Mothers of demanding children can avoid burnout by being emotionally empathetic

To be empathetic is to also be understanding to, and wholeheartedly sharing the feelings, thoughts and perspectives of others, and to lack empathy, is to lack this understanding.

This wonderful ability to understand other people's mental and affective states is fundamental for understanding the social world around us, thus leading to the formation of rich, emotional connections and resonance with others.

Whilst empathy undeniably plays a major part in the role of parenting, previous research into the relationship between parenting and trait empathy has proven to be only a little understood.

This brings me to two recent studies that were published in the British Journal of Psychology, both of which were originally conducted to focus on parental burnout, and how this could impact a parent's empathy towards their child.

The results of these studies suggest that maternal emotional empathy can actually act as a buffer which protects parents, particularly mothers, against the risk of emotional burnout.

Despite the limited information provided by previous studies, the data shows that the empathy of children, combined with the sensitivity of mothers, can serve as a protective factor for parents. On the other hand, it is unknown whether or not empathy also serves as a protective parental factor.

Parental burnout can be caused by the high levels of stress that come with taking care of a child, which in itself can sometimes create feelings of exhaustion and wanting to be emotionally distant.

So this is why study author Tamar Kadosh-Laor and her colleagues set out to learn more about how empathy changes the association between a child's tendency to express negative emotions (i.e. fear, anger, sadness) and parental burnout.

Researchers noted that emotional empathy has two components – empathetic concern, which protects the parent from burnout, and personal distress, which increases the likelihood of burnout.

From this, the researchers conducted two studies of mothers and their children.

The 203 maternal participants of the first study completed a series of assessments, whilst the researchers analysed emotional empathy, temperament of the infant, and parental burnout.

Meanwhile, participants of the second study featured 201 mothers and their children aged between 0 and 10. Data was collected from them during one of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Israel back in September 2020, allowing the researchers to conduct a larger study.

These participants also completed a series of assessments, including those of empathy, child temperament and their own parental burnout.

Subsequently, the results of the first study showed that mothers of children that were more prone to experiencing negative emotions were more likely to be emotionally exhausted. It's worth noting that this link was much stronger in mothers who were already experiencing strong distress.

Results from the second study only served to confirm the results of the first study – mothers who were experiencing distress and had temperamental children were more likely to burn out.

Another observation from both studies included how mothers with higher levels of empathetic concern were less likely to be emotionally exhausted.

Laor commented on these results, saying: "The current study shows that maternal empathetic concern can protect from parental burnout in light of growing parental demands and that maternal personal distress can increase the likelihood to experience parental burnout."

The author concluded by saying: "The implication is that maternal trait empathy may be one of the resources needed to handle parenting stress, and that this can and should be the focus of future interventions for increasing parenting resources," the author concluded.