When one parent is sent to fight in a war, the emotional burden on the parent left behind can become overwhelming. A new study conducted during the Israel-Hamas War has found that the mental well-being of the non-deployed parent plays a critical role in determining how well children cope during armed conflict, with parental burnout emerging as a key factor in children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. The findings were published in Psychiatry Research.
The research, which tracked 123 Israeli mothers over seven months, examined how spousal deployment to reserve duty affected parenting stress and children’s adjustment. Among the mothers studied, 35 had partners who had been called up to active military service. Researchers measured parental burnout and children’s emotional and behavioural problems at two points: one month after the outbreak of war and again six to seven months later.
At the start of the study, mothers with deployed partners reported significantly higher levels of parental burnout and greater emotional and behavioural difficulties in their children compared to mothers whose partners remained at home. Over time, burnout levels in the deployed group stayed stable, while mothers without deployed partners saw their burnout increase, suggesting that the psychological toll of prolonged conflict extends well beyond military families.
Crucially, the study found that parental burnout acted as a moderating factor between deployment and child outcomes. When burnout was low or at an average level, spousal deployment alone was not significantly linked to children’s difficulties. It was only when parental burnout was high that deployment was associated with children showing greater emotional and behavioural problems.
The findings point to a broader truth about children’s mental health during wartime: it is not simply exposure to conflict or a parent’s absence that drives poor child outcomes, but rather the psychological depletion of the caregiver who remains at home. Parents who are emotionally exhausted may struggle to provide the consistent, responsive caregiving that buffers children against stress.
The researchers also noted that 17% of mothers with deployed partners met the clinical threshold for severe parental burnout, compared to just 7% in the non-deployed group. This figure reflects rates well above those typically recorded in Western countries during peacetime, where parental burnout affects roughly 5 to 8% of parents.
The study’s authors argue that support programmes for parents during wartime should extend beyond the families of deployed soldiers. As burnout rose steadily among all mothers over the course of the conflict, the findings suggest that any parent living under prolonged wartime stress is at risk and deserving of targeted mental health support.
There is some cause for optimism. Research cited in the paper indicates that parental burnout can be reduced through structured interventions, including group therapy programmes that focus on emotion regulation and stress management. Such approaches may offer practical tools for strengthening family resilience in conflict-affected communities around the world.