Recommended reading time: 5 minutes
When your child is participating in ABA therapy, it’s easy for both you and your child to feel overwhelmed, especially if the therapy is intensive. Emotional exhaustion is a real concern for many families, but fortunately, there are strategies to manage it. Below, we’ll explore ways to deal with burnout, focusing on the importance of breaks, balancing therapy with play, and maintaining a healthy parent-child relationship. These practical tips will help ensure that ABA therapy remains beneficial without overwhelming your child or family.
How to Recognize Emotional Exhaustion
Intensive ABA therapy can often lead to both physical and emotional fatigue for children. The structured environment, constant tasks, and long hours can leave your child feeling burnt out, making it hard for them to engage with the therapy. One of the best ways to combat this is by incorporating regular breaks into their therapy schedule.
How to Take Breaks Effectively:
In-Session Breaks: Encourage the therapist to include short breaks between tasks to allow your child to relax and recharge.
Scheduled Downtime: Outside of therapy, make sure your child has plenty of unstructured downtime to relax and engage in their favorite activities.
Flexible Scheduling: If your child is particularly stressed or tired on a certain day, it may be beneficial to shorten or reschedule that day’s therapy session. Communicating with the therapist to adapt the schedule to your child’s needs can prevent burnout from intensifying.
Taking breaks ensures that your child remains motivated and energetic during therapy, helping to maintain a positive attitude toward their treatment.
How to Balance Therapy with Play and Other Activities
While ABA therapy is critical for building behavioral skills, it’s also important that it doesn’t consume all of your child’s time. Children learn a lot from play, creativity, and social interactions, which are all key to healthy development. Balancing therapy with play and other fun activities can keep your child from feeling overwhelmed.
Steps to Balance Therapy with Play:
Child-Led Play: After therapy, give your child time to engage in play that they choose, whether it’s playing with toys, reading, or outdoor activities. This helps them express themselves in a relaxed, low-pressure setting.
Integrated Play in Therapy: Speak to your ABA therapist about integrating more play-based activities into the sessions. This can make the therapy feel less formal and more enjoyable for your child.
Participate in Non-Therapy Activities: Encourage your child to participate in group activities or hobbies that they enjoy outside of therapy. This can include sports, art classes, or simply spending time with friends or family. These social and physical activities provide a needed balance to the structure of ABA.
By ensuring that therapy doesn’t take over your child’s life, you can promote their overall emotional well-being and prevent them from feeling restricted by their treatment.
How do I Maintain a Healthy Parent-Child Relationship
One of the most challenging aspects of intensive ABA therapy is the strain it can place on the parent-child relationship. When parents become highly involved in reinforcing therapy techniques at home, it can blur the line between being a parent and a therapist. This dynamic can sometimes create stress or frustration in the parent-child bond, as interactions may become too focused on therapy goals.
What Creates Possible Strains and How to Address Them:
Role Confusion: When parents are tasked with reinforcing therapy techniques at home, it can be challenging to separate their role as a parent from that of an at-home therapist. This role confusion can cause stress, as both parent and child may feel that everyday interactions are “therapy sessions.” To manage this, parents should aim to keep their role as a parent distinct by reserving non-therapy time where fun and bonding take priority over structured goals.
Overemphasis on Behavioral Improvement: When the primary focus of interactions becomes therapy, parents may unintentionally place excessive pressure on their child to achieve behavioral milestones. This can lead to frustration for both parties, especially when progress seems slow. To avoid this, parents can practice patience and emphasize emotional support and encouragement rather than just results.
Fatigue and Frustration: ABA therapy requires consistency, which may be emotionally exhausting for parents, especially if they are deeply involved in implementing techniques at home. To combat this, it’s crucial to establish boundaries and schedule breaks. Parents should set aside time for self-care and relaxation to avoid emotional burnout and maintain a positive, nurturing relationship with their child.
How to Strengthen Your Relationship:
Set Clear Boundaries Between Therapy and Family Time: It’s important to define periods where therapy techniques are practiced and times when parents and children can simply enjoy each other’s company without focusing on therapeutic goals. This helps prevent burnout on both sides and keeps your relationship with your child strong.
Practice Open Communication: Encourage open conversations with your child about their feelings toward therapy. Let them express when they feel overwhelmed, and adjust the therapy schedule or intensity as needed. Communication helps foster trust and prevents tension from building.
Engage in Fun, Non-Therapy Activities: Make time for regular, enjoyable activities with your child. Whether it’s a movie night, playing their favorite game, or going for a walk, these experiences help solidify your parent-child bond in a positive, non-therapy setting.
Maintaining a healthy relationship requires balancing the roles of parent and therapist carefully, making sure your child feels supported both in their therapy journey and emotionally at home.
How to Find Balance and Avoid Emotional Exhaustion
ABA therapy is a valuable tool in helping children with autism develop essential behavioral skills, but like any intensive therapy, it can lead to burnout if not managed properly. By incorporating breaks, balancing therapy with play, and ensuring a healthy parent-child relationship, you can help your child avoid burnout while still benefiting from ABA therapy.
Bright Pathways ABA is Here to Help
At Bright Pathways ABA, we understand that every child is unique, and so are their therapy needs. Our dedicated team works closely with families to ensure that ABA therapy is tailored to each child’s individual pace and preferences, helping to prevent burnout while encouraging progress. For more information on our ABA services and how we can help your child thrive, visit BrightPathwaysABA.com.
Disclaimer
The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Bright Pathways ABA does not assume any responsibility for any outcomes or consequences resulting from the use of this information. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding a medical condition or behavioral intervention.
