unschooling burnout: when your children can't cope without you

Today, I'm addressing a question about parent burnout - which can happen when an unschooling parent (or a parent who practices atachment-style parenting beyond the toddler years) puts themselves in the service of their child to the point of ‘crowning them’ as the most important person in the house.

Now, many kids NEED a secure attachment for a long time, either due to personality quirks, special needs, and so on.

This topic is sensitive to me because while I didn’t have special needs per se, I was very much treated as a ‘princess’ child, who was waited on hand and foot by my mother.

This response was written to someone with a 10 year old child, and this mom is feeling extreme burnout on top of dealing with her own physical health challenges - because she’s created a life where she’s the only person who’s able to care for her child. Her child is strongly attached to her (good!) and has a strong aversion to any other arrangements (not so good).