kirstie McLellan Day kirstie McLellan Day - The MOMpreneur

parenting
Strategies for the Single Parent
By Julie Freedman Smith and Gail Bell
We regularly hear from single parents about the daily
challenges that arise from not having another body to share
the parenting load. For some, the burden of making all the
decisions can be overwhelming; for others it is needing to
be in more than one place at a time or feeling unsure about
discipline. Regardless of the circumstances which resulted in
your single parent family, we hope that the following tips will
begin to make a difference in supporting your challenges.
1. Support your child’s emotions
Whether you have always parented on your own, are
separated/divorced or are dealing with the death of a partner,
your kids will face many emotional hurdles in their lifetimes.
As parents, we often want to minimize the bad feelings our
kids encounter so we turn to the facts to wash away the hurt.
“You’re okay!” or “We’ve got lots to be thankful for!” may be
whispered into ears in an effort to distract our kids from the
struggles they are facing. If our kids are 18 months or older,
those words could easily lead to one of two situations:
• Your child getting even more upset (tantrums, screaming,
slamming of doors).
• Your child learning that you don’t really want them to
share their feelings with you.
Instead of trying to push down emotions, show your support
by staying quiet and allowing your child to voice their
feelings. Naming the emotion and showing empathy is a
great start to supporting your child. We can rarely fix what
is wrong, but we can show that we are there with love and a
hug to help them through the difficulty.
2. Support yourself
The airline recommendation to put on your own oxygen
mask before those of your children is an incredibly relevant
piece of parenting advice. No oxygen for mom means no
mom! Single parent or not – we cannot care for someone else
if we aren’t healthy enough to do it. Establishing a support
team is invaluable and with more than one person on that
team it can decrease your fear of abusing any single friend or
family member. You will need:
a) Someone to whom you can vent your day-to-day
frustrations.
b) Someone who can be there when you are stuck at work or
too sick to get out of bed.
c) Someone with similar values who can bounce parenting
ideas around with you.
d) Someone to be with your kids so that you can carve a
little ‘me’ time.
e) A couple of other “someones” for when the above people
are busy with their own lives.
3. Get rid of the guilt
Photo by Janet Pliszka at visualhues.com
When we feel guilty, our parenting suffers. We allow
misbehaviour that we wouldn’t normally tolerate, we agree
to things we normally wouldn’t and we then feel angry with
ourselves and our kids as a result. What’s more, we usually
feel guilty about our anger and the cycle continues.
48 MOMpreneur ® � July/August 2010