10 Single Parent Survival Skills

Let's face it: meeting the demands of parenting with even the most helpful of mates sometimes feels like an impossible task. What does that say about the challenge of single parenting? And yet, the greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity for growth, fulfillment, and joy. At the same time, no one on earth really has responsibility for doing more than they can, not even single parents. One of the most common mistakes single parents make is to worry so much about what they cannot do for their child that they do not take full advantage of what they can do. Don't get hung up on statistics. Your child is not a statistic, but the product of all of his/her relationships. As you concentrate on fulfilling your potential to be the best person and parent that you can be, you improve the odds that your child will do spectacularly well in life, love his/her childhood, and regard his/her relationship with you as a sacred bond significantly responsible for his/her great life. To help you do your best to fulfill the responsibility of single parenting, considering the following guidelines.

1. Accept the limits of your capacity. This means doing all you can in peace and poise and straining to do no more than that. Functioning in overwhelm causes you to over-react and under-perform in parenting and in every other important area of your life. When you feel calm and confident, you help your children to feel secure.

2. Carefully monitor your self-talk. Telling yourself that what you are doing is not good enough, that you are not getting enough done, that you have more to get done than you can do, debilitates with enormous and useless emotional strain.

3. Accept the serenely confident attitude that you have all the time you need to do what must be done. Take time to clarify your priorities and, throughout the day, be extremely selective as to what you deal with and what you let slide. When you cannot check something off your to-do list, refuse to beat yourself up over it. Beating yourself up only brings you down. Learn to trust what you cannot control, because you cannot control it all. If you drive yourself too hard, fatigue and stress will make it impossible to escape feelings of anxiety.

4. As your child develops, you can turn over more of the chores involved in keeping up the household. This will not rob your child childhood; it will help him/her to be more mature, capable, and responsible and contribute to his/her sense of self-worth.

5. However, at no time count on your child for your emotional support, or you overburden the child with emotional responsibility not truly his/her own. Seek the emotional support you need from your peers.

6. You need a life! You need the support of friends and you need to explore the potential for a new primary relationship. Don't regard this as selfish. It is part of providing yourself with the balanced life you need to give your child with the best you've got to give.

7. While you cannot be both mother and father to your child, you can bring your own male and female energies into balance in your parenting. The feminine involves tender bonding, soothing, and nurturing. The masculine involves giving the child independence and responsibility for himself and actively joining the child in work and play. This balancing act will provide your child with more well rounded parenting and advance you in fulfilling more of your total potential.

8. Help your child develop at least one significant mentor-like relationship with an adult of your opposite sex - preferably a family member (if your child's other parent cannot fulfill this role).

9. If you have to work full-time, and you cannot provide your child with as much parenting time as you feel is best, give her all the time that you can give and make that time as loving and wonderful for both of you as possible.

10. Measure how much energy you give to your work outside of parenting. Diminish needless emotional reactions that are unprofessional anyway and drain you of energy. Approach each day as a marathon instead of as a sprint. Be constantly on the lookout for ways to accomplish more with less time and energy. Remember that you need an abundance of energy at the end of the day to provide your child with the alert, emotionally balanced responsiveness and closeness both you and your child need to feel whole.