Search Results for: blog expecting too much during times of crisis and transition

How We Contribute to Our Children’s Fears

When I started out on the road of parenting, I was determined I was going to do everything right (I was young, and still quite convinced I could do such a thing if I put my mind to it)–I was going to be pleasant and patient and never threaten or lose my temper with my children. As the young mother of preschoolers, I used to joke when they were being particularly challenging that I was “going to send them down to the minors”–my playful reference to sending them down to the minor leagues until things improved and they could come … Continue reading →

Making Sure Your House is a Home

You’ve been through a crisis or transition–maybe there has been a separation or a divorce or a death or a move or some other major life “happening” that has led to your status as a single parent. Even if you have embarked on single parenthood by choice, it can still seem overwhelming and things can have a precarious, temporary feel for a while. It is important that even if you’re going through a rough and tumble time, you make sure that you create a home for yourself and your child or children–it isn’t just about having shelter and a roof … Continue reading →

Working to Heal Old Wounds

Separation, divorce, and single parenting are just some of the ways that our families can experience pain and suffering—other changes like death, illness, a move, etc. can all be ordinary life situations that bring about grief and pain. While we may think we do a pretty decent job of dealing with them at the time, it is quite common for old wounds to come up again and again—especially for our children. There may be things that they are not developmentally able to cope with at the time that resurface and need to be healed at a later date. As single … Continue reading →

Keeping a Realistic Perspective

Keeping things in perspective can be a bit of a challenge for any family, but especially for divorced, separated and single parent families. We expect a great deal out of ourselves and we have every right to expect happiness and prosperity–not to mention just a basically healthy, well-adjusted family life. But, we can be pretty hard on ourselves and underestimate how long it might take to move through the stages of grief, how quickly our children and ourselves might adjust to changes and upheaval, or we might expect far more of everyone and everything than is actually realistic. That doesn’t … Continue reading →

Letting Our Children Express Their Feelings

Single parent families have a tendency to be stoic families. We adjust to the realities of our situation and often end up not only surviving, but thriving. Keeping everything all together can sometimes leave little room for our children to express and experience their feelings. We may be so busy telling everyone that everything is “fine” that we don’t allow our kids to process through their feelings of grief, frustration, fear, insecurity, etc. Part of our job as single parents is to create a safe and secure place where our children CAN express and cope with all their feelings without … Continue reading →

Having Respect for the Past

One of the struggles and issues we single parents face is how to make peace and sense of a past that may have been troublesome and unpleasant. Many of us would rather just block everything out and forget what we’ve been through on our roads to becoming single parents—especially if we found our way to single parenthood through divorce or death. However, coming to some sense of peace with the past and actually being able to create and cultivate some respect for our past can actually be the very best thing for our children… It certainly doesn’t come overnight—at least … Continue reading →

Learning to Trust Our Own Judgment

As single parents, we don’t have another spouse or partner as a sounding board or someone to help us make “joint decisions” on a regular basis. One of the things we have to learn to do is to trust our own judgment in making personal and parenting decisions. It can be so common to second-guess ourselves or let our heads fill with doubt. But as the solo parent, we have to learn to have confidence in our ability to make even the biggest decisions. Of course, this doesn’t mean we need to isolate and make all the decisions in private. … Continue reading →

Handling Daddy Questions

If you have gone through a divorce or lost a spouse from death, you will be faced with the day when your child starts asking about daddy. If your child is young, the questions may not come for a while but eventually, they will. Even if your child is quite young when the divorce or death occurred, the day will come, usually after your child starts school, when he or she wants to know where daddy is. Remember, children are very smart and they will notice that other families have daddies while they have none. Without doubt, addressing this issue … Continue reading →

Expecting Too Much During Times of Crisis and Transition

Sometimes we can get stuck expecting parenting and child raising to be a linear process–expect that our kids will follow a developmental “standard” or calendar and we’ll watch as they move steadily from one stage to another. But during times of crisis or transition– a move to a new house, a divorce, an illness or death, etc.–children can actually regress, and as parents, we may be expecting too much from them during these difficult times. Parents have been trained to expect babies and young children to regress during a move or household change, or the birth of a new sibling–but … Continue reading →