Being Afraid of and for One’s Parents: The Lived Experience of Children Exposed to Parental Burnout

Abstract

Background: Parental burnout is a state of extreme exhaustion that is detrimental to family life. There is some evidence, albeit limited, that children of exhausted parents are at risk of neglect or abuse. The children’s lived experience remains an underinvestigated issue. This qualitative and participatory study aimed to explore children’s and adolescents’ perceptions and experience of parental burnout, as well as the resources they identify as available to assist them. Methods: We interviewed 24 children of exhausted parents, including children typically developing (n = 17), children with illness/disability (n = 3), and children with learning/behavioral difficulties (n = 4). We used interactive data collection tools, adapted to the participants’ age. The interviews were followed by a participatory validation seminar. Results: We evidenced a high emotional burden experienced by children exposed to parental burden. The children conveyed feeling insecure about what happens, perceiving a mismatch between their own needs and those of their parents, and being afraid both of and for their parents. Conclusions: Our results call for an increased recognition of parental burnout as not only a personal or family problem, but a possibly important societal and public health concern, with implications for child prevention and health promotion.

1. Introduction

While parental burnout is a frequently reported phenomenon (Roskam et al. 2021) characterized by a state of extreme exhaustion related to parenthood, little is known still about the children’s experience of it, and the consequences it may have on them. Parental burnout is a state of exhaustion associated with the stress experienced by parents in the exercise of their parenthood. It is said to result from an imbalance between perceived stressors and resources available within oneself or in the environment to cope with them (Mikolajczak and Roskam 2018), involving individual and societal factors in the manifestation of suffering that results in this state of burnout (Roskam et al. 2017). Children’s characteristics may contribute to the emergence or maintenance of their parents’ exhaustion, particularly when presenting behavioral disorders or when a health problem with or without associated disability complicates a family’s daily routine (Dubois and Aujoulat 2019). The issue of parental burnout was initially studied among parents of children with specific health needs, before being extended to all parents, regardless of their child’s health status (Mikolajczak et al. 2018b; Gérain and Zech 2018). The findings described in the literature emerge mostly from quantitative studies, which used self-administered questionnaires to better understand the causes and consequences of parental burnout (e.g., Mikolajczak et al. 2021; Mikolajczak et al. 2018a). Qualitative research is still scarce and concerns the perspective of parents only (e.g., Hubert and Aujoulat 2018; Dubois et al. 2024). To the best of our knowledge, children have not yet been given the opportunity to express themselves, resulting in a knowledge gap regarding their own perspectives regarding their experience of parental burnout.

While parents today are expected to be ‘good parents’ (François and Roberti-Lintermans 2021), children also find themselves in a complex situation, with many expectations to be ‘good children’ (Humbeeck 2017). The social environment in which they evolve may be supportive and may or may not offer them the resources to cope with the difficulties they encounter (Bolter et al. 2017). The way in which children are viewed in our society has evolved considerably over the last few centuries, giving them rights that have been enshrined since 1989 in an international convention (UN General Assembly 1989). This defines four fundamental principles: non-discrimination, the best interest of the child, the right to live, survive, and develop, and respect for the child’s views. These principles have influenced the way children are involved in research. Over time, research ‘on’ children, aimed at questioning the adults around them to better understand what they experience, has gradually evolved into research ‘with’ children as agents in their own lives, and even ‘by’ children, who come to be fully considered as research partners (Bradbury-Jones et al. 2018). The Children’s Research Centre (CRC) highlights that children are the experts on their own lives (Campbell 2013; Kellett 2011) and encourages researchers to approach all children participating in research with age-tailored methodologies that are suited to make them feel confident and capable (Henderson-Dekort et al. 2023). This echoes the INVOLVE recommendations issued in the UK in 2019 (INVOLVE 2019). Involving children as partners in research remains rare; however, and hitherto evaluation interrogating children’s lived experience by questioning the adults around them (parents, teachers, etc.) often remains privileged. Studies involving children as agents in their own lives are few and far between, not least due to the ethical and methodological issues involved (Alderson and Morrow 2020). This may explain why first-voice research on the experience of children exposed to parental burnout is still scarce, maybe even non-existent to date.

Asking children about their lived experience, while also taking the family dynamics at play into consideration, is no easy task. A scoping review (Dubois et al. 2021) enabled us to define some ethical and methodological issues involved in research that seeks to interview children about aspects of their family dynamics. This involves an important collaboration between researchers, parents, children, and professionals, which we shall detail hereafter in our methods section.

