Single parent? Tips for raising a child alone

Raising a child on your own can be stressful. If you're a single parent, understand how to cope with the pressure, find support and nurture your child.
If you're raising a child on your own, you're in good company. Single-parent families are more common than ever. Know how to manage some of the special challenges single parents experience and what you can do to raise a happy, healthy child.

What are the most common single-parent challenges?

Child rearing can be difficult under any circumstances. Without a partner, the stakes are even higher. As a single parent, you might have sole responsibility for all aspects of day-to-day child care. This can result in added pressure, stress and fatigue. If you're too tired or distracted to be emotionally supportive or consistently discipline your child, behavioral problems might arise. In addition, single-parent families generally have lower incomes and less access to health care. Juggling work and child care can be financially difficult and socially isolating. You might also worry about the lack of a male or female parental role model for your child.

How can a single parent deal with these challenges?

To reduce stress in your single-parent family:

·         Show your love. Remember to praise your child. Give him or her your unconditional love and support.

·         Create a routine. Structure — such as regularly scheduled meals and bedtimes — helps your child know what to expect.

·         Prioritize family time. Set aside time each day to play, read or simply sit with your child.

·         Find quality child care. Although an older sibling can sometimes care for a younger sibling, don't rely on an older child as your only baby sitter. Be careful about asking a new friend or partner to watch your child. If you need regular child care, look for a qualified caregiver who can provide stimulation in a safe environment.

·         Set reasonable limits. Explain house rules and expectations to your child — such as speaking respectfully and picking up after yourself — and be careful to enforce them. Work with the other caregivers in your child's life to ensure you're providing consistent discipline. Consider re-evaluating certain limits, such as your child's computer time or curfew, when he or she demonstrates the ability to accept more responsibility.

·         Don't feel guilty. Don't blame yourself or spoil your child to try to make up for being a single parent.

·         Take care of yourself. Include physical activity in your daily routine, eat a healthy diet and get plenty of sleep. Arrange time to do activities you enjoy alone or with close friends.

·         Lean on others. Just because you're a single parent doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. Work out a carpool schedule with other parents. Join a support group for single parents or seek social services. Call on trusted loved ones, friends and neighbors for help. Faith communities can be helpful resources, too.

·         Stay positive. Your mood and attitude can affect your child. It's OK to be honest with your child if you're having a difficult time, but remind him or her that things will get better. Try to keep your sense of humor when dealing with everyday challenges.

How should a single parent talk to a child about separation or divorce?

Many single-parent families are the result of divorce or separation. If this is the case in your family, talk to your child about the changes you're facing. Listen to your child's feelings and try to answer his or her questions honestly — avoiding unnecessary details or negativity about the other parent. Remind your child that he or she did nothing to cause the divorce or separation and that you'll always love him or her. A counselor might be able to help you and your child talk about problems, fears or concerns. Try to regularly communicate with your child's other parent about your child's care and well-being to help him or her adapt.

How can a single parent handle dating?

If you're dating, consider the fact that your new romantic partner will have an impact on your child. Look for a partner who will treat both you and your child with respect. Consider waiting until you've established a solid relationship with someone before introducing him or her to your child. When you're ready to make the introduction, explain to your child some of your new partner's positive qualities. Don't expect your new partner and your child to become close immediately, however. Give them time to get to know each other and develop a relationship.

How can a single parent address the lack of a male or female parental role model for a child?

If your child's other parent isn't involved in his or her life, you might worry about the lack of a male or female parental role model in your child's life. To send positive messages about the opposite sex:

·         Look for opportunities to be positive about the opposite sex. Point out accomplishments or positive characteristics of members of the opposite sex in your family, the community or even the media. Avoid making broad, negative statements about the opposite sex. 

How to stop love from making you act like a fool

Source: Psychology Today

Falling in love makes otherwise smart and self-respecting people feel, and act, ridiculous.  This is a fact.  Whether it's finding pathetic excuses to call again when he doesn't call back right away, or scheming to run into her outside her office "by accident," I don't know anyone hasn't, at least once, gone a bit bonkers for new love.

It's not as if you don't at least suspect, when it's happening, that you're being an idiot.  But that doesn't help you, because you tackle your idiocy from the wrong end - you try, by sheer force of will, to purge yourself of your idiotic impulses.  This never, ever works.  Which is why, despite swearing to yourself and your friends that you are going to play it cool this time, you'll still end up sneaking off to the bathroom to check your messages again, for the twentieth time that day.  You need a better approach.

The fact of the matter is, you can't make yourself stop wanting to do dumb things when you have fallen hard for someone, any more than you can make yourself stop wanting cheesecake, or a cigarette, or a martini, or anything else that tempts you.   Take a moment to let that sink in, because it's really important.  I'll wait.

Now, the good news is that you can stop actually doing the things that make you look and feel like an idiot, despite the fact that you really want to do them, if you use the right strategy.  You can stop the compulsive voicemail and email-checking, the constant texting, and the Facebook stalking.  You can stop yourself from Googling his name (again).  You can shut out all those premature thoughts of what your wedding will be like, and what you'll name your children.  And when you're wondering on your second date if she has fallen in love with you yet, you can stop yourself from actually asking her.

The solution begins with embracing the idea that dating is like dieting.  Nobody loses weight by deciding that they just won't want calorie-rich food anymore.  You can't talk yourself out of wanting french fries. And if you're counting on the sheer force will to see you through when you feel tempted, you're going to end up eating a lot of french fries.   

