Expert: Focus on stressed-out parents warranted, important

A recent surgeon general’s advisory outlining an urgent need to support increasingly stressed-out parents highlights an important and growing issue, says a Virginia Tech expert.

Rosanna Breaux, a psychologist at Virginia Tech who directs the Child Study Center, said how well parents manage their emotions is crucial for their own parenting experience and for the health of both themselves and their children.

“Parents not only need to stay calm themselves, but they also need to help their children, especially younger ones, manage their emotions,” she said.

Breaux said managing parental stress and decreasing emotion dysregulation is an issue that deserves attention and more research.

She noted that programs aimed at helping parents and children are often done separately, with different therapists treating the parent and child. These therapists often don’t communicate much with each other due to ethical and practical reasons.

As a mom, Breaux said she understands parental stress firsthand.

“Navigating postpartum depression, the strong emotions that result from hormonal changes, and the feelings of uncertainty and helplessness that come with being a new parent, I was certainly overwhelmed at times; especially in trying to find a new work-life balance,” she said. 

Breaux says there has been growing recognition over the past decade of the need for better interventions that simultaneously consider parent and child mental health, with interventions specifically targeting parent mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]) and emotion dysregulation through therapy or pharmacological treatment. “This is critical, particularly for disorders with high heritability such as ADHD and autism, especially since many parents of children with these neurodevelopmental conditions display both emotion dysregulation and increased risk for a range of psychological disorders.”

Breaux explains that this is also important for families of adolescents with personality disorder traits such as borderline personality disorder, which has modest heritability and is often characterized by emotional regulation and challenges in the parent-child relationship.

About Breaux

Rosanna Breaux is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and director of the Child Study Center, both part of the Virginia Tech College of Science. Her research focuses on the social-emotional and academic functioning of children and adolescents, particularly those with ADHD. Her research also seeks to better understand the role of parents in the development of emotion regulation abilities among children from the preschool years through emerging adulthood.

Interview

To schedule an interview, contact Margaret Ashburn in the media relations office at mkashburn@vt.edu or 540-529-0814.