The concept of burnout was firstly mentioned in the literature of economics in the 1970s (1). Most of the related researches focused on certain occupations, and burnout were defined as a negative syndrome caused by long-term stress, manifested in physical and emotional fatigue, perfunctory work and the lack of a sense of accomplishment and efficacy at work (2). The Job Demands-Resources (JDR) theory is wildly used in the study of job burnout (3, 4). JD-R model proposing that working conditions can be categorized into two broad categories, job demands and job resources (5). Job demands refer to those physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical and/or psychological (i.e., cognitive or emotional) effort on the part of the employee and are therefore associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs (e.g., exhaustion) (6). They are typical predictors of fatigue and can positively predict job burnout (7). Job resources refer to those physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that either/or: reduce job demands and the associated physiological and psychological costs; are functional in achieving work goals; stimulate personal growth, learning, and development (5). Job resources are predictors of engagement and can negatively predict job burnout (8). Excessive job demands and insufficient work resources affect the normal physical and psychological conditions of employees, resulting in job burnout and even health problems (9). Maintaining balance is the core of the theory: even if members of an organization face many job demands, but have sufficient resources to do so, the pressure they experience will be reduced, which may lower down the degree of job burnout (10).

Parenting is a complex and stressful job with many demands (11). It is suitable to apply the JD-R theory in the study of parental burnout. Parental burnout is typically characterized by parenting-related emotional exhaustion, emotional alienation from children and low efficacy with parental roles (10), which could be cumulative, negative and destructive (12). When the parenting resources needed to cope with the parenting stress are insufficient, which last for a long period of time, parents will be under greater pressures (13). Some parents with limited resources such as perceived family support and psychological resilience, may feel that they lack the energy to raise their children, just as they do not have enough resources to meet the demands of their jobs (14). If left untreated, parental burnout may cause some serious consequences for one’s marriage, work and the growth of children (15).

Parenting stress refers to the pressure that parents feel when they perform their parental roles within the parental subsystem. It is a subjective experience based on parenting requirements and it is affected by factors, such as parental personality traits, children’s behavior and parent–child interactions (16). When Previous researchers discussed job stress and job burnout, they regarded job burnout as a special form of job stress. However, due to in-depth research efforts, more scholars believe that the two are both related and different, and the difference is clearly reflected in the measurement dimension (17). Likewise, parenting stress and parental burnout differ significantly when measured: the tools used to measure parenting stress do not incorporate core dimensions of parental burnout, such as exhaustion and emotional distance from the child (18). Of course, the difference between stress and burnout is not only conceptual, research in the field of organization management has shown that job burnout is more damaging to individuals and organizations than job stress (19). Based on JD-R theory, many scholars have conducted a series of studies on various occupational groups. These researches have confirmed the negative effects caused by job burnout, indicating that the degree of job burnout will increase as the work stress increases (20, 21). Thus, we assume that the greater the parenting stress, the higher level of parental burnout.

Hobfoll divided resources into two categories: external resources and internal resources (22). Family support is a sub-dimension of social support (23), which is an external situational resource in the parenting process. Therefore, according to JD-R theory, this study suggests that family support may be an important factor in relieving parental burnout. The concept of social support is not unified in academia; it can be divided into two categories (24). One category is objective social support, which is support obtained in the social network. The second category is perceived social support, which is an individual’s subjective perception of social support, which aims to evaluate the individual’s access to the availability and adequacy of support (25). Studies have shown that compared with objective social support, perceived social support is more beneficial to the relief of psychological and emotional problems (26). Therefore, parental burnout from the perspective of perceived social support needs to be studied. The main effect model of social support on mental health indicates that social support can increase positive impact and reduce negative impact, and higher social support can directly lead to higher life satisfaction and lower job burnout (27). Whether an individual is under pressure or not, social support can maintain a good emotional experience and is beneficial to mental health (28). As a subsystem of society, perceived family support is the adaptation to the material, emotional and other resources provided by the family. The more family support is fully perceived, the lower the level of parental burnout; therefore, perceived family support can negatively predict parental burnout.

Psychological resilience refers to people’s ability to rebound or recover in difficult or stressful situations. It has certain emotional control functions and is categorized into the internal resources of individuals. The higher the individual’s level of psychological resilience, the more active to solve problems. Previous studies have shown that social support has a positive effect on psychological resilience (29). It can be speculated that perceived family support, as an external situational resource, can positively predict psychological resilience. Meanwhile, according to JD-R theory, psychological resilience, as an individual’s internal resource, can reduce burnout. From the above two aspects of psychological resilience, it can be seen that the higher the perceived family support, the more emotional balance can be maintained in the process of parenting, which is conducive to the increase of psychological resilience. As parenting resources, both can reduce parental burnout. Therefore, psychological resilience may play a mediating role in perceived family support and parental burnout.

