Parental Stress in Raising a Child with Mental Health and Behavior Problems

All parents experience parenting stress to some degree. However, raising children with mental health and behavioral needs may add another layer of burden and challenges, resulting in more severe parental stress. This chapter provides a critical review of scholarship on parenting stress, with particular focus on parents who raise a child with mental health and behavioral needs. The authors discuss sources of parenting stress, including (a) role overload (i.e., parents' perceived parenting demands exceed their capacity and available resources), (b) interpersonal conflict (i.e., problems and difficulties evoked between parent and child), (c) role captivity (i.e., parents feel stuck with caregiving and parenting tasks), and (d) interrole conflict (e.g., work interference with fulfilling parental responsibilities to meet the needs of their children). Furthermore, the stress associated with caring for a child with emotional and behavioral difficulties may be compounded by factors at the parent, family, and larger social and community levels. This chapter synthesizes the biological, physical, and mental aspects of stress and how stress may affect parenting and family functioning.