The next step is to do some if-then planning.  Over a hundred scientific studies - on everything from diet and exercise to curbing spending and quitting smoking - have shown that deciding in advance how you will handle your impulses (e.g., "If I am hungry and want a snack, then I will choose a healthy option like fruit or veggies," "If I want to smoke, then I'll step outside and take a deep breath,") will double or triple your chances for success.

The key to a successful plan involves deciding what you will do instead.  So when you are taken by the desire to try to track him down on Facebook or Foursquare, or to leave the "not sure if you got my last message" message on her answering machine, what more productive, non-creepy behavior will you replace it with?  My mother once giving me some excellent advice about a boyfriend I was obsessing over.  "If you feel like calling him," she said, "then call me."  You don't have to call your mother when love messes with your head, but having some sort of plan in place is essential.

If-then plans are simple, easy to create, and extraordinarily effective when it comes to resisting temptation, edible or otherwise.  Just taking a moment to decide, in advance, how you will handle your less attractive impulses could mean the difference between finding Mr. Right, and seriously freaking him out.

A Shift of Mind

Source: Psychology Today

The institution of marriage often falls short of its promise. Marriage is designed to be - at least in modern Western times - a structure to foster and secure loving feelings to enhance each other's life. On a practical note, it is also intended as a foundation for family structure and to facilitate and expedite our life experience. Certainly we might agree that the purpose of marriage ought to be to enhance one's life. Yet this supposition meets with an incredible rate of disappointment, if not outright failure. Ironically, marriage often becomes the justification for people's unhappiness.

The fact that more than fifty percent of marriages end in divorce is actually the lesser of the problem. The greater difficulty lies in the fact that the majority of intact marriages are far from joyful. And many people regrettably live out their lives that way.

Divorce, although tumultuous and potentially scarring, at least provides the possibility of better days. Remaining in the lethargy of an unhappy marriage, dulled by the absence of a more hopeful vision, can be downright depressing. And yet, so many people resign themselves to such lives.

Many people in such relationships merely give up and don't work on improving their relations. Yet, they stay stuck to a fear of divorce. I am by no means glibly promoting divorce but advocating, however, that we do everything in our power to awaken our relationships and live more meaningfully. Let's take a deeper look at this dilemma.

The Fear Factor

Fear is the greatest impediment to growth in our lives. Very often, people are literally afraid of sharing their true feelings with their partners. This range of fear may run the gamut: the fear of divorce and its incumbent anxieties or simply the avoidance of coming to terms with a relationship that may be lacking in intimacy, passion or respect. Another poignant fear is simply the anxiety of being alone. When you stay married out of fear, the emotional paralysis that pervades further poisons the relationship. Staying together out of resignation - due to fear - results in an enigmatic dilemma. Such people won't consider divorce, and yet they are convinced that their marriage won't improve, so they don't work on the relationship. This is the worst of all possible scenarios. They are literally caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place.

If you find yourself in this place, it's essential that you address your fears. The fear of divorce paradoxically eliminates any chance of improvement in the relationship. It produces a state of inertia, and the ensuing stagnation and frustration make mediocre marriages even worse. They can become imprisoning.

If we can work through the fears around separation, then we are electing to stay in the marriage not from fear but from choice. 

This alone begins to unburden the chronic state of unhappiness, and genuine marital therapy may begin. In other words, processing the fear of divorce is not necessarily for the purpose of divorcing; it is for the purpose of clarity. Am I staying married for the wrong reasons?

Fear filters our perceptions and participates in constructing our reality. The ways in which you see your partner are very much informed by your emotions, particularly anger. This anger may have arisen in part because you're feeling mired in a hopeless relationship.

Getting unstuck permits you to either create a healthier relationship or to move forward. Either choice may be preferable to remaining unhappy without a glimmer of hope. Fear should not be a factor in your choice. Ultimately, the question is how much happiness you deserve in your life. It is not selfish to deserve happiness. In fact, to forgo your own contentment becomes a model of unhealthy self-sacrifice for your children - who will likely suffer in their own self-esteem by having parents who betrayed their own fulfillment.

For the Sake of the Children

One prevailing theme related to fear of divorce is that the act of divorce, in and of itself, will damage the children. People research multiple studies to substantiate this concern. By all means such an upheaval in our children's lives should not be taken lightly. Divorce needs to be well considered, and navigating the children through this process should be undertaken with insight, reflection and empathy.

Yet, very few people consider the consequences of children growing up in unhappy yet intact homes, as they witness conflicted, unloving and uncooperative parental relations. Children tend to model what they see in their parents' relations. Certainly, as parents we want better for our kids. Yet, the likelihood is that such children will incline toward similar marriages. Worse still, many parents claim their kids really don't know anything is wrong with the marriage. The irony is that they will therefore normalize what may be a mediocre, disappointing or conflicted marriage. At least the kids ought to know that the marriage is indeed falling short of the mark. In that way, they can note the failure and aim higher for themselves when they come of age.

Is this the legacy we want for our children? To be the best we can be as parents we need to model a level of authenticity in our lives. One in which we face our challenges and struggles and don't succumb to fear. Isn't that what we'd want for them? If you choose to stay married, commit to the process and model that commitment for your children. If your marriage precludes the opportunity for happiness, have the courage to face your fears. Let's not claim that we're protecting our children by exposing them to unhealthy relations. We need to face our fears, embrace them and choose to stay married from a healthy place of growth and hopefulness, not succumb to the deprivation of a joyless life.