This exploratory study aimed to investigate what children experience when their parents are facing difficulties in their parental role, and more specifically, when their parents go through a period of burnout. Three sub-questions were addressed: (i) What perceptions do children have of parental burnout? (ii) How do they talk about their own experiences and emotions in relation to their parents’ state of burnout? (iii) What resources do they identify or mobilize to face such situations?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Recruitment Strategy

Congruently with the results of our scoping review (Dubois et al. 2021), children were recruited through their parents, who had themselves been contacted through a health professional or social worker known by the family. For a child to be included, the parents needed to have previously participated in a semi-structured interview about their own experiences and their thoughts on their children’s experiences, and they had to have consented to their child’s participation (Dubois et al. 2024). This choice was made to ensure the psychological safety of the different family members, as recommended in the literature (Dubois et al. 2021). Children had to be aged between 8 and 18. While children under the age of eight usually do not have the ability to step back sufficiently to analyze their own thoughts (Bouchard and Fréchette 2010), young people aged 18 are at the start of young adulthood, and may be more independent from their parents. Children had to be able to express themselves in French. We aimed to include not only typically developing children but also children with specific needs, such as learning or behavioral difficulties, chronic conditions, as these three groups were represented in our initial study with exhausted parents (Dubois et al. 2024). We excluded from participation children with illnesses or disabilities that would make them unable to express themselves verbally, but we did include those children’s siblings if they wanted to participate.

After meeting with the parents who had given their permission for their children’s participation in the study, we provided the potential participants with comprehensive information about the study. The children and adolescents who then agreed to participate were invited to read and sign an age-appropriate consent form. The process of eliciting consent was repeated verbally each time there was a change in activity (photo language, role-playing, collage).

2.2. Sample Description

In this publication, we use the term ‘children’ to refer to both the children and the teenagers we interviewed.

Our study with parents (Dubois et al. 2024) had included 17 families, with a total of 38 children. Out of these 38 potential participants, 13 children aged less than 8 years old were excluded because of their young age. In addition, one child who had initially agreed to participate withdrew from the study because of a lack of time (n = 1). We therefore included a total of 24 children, from 13 different families, 17 boys and 7 girls (

Table 1. Summary of the participants’ status at the time of interviews.

Participants’ Status	Number of Families Concerned (n = 13)	Number of Children Included (n = 24)	Age of Children (Mean, Min–Max)
Typically developing children	7 (54%)	17 (71%)	12 (8–18)
Children with chronic condition	3 (23%)	3 (12%)	9 (8–14)
Children with behavioral or learning difficulties	3 (23%)	4 (17%)	11 (8–13)

). The median age of the children was 11 years (min 8–max 20). The age limit for taking part in the study was initially set at 18, but we made an exception for a 20-year-old participant who expressed a wish to participate, as the eldest child in a family of 3 siblings, one of whom was disabled and unable to participate in the interview, while the other, who met our inclusion criteria, did participate.

As far as the 24 participants are concerned, 17 children were typically developing children, three had a chronic condition, and four had learning or behavioral difficulties. The health status or specific needs of the children were known to the researcher, as these had been specified by their parents. All the participants were offered the possibility to meet the researcher alone or as dyads/triads of siblings. While most of the children with siblings (n = 20) opted for either a dyadic or a triadic interview (depending on the composition of the family), two teenagers in a family with three children requested to be interviewed separately. Thus, ten interviews of siblings (8 dyads and 2 triads) and four individual interviews were conducted. In addition, one child whose siblings were too young to participate in the interview was interviewed in the presence of the siblings who wanted to attend the meeting. The children were also offered the choice between being interviewed at home or at the researcher’s workplace. Seven out of the 10 interviews of siblings were held in the families’ homes, as well as 2 out of the 4 individual interviews. After an ‘icebreaker’ moment in the presence of the parents, the latter were asked to leave the room to allow the researcher to spend time alone with the children, and to ensure the confidentiality of the discussion between the researcher and the children. At the end of the meeting, the researcher would decide with the children on the content of some brief feedback to be given to the parents, and the children would then be invited to ask their parents back, in order to close the meeting with a short family gathering.

