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Advent calendars, check. Tree and decorations, check. Teachers’ presents, nativity costumes and a whole new ticketing system for the PTA’s Santa’s grotto, check. But the Christmas cards remain unwritten, the to-do list keeps growing, and that Labubu doll your child desperately wants appears to have vanished from the face of the earth.
If you’re feeling frayed in the final days before Christmas, you’re not alone. But research suggests this festive overload doesn’t just leave parents tired and irritable – it may also make it harder to be emotionally honest with their children.
A longitudinal study tracking nearly 300 UK parents through the Christmas period found that as burnout rises, parents are more likely to suppress how they really feel in subsequent moments, with potential consequences for their own wellbeing and for how children learn about emotions.
Parental burnout is a relatively new concept, describing chronic exhaustion, emotional distancing and loss of fulfilment tied specifically to parenting. It has been linked to depression, relationship conflict and impaired parenting, but most previous studies have relied on one-off surveys, offering only a snapshot of a problem that can fluctuate from day to day.
To better understand how burnout unfolds, Dr Ziwen Teuber at the University of Luxembourg and colleagues recruited 293 UK parents – chosen in part for the country’s cultural and socioeconomic diversity – and tracked their experiences in real time across the festive season using brief smartphone surveys sent several times a day.
“We were particularly interested in the Christmas period because it’s a time when parenting stress often intensifies,” said Teuber. “Routines change, social expectations increase, financial pressure rises and parents often feel responsible for creating enjoyable holiday experiences for their children – amplifying stress, while simultaneously reducing the resources parents usually rely on for recovery.”
Teuber expected that parents who expressed their real feelings would be better protected against burnout. She found that the more burned-out parents felt, the more likely they were to put on a brave face for their children.
“Instead of sharing how they really feel, parents tend to suppress their emotions or display emotions they don’t actually feel – for example, pretending to be happy when they are exhausted or overwhelmed,” she said.
While this may feel helpful in the short term, “in the longer term it’s not beneficial – either for parents’ mental health or for parent-child interactions”.
For instance, parents may risk storing up more stress for themselves, while their children miss out on learning that all emotions – including difficult ones – are normal and manageable, she explained. The research was published in Communications Psychology.
A separate analysis of the same dataset, published as a preprint, found no significant gender differences in overall levels of parental burnout. However, mothers carried more of the cognitive load. “They did more of the planning, organising and thinking about everything related to Christmas,” Teuber said.
Patrik Bogdán, a psychologist at the University of Pécs in Hungary, who recently co-authored a review of the impact of parental burnout on family wellbeing, said the research challenged the assumption that good emotion-regulation skills alone protect parents. Even parents who know how to manage their emotions can struggle when stress accumulates faster than they can recover.
“Christmas is often portrayed as a time of love, togetherness and slowing down, but for many families it is more accurately characterised by haste and increased demands,” Bogdán said.
The myth of the “perfect Christmas”, he added, can further fuel self-criticism and emotional exhaustion. Burnout is not a personal failing but “a natural response to prolonged life stressors”, Bogdán said.
Anita Cleare, a UK-based parenting coach and author of The Work/Parent Switch, described parental burnout as an “occupational hazard” of modern family life. “When pressure to perform outstrips our resources, burnout is highly likely,” she said.
The run-up to Christmas brings an endless list of expectations – Elf on the Shelf, nativity plays, teacher gifts, Advent calendars – yet the emotional detachment and disconnection that accompanies burnout “is the complete opposite of the happy family time we are trying to create”, said Cleare.
“The point of Christmas is to relax and enjoy each other’s company and yet parents are so busy with the trimmings that we have no emotional bandwidth left with which to connect with our kids.”
Her advice is blunt: do less. “Take the short cuts that save time so that you have time to relax and enjoy being with your family. Children would rather snuggle on the sofa with you eating toast than have to sit at a table eating brussels sprouts.”
How to get through Christmas without burning out
Do less: Cleare said one of the biggest drivers of parental burnout is the pressure to “do Christmas properly”. “Parents don’t need every tradition. You don’t have to have Christmas pyjamas and festive duvet covers just because other people do,” said Cleare. “Choose the traditions that have meaning for you, that create the experiences you want, and which embody your family values. And just do those.”
Acknowledge stress instead of masking it: Teuber, said parents often suppress their real emotions to try to protect their children, but this can backfire. Calm, age-appropriate honesty – such as saying you feel tired or overwhelmed – helps children learn that difficult emotions are normal and manageable, while reducing emotional strain on parents themselves.
Build in moments of recovery: Burnout tends to worsen when parents have no opportunity to recover. Even short breaks – a walk, a lie-down, a few quiet minutes – can help prevent stress from accumulating across the day. “If it all gets a bit much, have a sentence you can say and a place you can retreat. For example: “I’m feeling a bit stressed, I’m going to go lie down for a few minutes and rest,” suggested Cleare. “Modelling to our children healthy coping strategies supports their emotional regulation as well as our own.”
Share the emotional and mental load: Both Teuber and Cleare emphasised the importance of partner support. Sharing Christmas planning, shopping and organising – or simply feeling emotionally supported – can significantly reduce pressure.
Lower self-imposed standards: Bogdán said parental burnout often affects those who place the highest demands on themselves. “It is essential to understand that parental burnout is not a problem of “bad parents. On the contrary, it often affects those parents who strive hardest to meet the ideal of the perfect parent and who consistently place high demands on themselves,” Bogdán said. “Over time, this persistent pressure to meet unrealistic standards can lead to exhaustion and burnout. Reducing excessively high self-imposed expectations is therefore a crucial step.”
