate:
When I heard that this is actually very normal for this age, it was like, oh my gosh, thank goodness it's not just me and the way that I'm parenting. And granted, I, I will say my mother is amazing and continues to be one of the best role models I've ever I've ever had. But I remember her being like, I don't remember you guys having tantrums. And I would be like, oh my gosh, like what is wrong with me and my children that they're having tantrums? And so the minute like I had that conversation about like the normalcy surrounding tantrums, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Oh yeah. 'cause I didn't internalize that so much where I was like, this is because I'm a bad parent. So understanding those normal growth and development phases I think also can help parents so much because it just kind of normalizes the behavior.
Pat:
Yeah. In fact, you bring up a really good point, again, teaching art, you get kids that are just, oh my gosh, they have talent. Unbelievable. You give them mud and stick 'em in front of a canvas and there's a beautiful thing. But it always came back to one thing. I would see these kids, those that really were amazing, but developmentally they were still 15 or they were still 17. And you know what, they're gonna do 15-year-old things because they're a kid. But you can kind of get thrown by the sophistication of that talent. But that's a gift, that's a talent. And every artist knows that we grow our talents. You know, it's not just instant, like popping something in the microwave. No, no talent has to be nurtured. But with these kids, I can see where they would get into a situation where people might wanna treat them differently, but they're developmentally, you've gotta look at their age
Kate:
That, I love that you brought this up because I feel like I have to constantly remind myself too, that once you have older kids, your expectations for your younger kids, you forget. You forget, oh, they're still five, they're still eight because I have a 13 and 11-year-old. So you expect them and want them to act older than they are. And so you constantly have to remind yourself that no, he's only eight, he's only five.
Pat:
Yeah.
Kate:
It's a totally different developmental stage. And so I do feel like that's very important too, you know, for parents to remember that. And I had a very dear friend once tell me how much she loved adolescence because it was like they had one foot in childhood and one foot in adulthood, and you never knew which foot they were gonna take, you know? And so you can't always expect them to take the adult foot because they're gonna take the child foot just as much. And so kind of understanding that, and again, not blaming yourself when they take the child foot, I think is important too for parents.
Pat:
Oh, that's beautiful. But again, what you're really talking about, we have to create a space to let them be, that that's really what you're saying. It really boils down to that. And in order for us to create that space, we have to take the things out of the space that clutter expectations, demands, all those things that we, we put in there. It's almost like we can't see the child for the expectations. So I, I love your example that that's really spot on Now. Data shows nearly 40% of parents feel that they have no one to support them. What would you say to someone listening right now who feels exactly that way? What would you say to them?
Kate:
So 50 hours of shared time, how are you gonna find the 50 hours of shared time? Right. So I think first and foremost, I should say it's taking the first step, trying to find some kind of support. And oftentimes the support's not gonna come to you. You are going to have to actually actively seek out the support. And it doesn't always have to be around your children. I think that can actually be a great way to do it because you will have a lot in common because you'll have kids that are close to the same age, then the kids will wanna see each other. So you'll be forced together more. So it can be anything kid related, but it doesn't have to be, it could also be a sports team or like joining some kind of art class or something away from your kids too, where you can develop those types of friendships.
Kate:
But it's really about having that, that shared time to develop the relationship. And unless you actively seek that out, then that could be really difficult to achieve the level of friendship that maybe is comfortable and fun and you wanna be together. So it's, it's really putting in the time there. And that can be really hard. I think for some people. There are online environments too, like forums for parents and that ask questions and everything, which I think can serve a purpose for sure. But I really think the face-to-face contact is the most important thing with that.
Pat:
So if parents, they might be listening, going 50 hours, I don't even have five minutes, you know, between all that I do >. So is there like one small thing that matters more than we think in this situation?
Kate:
So, and I totally appreciate the 50 hours can seem like so much for a parent, you know, like five minutes can seem so much for a parent. I think if I had to really pinpoint like one little thing is just making the time for those relationships. And it could be something like I have heard of, and I haven't personally done this, but like running groups where parents are actually pushing their strollers and running together, just trying to find some space or some time to develop those relationships. And I think parents too need to understand and prioritize their own self-care. And I always kind of cringe, I'm so a nurse, right? By training. And one of the things, there's like a lot of nurse burnout, especially post the pandemic and things like that. And sometimes I get so irritated when I hear like, they're like, well, nurses just need to do this self-care.