2.3. Data Collection Strategy

We used a variety of media to facilitate the children’s participation, including in ways that encourage creativity. Based on the results of our literature review (Dubois et al. 2021), in order to elicit the children’s experiences in an age-appropriate manner and without imposing pre-conceived ideas on them, the individual and sibling interviews were facilitated and supported by participatory and creative tools, that had been developed in collaboration with clinical psychologists, and pre-tested; first with adult researchers (n = 3) or childcare professionals (n = 3), and then with a group of children from a primary school class, aged 11–12 (n = 6). Following this pre-test, we made slight modifications to improve the children’s understanding and use of the tools, and to clarify the questions we wanted to ask them to meet our research objectives. It is important to stress that the sibling interviews were not intended to explore interactions among siblings but rather to question each child’s experience in the presence of his/her siblings. We did not, therefore, seek to integrate the children’s stories with those of their siblings, but we paid attention to their interactions. The first author, who has extensive training and experience in pediatrics, conducted all the interviews.

The interviews were structured in five stages, detailed below, and based on different tools: (i) getting to know each other (dice), (ii) questioning the representations of parental burnout (photolanguage), (iii) questioning the participants’ experiences (role play, emotion cards, barometer), (iv) considering what helps and what does not help the children when their parent is exhausted (collage technique), and (v) closing the meeting (internal weather report).

First, we created an environment of trust to allow the children to express themselves, while clearly explaining the purpose of the research, and making sure that the children understood so that they could engage freely. We also worked together with the children to define shared rules of psychological safety and confidentiality, so that everyone would feel comfortable sharing their experience. Next, to create some familiarity, we took some time to allow each of the children and the researcher to share some aspects of their personal lives, such as the composition of their families, their hobbies, their school, their favorite meals, their last holidays, or the types of gifts they most liked to receive. We used a dice to allow everybody to speak in turn and to choose the topics.

Secondly, we used a photolanguage to question the children about their representations and perceptions of parental burnout. According to Pyle (2013), photolanguage enables children to communicate using both visual and verbal skills, and the use of images facilitates the emergence of unexpected themes (Pyle 2013). The children in our sample were invited to pick one or several pictures that would be representative of parental burnout, and to show and explain to the rest of the group why they chose these pictures.

Thirdly, we invited the children in a role-playing game (alternatively, the children could use Playmobil^® Cranbury, NJ, USA, toys) to enable them to express their experiences in a fictitious situation of more or less severe parental burnout. The role-playing game was based on two scenarios, in which we swapped both the parents’ and the children’s genders. One scenario recounted a scene from daily life in a family where the parents’ level of burnout was low (“Bernard comes home from school. His two parents are at home. His father is hanging out the washing. His mother bakes a cake for a snack. Bernard has forgotten his school diary”). The second scenario involved a family where the parents’ level of burnout was high (“Lucie is at home. It’s dinnertime. Her brother is playing video games. Her father is in bed. He says he’s exhausted, yells and gets angry. There’s nothing to eat”). Using media to allow the child to take on a role and then step out of it was intended to enable the children to express their experiences when exposed to their parents’ state of burnout while maintaining a certain emotional distance to preserve their psychological safety. Each child was given a few minutes of preparation time to imagine a story based on each of the two proposed scenarios. They had the choice of building their scenario alone or as a group with their siblings. The researcher and the other children (in the case of sibling interviews) were then allowed to ask clarifying questions, which enabled the children to explain the extent to which what they were bringing to the two fictional situations was related to their own experiences. To end the role-play, the children were asked to identify the emotions generated by each of the two stories, using emotion cards (Seo et al. 2024). A barometer was also used to enable the children to situate the level of burnout of the fictitious parent(s) in each of the two situations (not exhausted, moderately exhausted, completely exhausted). This allowed us to get a more precise idea of the children’s awareness of possible levels of severity of parental burnout.

The fourth part of the interview used a collage technique to help elicit how children react when exposed to parental burnout and to explore what resources they identify or mobilize. We asked the children to cut out pictures from magazines, glue them on, and draw or write what helps a child when parents are exhausted, and what does not help (de Foy 2001).

Last, the interviews with the children ended with an ‘internal weather report’, a metaphor to enable participants to describe in a single word or in a few words their emotions, what they felt here and now, and their expectations.

The length of the interview was influenced by the number of children present at the interview, ranging from 36 min for one of the single interviews to 80 min for a triadic interview. The average duration of the interviews was 51 min.

