As a parent, you’re often times faced with the many responsibilities of not only taking care of your children but also with the responsibilities of household duties as well as job-related responsibilities. Dealing with all of these responsibilities can and will lead to parenting stress. If you’re a parent, you’ve probably experienced parenting stress and not realized that you were actually going through parenting stress.

According to Psychology Today, parenting stress is typically seen in families with authoritative, strict, and sometimes harsh parenting styles but it’s not solely seen within those parenting styles. Families with passive parenting styles can experience parenting stress as well when they let their children dictate their own way of life versus the parent taking control.

It’s pretty common for parents to undergo stress at times. Stress is actually something that’s inescapable, really… the key is figuring out how to have a healthy level of stress and manage it properly. Parenting stress puts a huge strain on the entire family. Some of the effects that parenting stress can have on your family include:

• Lose patience faster
• Damage friendships and relationships
• Cause harm to your physical, mental, and emotional well-being

Those are some pretty serious effects that parenting stress can cause and it’s best if you can take on the proper strategies to beat those effects before they take full effect. Take a look at the different ways that you tackle parenting stress before it starts to negatively impact your life and those around you.

Hire a Nanny

As mentioned earlier,  the responsibilities that come with being an adult and a parent are endless and the biggest responsibility that you don’t want to neglect is your responsibility to your children… they’re your top priority. In making them your top priority, it’s okay to recognize that you can’t do it all and that you need help sometimes.

Hiring a nanny can drastically decrease your stress levels because, for most nannies, their services aren’t just for taking care of the children. The responsibilities of a nanny oftentimes include household duties and childcare duties. It’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed or guilty about either. If hiring a nanny a few days out of the week is what’s going to give you a break and restore your mental health, by all means, do it! Your family will not only be appreciative but you will too.

Consider Seeking Professional Help

Just because you’ve sought out professional help, doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of taking care of your children… it simply means that you are taking appropriate and necessary measures to take care of yourself so that you can continue to care for your children. This can be especially helpful if you’re a first-time parent, so going through parenting stress may be something new to you but you want to tackle it head-on.

Speaking to a psychologist might be the best thing you can actually do for yourself and for your family. A psychologist will be able to help give you the tools and resources you need to cope and deal with the stressors of life. Not only that, they might be able to actually be able to give you real insight on enhancing your child’s functioning capabilities while decreasing the negative behaviors that caused the negative behaviors in your child in the first place.

Make More Time For Yourself

One of the big reasons parents experience parenting stress is because they’ve lost their own sense of self and have become locked down to the title of being a parent. Now, don’t get things all wrong. Becoming a parent is one of the most beautiful, life-changing events you will ever experience but you also have to remember who you were before you became a parent… maybe you were someone who frequently exercised or someone who occasionally enjoyed the random “girls night out” but once you had children all of that stopped.

Why did those things you loved to do have to stop? Yes, as a parent, things change and you’re not able to do the things you were once able to do before but becoming a parent also doesn’t mean throwing in the towel on who you once were before having kids either… you just have to make the time to do the things you enjoyed. As mentioned above, hiring a nanny will certainly allow you to be able to those things.