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Parents feel guilty over 20 times each week.

Too much guilt can lead to parental burnout.

Understanding how to work with guilt can help.

Exercising curiosity is one antidote.

If there's one emotion that parents can't seem to escape, it's guilt. This gnawing emotion grips us when we tell our kids "no," prioritize work, or make a simple parenting mistake. One survey found that parents feel guilty, on average, 23 times a week.

While parental guilt is fairly common, it can leave you feeling stuck, resentful, and fatigued. Guilt drives parents to forgo self-care, or to take on more emotional labor when their plates are full.

Since guilt can feel unbearable, it can also unleash a number of "defenses," which are ways we protect ourselves from emotional pain. Examples include self-criticism (I'm the worst mom because I forgot my kid's lunch), blame (why are you always making things hard, when you know how busy I am), and perfectionism. Of course, these are just a few examples; the list is literally endless.

So often parents deal with guilt by taking action. For example, if you feel guilty about leaving your child with a sitter, you may cancel date night; or if you feel guilty about setting a limit, you may backtrack on the boundary.

Taking action when we don't understand our emotions is like trying to silence a smoke alarm without looking for the fire. It quiets the noise, but it doesn't solve the problem. One of the best ways to navigate parental........

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