As a way to address some of the ethical and methodological issues identified in our scoping review (Dubois et al. 2021), three moments of exchange were planned to close the research with the families: (i) a moment within each family, immediately after the interview with the children; (ii) another moment two weeks after the children’s interview through an online discussion that would gather the whole family, so that every member of the family, including the parents who had previously participated in an interview themselves (Dubois et al. 2024) could tell each other how they had experienced the research interviews, and could convey specific messages if needed in the presence of the principal researcher; and (iii) a last moment to bring together the families who had participated in the research, once the data collection was completed and preliminary results were available. This closing seminar took place after an average of 9 months (min. 3 months–max. 14 months) following the interviews with the children. Eight of the 17 families who had been initially enrolled in our study were represented, seven of which had participated in both the parents’ and the children’s interviews. Of the 9 out of the 17 remaining families, 6 were unavailable at the time of the seminar, one was not interested, another one did not respond to the invitation, and the last one canceled at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances. During the seminar, the results were presented separately to the parents (n = 10) and the children (n = 8). The latter were divided into two subgroups according to their age: 8–12 (n = 4/8) and 12–16 (n = 4/8). Among the eight children, five were typically developing children, and three had learning or behavioral difficulties. No children with chronic conditions took part in the seminar. The discussion lasted one hour in each of the two children’s groups. During this validation and co-construction phase, the children were allowed to further share their experiences and to discuss and consolidate the results obtained from the interviews. Five activities were proposed to the children, based on the use of different media to facilitate their participation, in continuity with the activities proposed during the individual or siblings meetings in which they had previously. The five themes addressed and discussed with the children concerned (i) their representations of parental burnout; (ii) their emotional experiences; (iii) their resources; (iv) their strategies for coping with the situation; and (v) the reasons behind being in a state of parental burnout. The children had the opportunity to confirm or not, or to clarify the report of the researchers. At the end of the seminar, a research closing session gathered all the participants, i.e., the parents and children, allowing for a mutual presentation of the agreed findings in each of the separate subgroups (parents and children), with the help of a visual support created by a graphic artist as she was observing the discussions in all subgroups. The results presented hereafter are those from the individual interviews that were enriched and validated during the seminar.

2.4. Data Analysis

All the interviews with the children were transcribed ad verbatim. The material for the analysis consisted of the interview transcripts and the researcher’s observation notes. We did not analyze the children’s ‘creations’ as such, but rather what they had said as they presented them during the meetings (Dockett and Perry 2007).

Our analysis methods are based on an iterative process, firstly based on a thematic analysis, starting from our research questions (Terry et al. 2017). In a reflective approach and to reduce subjectivity bias, each transcript was read, analyzed, and discussed by the first and second authors, who together defined the initial thematic categories as they emerged in relation to the three research questions, namely: the children’s perceptions of their parents’ state of burnout; the children’s experiences of exposure to parental burnout; and the resources they identify or utilize in this context of parental burnout. It should be noted that even though each tool used had been designed to provide a more precise answer to one of the three research sub-questions, there was some overlap in the answers given by the children. For instance, elements of lived experience could be addressed with the protolanguage, which was initially aimed at eliciting the children’s understanding of parental burnout.

The first and second authors also met regularly with the third and fourth authors to discuss emerging findings and enrich their understanding of what the children had expressed during their participation in the research. As the analysis proceeded, the main emerging themes were grouped into three intersecting categories that would reflect three important aspects of the children’s experiences: (i) the children’s need to explain and understand what their parents go through; (ii) a mismatch between the children’s own perceived needs and that of their parents (iii) the children’s perception of danger, and their fear of and for their parents. While we were analyzing the data, we paid particular attention to the possible influence of the children’s health status on specific results. However, as our sample was small and because we were mostly interested in the children’s own emotional responses to the situation, no hypothesis emerged regarding the possible role of the children’s health status. Our results are presented hereafter according to these three categories, with relevant citations from the interviews. In order to respect the confidentiality of the children’s and the families’ identities, each citation is followed by the child’s age group only (8–12 years; 12–16 years; 16–20 years), without other specification (such as their health status or family composition). When relevant, reference is made to a specific stage of the data collection.