Kate:
And then I think about that for parents. I'm like, I can see how parents get frustrated with that. Like, don't tell me like to get more sleep when my baby's waking up like every two hours. Right. So I hesitate to say that and to bring it up, but I do think there are certain aspects of self-care that you can control that will make you feel better. You can, regardless, probably of your kids' age, find some way to exercise a little bit, even if that's just a walk with a stroller, you do have control over your nutrition. There's a whole huge food is medicine movement just because that can really, really impact your mental health, your physical health, just in general, the way that you feel is what you're putting into your body. And things like sleep. I know that we all wanna stay up and finish the final episode of whatever we're watching, but you do, you know, have control over certain aspects. So finding those things that make your foundation more stable, then when you have to deal with these stressors, when you have to deal with this burnout, your foundation is still very solid. Trying to find ways to really promote that self care. And that I do think can really help with things like burnout. And a big piece of that, that foundation is that social support as well. So finding ways, whether it's family members, whether it's developing new friendships, but having some kind of social support that you can rely on.
Pat:
Well, as you were talking, I kept thinking about connectors connecting. And I think right now it's safe to say that there are many, many stressors going on in the country. I've been thinking a lot about connecting, like what does it mean? And I, I did an experiment for a week where when I went to the grocery store, I thanked the, the cashier, the way she bagged something. I just said, Hey, wow, that's really nice how you did that. Thank you. Or if I'm online with, with a banker because something was in my, you know, checking account. I just say things like, thank you for doing that, I appreciate you. And I did it for a week because I just wanted to see. And I was surprised that the response, you could almost feel people melting, but I found that I felt it like there was this, this energy of connection in the context of what's going on that seems so powerful. So it's not just as parents, like how do we find ways of connecting with each other and sharing moments of, uh, kindness, appreciation when our emotions are kind of raw.
Kate:
No, and you bring up a great point. I mean, when you also look at the research on gratitude, it's kind of everything you're saying, right? Gratitude is an extremely powerful strategy when you think about things like mental health and using gratitude within a family unit, I also think can be very powerful because sometimes our children even feel that under appreciation or that sense of possible hostility coming from the parent, especially if they're burned out. And something as simple as what you're talking about, showing gratitude, you know, within the family unit, even for simple things, for things that you normally wouldn't say thank you for, sends a message and it sends a message to that person. But also I agree very much so that it gives the benefit also to the person that extended that is extending the gratitude. So that's, you're getting two opportunities, one, to boost somebody else up and then two, to boost yourself up when you use something like gratitude. And again, a very simple and powerful strategy that parents can use.
Pat:
So somebody listening to this and they're, they're really overwhelmed. I have a single parent friend who takes both of her boys, middle school, high school to hockey practice weekends. Her husband travels all the time. So she's really the one doing everything on top of her full-time job. And then running the household for people who really are stretched thin and listening to this and maybe barely hanging on by a thread, what would the first step look like for them?
Kate:
So I would say the first step in the case of your friend is looking at those, where are the resources? Where are the stressors? How can I decrease the stressors? How can I increase the resources? And again, this would look very different for very different people, right? Another thing that you kind of in asking this question it made me think about too, is when we look at burnout, it is much higher in our western countries than it is in a lot of the countries in Asia, in South America, central America. And the rationale that really they give for that is that we live in more of an individualistic society. And those countries live in a society where extended family is just readily there. And part of the so intertwined with life there that it takes so much off the parents because the grandparents are there and the aunts and uncles are there.
Kate:
And so it really comes back to that kind of support that parents are being given in countries where they don't really have this individualistic society. But very rarely in the United States do we see this anymore, where the, the grandparents live around the corner or in the house, you know, and the aunts and uncles are really close and nearby. Like, we just don't see that as much. And it doesn't have to be, you know, for, for people that don't have those supports, the parents close and everything like that, it doesn't have to be family. I feel like you can get that same level of support with friends. But again, that the more people that you have to kind of share this load, the less burnout likely that you'll have.
Pat:
So, Kate, have we missed anything? Is there something, as we, uh, get to the top of the hour, is there something you'd like to say?
Kate:
I would just love to say to any parent that is feeling burned out, that you're not alone in feeling like this, the feelings of burnout. I think all parents at some point in time have felt or will feel, but take today as the opportunity to say, what can I change to help get out of this feeling of burnout? If you continue to do the same thing over and over, they say the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. So let this conversation, and obviously you're listening to this for some reason, let today be the day that you say, I'm gonna try to change a couple things and try to get out of this cycle of burnout and just know and have faith that you will. But a lot of times it's like many things, it's just kind of taking that first step. But definitely know that you're not alone and you're doing a great job and you'll get through it.
Pat:
Dr. Kate Gawlik, I wanna thank you for your expertise, your heart and the wonderful work that you do. Thank you for joining us today. It was such an honor having you on.
Kate:
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed being here.
Pat:
Okay, listeners, till next time, take care.