Parenting stress and parenting resources (perceived family support, psychological resilience) not only directly affect parental burnout, they also interact. According to JD-R theory, parenting resources can reduce the impact of parenting stress on parental burnout, and the buffering effect of social support also verifies this view. Therefore, perceived family support plays a moderating role between parenting stress and parental burnout. In previous studies, psychological resilience has also primarily acted as a protective factor to buffer the effects of stress, thus explaining why some people can thrive in difficult situations (30). The moderating effect of psychological resilience has been well verified in groups, such as teachers and company employees (3, 4). However, the stress vulnerability hypothesis states that, in high-pressure situations, positive factors tend to decrease significantly or even lose their positive effects (31). Therefore, in the effect of parenting stress on parental burnout, whether perceived family support and psychological resilience are stress buffer factors or stress vulnerability factors needs to be further confirmed.

Today, parents’ expectations for children are constantly increasing, making it more challenging for them to rear their children; thus, the pressure on parenting is increasing (32). Primary schooling is a critical period in children’s psychological development (33). With the implementation of the burden reduction policy, home-school cooperation has gradually increased, requiring parents to devote more time and energy to participating in their child’s upbringing. However, due to the difficulty in coordinating work and life, there is also an increased likelihood of burnout. Therefore, it is crucial to study the factors and mechanism of parental burnout of primary school students’ parents for a better understanding of parental burnout and the development of effective interventions. A model of the inter-relationships that need to be considered when examining parental burnout is proposed which details the interplay among factors such as parenting stress, perceived family support, psychological resilience and parental burnout. Based on the previous researches and the research aims, seven interrelated hypotheses are identified, as shown in Figure 1.

In terms of parenting requirements, the moderating effect of perceived family support and psychological resilience on parenting stress and parental burnout was explored. In terms of parenting resources, the psychological resilience of personal resources was introduced to explore the mechanism of perceived family support on parental burnout. The discussion of the above issues expands the research on parental burnout at the theoretical level; it also has important practical significance for how to reduce the parental burnout of primary school students’ parents.

Based on JD-R theory, the present study investigated the parenting from the perspectives of risk (parenting stress) and protection (parenting resources) to explore the influencing factors of parental burnout and its mechanisms. It expands the application of this theory in parenting setting. The results showed that parenting stress and parental burnout were positively correlated, from which we can see that parenting stress is a risk factor. Perceived family support, which is external situational parenting resources, and psychological resilience, which is internal individual parenting resources, were negatively correlated with parental burnout respectively, which can be taken as two protective factors. The research findings are in accordance with previous studies on workers, teachers, doctors and other occupations (40–42). However, compared with the average score of burnout, the parental burnout was significantly lower than job burnout. This may be because work is optional for most people, but children are not. For most parents, raising children is the most important thing in their life, they have a high tolerance in the process, even if the children give them a lot of headaches, they will find a way to overcome.

JD-R theory initially defined job resources as external situational resources brought by the work environment (5). When investigating burnout, few studies have examined internal individual resources. After confirming that perceived family support can significantly and negatively predict the parental burnout of the parents of primary school students, this study introduced psychological resilience as an individual resource to further explore its mediating role. The results suggest that psychological resilience as an internal resource plays a partial mediating role between perceived family support and parental burnout. To certain extent, situational resources shape individual resources and reduce the generation of burnout; that is, parents with higher perceived family support tend to have higher psychological resilience. Therefore, we should improve the level of co-parenting, so as to improve psychological resilience. Individuals with high psychological resilience tend to be optimistic, tough and other characteristics (42), and could be more active in parenting, reducing the possibility of parental burnout.

The study also found that both perceived family support and psychological resilience play a moderating role between parenting stress and parental burnout. High perceived family support and psychological resilience could effectively reduce the impact of parenting stress on parental burnout, and the results support the stress buffer hypothesis. Today, working couples have become the mainstream in society. Although this relieves some of the economic pressure, the high cost of parenting is still a problem for most families. At the same time, due to external work pressure, parents will have less energy for parenting, so more family support can make up for the lack of resources in raising children and help create a harmonious family atmosphere. Furthermore, related studies have demonstrated that psychological resilience may change over time and it can be learned (43). For parents of primary school students who are experiencing parental burnout, some skills training related to improving their psychological resilience, such as cognitive reconstruction and optimism, may prevent or reduce the impact of parenting stress on parental burnout.

Since the survey used in this study collected cross-sectional data, it is difficult to fully prove the causal relationship between variables. In the future, we can further explore the problem of parental burnout by conducting longitudinal research. Moreover, the variable, stress, can be categorized as positive challenging stress and negative obstructive stress, which may have different effects on burnout. As an external situational resource, the moderating role of family support and internal personal resource resilience needs to be further explored as well.

In summary, there is a significant positive correlation between parenting stress and parental burnout in the parents of primary school students. Perceived family support, psychological resilience and parental burnout were significantly negatively correlated. Psychological resilience partially mediates the relationship between perceived family support and parental burnout. Both perceived family support and psychological resilience moderate parenting stress and parental burnout.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

All procedures involving human participants in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Zhengzhou University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

JZ was responsible for research design and framework and with HH participated in data acquisition and analysis, drafting, and revising the manuscript. SZ, WL, and ML carefully revised the manuscript to maintain accuracy. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (grant no. BIA180208) and Henan Provincial Science and Technology Commission (grant no. HNGD2022022).

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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