3. Results

3.1. Need to Make Sense of What They Witness

The children in our sample sought to explain and understand what they observe and experience when their parents are exhausted. First, they reported being aware of their parents’ state of burnout and described it as something that weighs heavily: “A tired parent, it’s a bit like pulling a big suitcase behind him, and it’s very hard” (8–12 years, photolanguage). They observed it through physical and bodily manifestations that they would easily perceive and identify: “I can see very well when my mum is tired or when she’s really exhausted, at the end of her tether. It shows on her face” (16–20 years). The participants also associated some emotional manifestations with their parents’ state of burnout: “It’s a kind of fatigue that can be physical, but it’s more emotional” (12–16 years). Children reported having witnessed some behavioral manifestations of their parents’ burnout, such as getting angry, grumbling, shouting: “Mum has no patience” (12–16 years) or “When Mum’s exhausted, she gets upset and cries, so she goes for a walk” (12–16 years). Some children also witnessed verbal or physical losses of control on the part of the parent: “When parents are tired, they shout, they throw things” (8–12 years). Another type of observed behavioral manifestation concerned the parents’ need to isolate: “Mum, when she is exhausted, seeks to be alone a little more” (16–20 years).

Whereas the children could hardly define or name burnout as such, nor talk easily about their own representations of parental burnout, most of them were eager to advance causes that would explain their parents’ attitudes. They identified external causes of parental burnout, such as their parents’ work: “Mum had to stop working because she was tired. It was too much for her” (8–12 years). Based on the pictures displayed in the photolanguage, some family configurations were advanced as possible causes to explain parental burnout. Independently of their own family configurations, these included having twins, having a disabled child or a child with learning difficulties, or having to raise a child alone: “It’s exhausting having two babies because they were born at the same time” (8–12 years); “I’d be sad if my child couldn’t be like the others, it would exhaust me” (8–12 years); “If the parent is a single parent, he must not be fulfilled, he’s missing something to be happy” (8–12 years). On certain occasions, in an effort to further justify the idea that some parents might be exhausted, children would amplify the scenarios presented in role-playing games by introducing fictitious reinforcing elements—such as having triplets or a child with a disability in a wheelchair. It was as if, by adding their own explanations to legitimize the perceived burden, they were trying to make the situation more acceptable or understandable from their own perspective.

Among possible external causes, a minority of children pointed to themselves or their own behaviors to explain their parents’ burnout: “When you have to look after a child all the time, you’re exhausted” (8–12 years); “It’s also because we were having tantrums that Mum was tired” (8–12 years).

Some children tried to explain their exhausted parents’ behavior or suggested solutions to improve the situation: “Dad should try to speak more calmly and not get so angry so quickly, to keep his energy up” (8–12 years), sometimes going so far as to say that the exhausted parent “was perhaps not cut out to be a parent” (8–12 years).

3.2. A Mismatch Between Their Own Needs and Those of Their Parents

Our results suggest that the children’s energy and expectations towards their parents contrast with the tiredness of their exhausted parents. For instance, some situations were reported where the parents would be so exhausted that they would be unable to move, be bedridden, or have no energy to do activities with them: “Sometimes I want to move around, do activities, but when Mom’s tired, she says ‘No, no, no, I’m tired’” (8–12 years); “If Mum stays in bed, I’m disappointed that she’s letting herself go” (8–12 years); “I’m sad to see that Mummy’s not doing well” (8–12 years) or “I’m sad to see that my family could be a lot better than it is if Mummy agreed to get help” (12–16 years). Such experiences were associated with feelings of disappointment, frustration, sadness, or anger, yet sometimes unexpressed or suppressed: “When the parents are exhausted, you have the right to express your anger, but maybe not directly in front of them because that would tire them out even more” (12–16 years).

Faced with their parents’ burnout and the perceived gap between their own needs and those of their parents, several types of attitudes or reactions were reported. First, to spare their parent, some children would become very reserved and silent. To cope with the discrepancy experienced between their needs and their parents’ capacities, the children reported developing some strategies by themselves to try and satisfy their own needs, and get distracted. In doing so, some participants stressed that they would try and develop the kinds of activities that would get them out of the way to not disturb the parents: “What helps is when we read a book very quietly in our bed and we’ve figured out what to do” (8–12 years) or “What helps is having a garden so we can go outside when the parent is upset” (8–12 years).

Other children manifested that they would try to do their best to help their exhausted parents, by taking some responsibilities on their shoulders. These would report feeling uncomfortable with their parents’ burnout, therefore trying to implement strategies aimed at resolving their discomfort by pleasing and protecting their parents, such as doing everything possible to improve the situation and make their parents happy again: “What helps is to make presents or a surprise for Mum and Dad, by baking a nice cake for example” (8–12 years). Still, others would adapt by taking on responsibilities to help their parent and solve the problem, even if such responsibilities would not normally exceed what is expected, which could in turn be a source of pressure, stress, and fatigue for the child: “To help our mother, we had to spend nights with our brother [who is disabled], so we were very tired” (16–20 years). Having to look after their younger siblings was also reported on other occasions: “What helps when Mum’s tired is that I look after my little brother” (8–12 years). During several interviews, we witnessed that older siblings were indeed used to helping their younger brothers and sisters. For example, they would help them with the various activities offered during the meeting, repeating instructions, or coaching them: “Guys, focus and listen!” (12–16 years). Another way to illustrate how some children would step out of their roles as children in order to help their parents is through a citation from a fictive scenario elaborated in a role-play: “The character played by the child goes shopping to prepare a meal. She manages” (8–12 years). By contrast, two children told us that they did not know how to help, which would create a sense of powerlessness and distress: “Sometimes you want to help your parent, but you don’t know how because you’re a child” (12–16 years).

Although most children would not complain about such situations, nor take a critical stance towards their supportive roles, some of the stories that were made up by the children during the role plays seemed to point to the fact that the children might feel insufficiently prepared to take over such responsibilities and that these might have a negative impact on their own wellbeing: “The character played by the child eats while her little brother plays a last game of video game (even though she should never have let him do that because it keeps him awake). When she’s finished eating, she takes her little brother, and they go to sleep. She pretends, then comes out of her room and tidies up the kitchen, making pasta for the two parents because she knows they’re coming to eat. She goes to bed. The parents see that there’s a meal waiting for them, and that the kitchen is all tidy.” (8–12 years).

By contrast, still other children, while being aware that their parents were not present enough in the household, would put their parents back in their place as parents and be careful not to step out of their role as children: “It’s kind of the parents’ role to cook” (16–20 years). The children in this situation reported to have sought external resources, such as a grandparent for example, in order to receive support from another adult: “I confide in my grandmother. When we go for a walk, it’s great, we really talk to each other. We’re very relaxed and we talk about everything, so it’s great” (8–12 years). One child reported that talking to the parents could be helpful in the short term, but not in the long term: “Sometimes it helps us to talk to our parents and to be heard in what we’re going through, because it can calm the parents down a bit because sometimes they can understand certain things. Yet it’s only useful in the short term, because after my mum starts getting angry again, and shouts…” (12–16 years).

For the participants who reported sharing activities with their parents, these activities were sometimes described as being no longer resourceful, because of the context of parental burnout: “Going on holidays is fine, but not at all when parents are exhausted” (8–12 years). Moreover, certain resources or activities that could help the children cope with their feelings of loneliness, were perceived by some children as adding even more fatigue for their parents, and therefore not useful for the family as a whole: “Having a pet is great for us [kids], but it doesn’t help my parents because you have to take it out and look after it when you don’t have time” (8–12 years).

3.3. A Continuous Fear, Both of and for One’s Parents

Some children expressed a sense that their parents were facing imminent danger, by using, for instance, photos of an accident, or the collapse of a building to describe what it means for a parent to be exhausted: “When a parent is exhausted, he can fall asleep while driving and have an accident” (8–12 years).

Feeling that their exhausted parents were in danger generated emotions in the children. Fear was the dominant emotion experienced and named by our participants. Two types of fear were acknowledged, as the children reported being afraid both for their parents and of their parents: “Sometimes I worry for Mum” (8–12 yars, FG); “When Mum is exhausted, I worry because she doesn’t have much patience, gets angry quickly and is tired all the time” (8–12 years).

Referring to a fictitious situation proposed in the role-play, some participants expressed that children afraid of their parents, would tend to protect themselves: “He (the fictious character) finds ways to reassure himself” (8–12 years); and to avoid the situation, for example by hiding to get out of sight or out of danger: “When my parents shout, I go and hide at the top of the stairs and wait for it to pass” (12–16 years). Still referring to a fictitious situation proposed in the role-play, some participants suggested that fear could lead them to lie to their parents: “The character played by the child is sad because he lied to his parents, and that’s not very nice. But it’s because he was afraid his parents would get angry and punish him” (8–12 years).

Moreover, some participants, mostly among the elder ones, were able to talk about their own stress experienced in their daily lives: “Stress doesn’t come from just one situation. It’s often mixed” (16–20 years); “Children always feel this stress of disappointing their parents, of having to change their mood because they just want to see their parents smile” (16–20 years). While some expressed their own perceived stress related to continuous efforts not to disappoint their parents, others—using the fictious characters in the role plays—would convey their hope that the children’s efforts would improve the situation: “She (the character) is discouraged, but then she’s proud to have put a smile back on her father’s face after serving him the meal he came to eat at the table” (8–12 years).

4. Discussion

This exploratory qualitative study enabled us to gain a better understanding of the lived experience of children exposed to parental burnout. Our results reveal the children’s ability to identify that something is wrong, that has an impact on their own well-being, as well as that of the family as a whole. Most of the children we met struggled to explain and understand their exhausted parents’ attitudes and emotional reactions. Their observations and feelings generated different kinds of emotional reactions and led to a range of strategies to cope with the situation or the stress experienced. Some of them reported sensing when a parent might lose control, which led to a feeling of fear, both of and for their parents, that might even go as far as the perception of imminent danger. This generated a desire to flee or protect themselves from the situation. Other emotions expressed by the children in our sample were anger and sadness, especially when their own needs and expectations would contrast with their parents’ inability to engage with them in pleasant and meaningful activities. To soothe themselves and compensate, children would display a tendency to hide and escape, trying to be as silent and as invisible as possible. On the opposite end of the scale, some children would take on more responsibilities to help or otherwise do things for the exhausted parent. Others would set up their own compensatory activities to meet their own needs. These results are consistent with other studies on the reactions of children who grow up with parents in psychological distress. Caulier and Van Leuven (2017) worked with children of parents in mental distress. They enabled children and young people to express their experiences and suffering while highlighting their capacity for resilience. In the accounts of the children they interviewed, the authors identified four ranges of emotions: anger, sadness, fear, and joy, with particular emphasis on fear. “The child of an emotionally distressed parent can spot vague signs of worry in his parent, such as fatigue, irritation, tears or shouting, isolation, strange looks or comments. If nothing is said by those around them, the anxiety becomes overwhelming” (p. 69). They also noted that some parents in psychological distress lose their ability to identify their children’s needs and feelings. “These experiences are always traumatic for children, activating their fears of abandonment and death” (p. 75). Further studies have shown that children’s emotional reactions are associated with parental emotion regulation. To illustrate, Shorer and Leibovich (2022) showed that when parents can manage their emotions, children adapt better emotionally in times of stress. According to Davidov and Grusec (2006), parents’ sensitivity to their children’s distress can enable them to acquire more effective strategies for coping with negative emotions. In case of high stress, as was the case among the participants’ parents (Dubois et al. 2024), parents may face difficulties managing their own emotional reactions, which can make them less supportive of their children and lead to emotional distancing (Cohen and Shulman 2019; Havighurst and Kehoe 2017). While some children in our sample expressed few emotions in relation to the fictitious situations or their own histories, we argue that this could be mistaken for an expression of indifference to the parents’ experience. We hypothesize instead that this might be a mechanism put in place to protect themselves from the emotional impact of their parents’ burnout.

Our results also highlight that children might take on responsibilities that are not appropriate for their age, such as preparing meals, tidying up the house, or looking after younger siblings on their own. Such reactions were also underlined by Caulier and Van Leuven (2017). Lastly, some of the situations imagined by the children in the role-play demonstrated a shift from an uncomfortable situation to a sense of relief, which could reflect the hope and anticipated joy that things will improve and that their own needs will be better met by their parents. This attitude could also simply correspond to a childlike way of resolving a scenario, as is the case in fairy tales, for example, or it could reflect the child’s willingness to cope with the difficult situation by trying to avoid a feeling of inner collapse (Koutsompou 2016).

Regarding the difficulties of children to explain and understand what their parents were going through, we hypothesize that this might be related to the lack of information that they receive from their parents about their experience of burnout, as this often remains unspoken because of the parents’ poor sense of legitimacy in feeling exhausted (Dubois et al. 2024). As some authors reported, when parents take time to explain to their children in an understandable way, with clear descriptions, what happens to their family in the event of difficult circumstances, children can then cope better with their emotions (Maes et al. 2012). On the contrary, in the absence of such explanations, children tend to construct their own stories and are at risk of feeling guilty and being in emotional distress (Maes et al. 2012). The importance of transparent parent–child communication and the need to nurture the children’s emotional well-being to help them cope with stressful situations in their lives was further highlighted by Bagdi and Pfister (2006), who studied the sources of stress and the coping strategies of parents and children in parallel. In our own study, the children occasionally mentioned receiving information directly from their parents, yet most of them thrived to seek explanations by themselves, in a quest to justify their parents’ burnout.

Finally, our results show that children occasionally witness how their parents lose control without always being able to express how they feel in such situations. Yet, a parent’s suffering is known to negatively impact the parent–child relationship and the children’s functioning, and even lead the children to no longer being able to draw on resources within themselves and their environment to regulate their own emotions and find a state of equilibrium (Silvestre and Tarquinio 2022). Research into Adverse Childhood Events (Dube et al. 2001) has highlighted the need to address children’s feelings and experiences while they are exposed to adverse circumstances, in order to avoid somatic and psychological problems in adulthood. This leads us to advocate for an increased recognition of parental burnout as not only a personal or family problem, but as a possibly important societal and public health concern, with implications for child prevention and health promotion, including the development of early clinical interventions to better serve the needs of the families concerne (Dubois et al. 2024).

Strengths and limitations of the research: The main strength of this research lies in the wealth of data collected from the children we interviewed and in the approach we developed to allow them to tell us about their lived experience while exposed to parental burnout. We acknowledged the children’s agency by carrying out interviews adapted to their age and stage of development, while giving them the choice of what they would share and how they would share it. We acknowledge, however, that the methods and instruments employed did not permit the inclusion of younger children, thereby constraining the developmental scope of the study. Authors who have studied child agency argue for a view of children as agents with meaningful relational commitments as well as participatory interests and capacities (Carnevale et al. 2021). We used an innovative methodological approach to interview children about their own family dynamics, by partnering with their parents at different steps in the process, to alleviate the risk of loyalty conflicts (Dubois et al. 2024). We met the children in the presence of their parents at the start of the interviews, and for brief feedback at the end of the interview. In addition, we allowed for a longer time of discussion with the family two weeks after the interview with the children, and we gathered the parents and children from different families during a validation seminar. Although this might have occasionally created a desirability biais, meeting the parents beforehand and making them partners in the research process (Dubois et al. 2021) was a necessary condition to limit conflicts of loyalty for the children, as well as a response to our ethical concern that our research should not be detrimental to already fragile family dynamics. Other authors, in the context of clinical research, have shown that the points on which parents need most reassurance before permitting their child to take part in a study concern the risk-benefit balance and ethical issues (Miller and Feudtner 2016). A recent study about how parents consider their children’s participation in psychological research further highlights the need to keep parents informed in order to minimize uncertainties and prejudices (Jungmann et al. 2023).

Another strength is the researcher’s reflexivity, supported by collective work and individual supervision. The researcher’s professional training and background as a pediatric nurse, as well as her personal situation as a mother of four children, associated with the support of a steering committee made up of childhood and family experts, as well as individual supervision by childhood professionals, was a real asset throughout the process. This helped us choose our tools carefully to create an environment of trust that facilitated the children’s expression. The interdisciplinary triangulation used throughout the analysis process also enabled us to minimize interpretation bias and remain as close as possible to what the children had to say, whether they were expressing their own experience directly or suggesting it with the mediation of the fictional situations and characters.

Regarding the limitations of this research, it is important to note that our results are based on a small sample, which means that we have not reached saturation yet. We also identified several limitations in the way we interviewed the children, as they are not used to being approached to question their lived experience. We noticed that, even though we had asked for the children’s assent before they committed to taking part in the research, some children might have still occasionally felt pressured by their parents to take part in the interviews. Moreover, depending on the age and stage of development of the children, their ability to express themselves and engage with the tools that were offered was not consistent. In future studies, it could be interesting to have modular tools that researchers and children can choose together, depending on the aims of the interview as well as the preferences of children.

Another limitation that is probably inherent to our way of conducting the interviews is that by choosing to focus on the children’s resources within themselves or their family environment, the children’s external resources outside the family were not much explored or verbalized. It would be interesting to better identify which resources outside the family the children would find useful to have access to, or what obstacles they encounter in seeking help.

5. Conclusions

We evidenced a high emotional burden experienced by children exposed to parental burden, with possible long-term consequences as the children grow into adulthood. Our results call for an increased recognition of parental burnout as not only a personal or family problem, but a possibly important societal and public health concern, with implications for child prevention and health promotion. Putting words to what happens within the family is an essential step towards making parental burnout more visible and more legitimate. It also contributes to enhancing the children’s meaning-making capacity and emotional well-being, not only to help them cope with the adverse situation as they experience it, but also to help them grow into healthy adults.