Nurturing Positive Feelings In A Single Parent Family

Single parents are often concerned with their "single" status. They worry that being single might have a negative effect on their children. Sometimes they feel guilty that their child isn't "getting as much" as a child in a two parent home. Often they feel bewildered or exhausted by the constant demands of taking care of a child single-handedly. Common, too, at least in divorced households, is the added anger or bitterness toward an uncooperative ex-spouse.

The feelings that single parents have can seem particularly intense at times. If you're not single by choice, you may have feelings of anger, sadness, or rage at an ex, or even at a loved one who died. If you are single by choice you may have other intense feelings -- of loneliness, worry, guilt, insecurity. And with these feelings near the surface, it's sometimes painful for parents to see that their children also have feelings of insecurity, anger, guilt or sadness. It's often difficult to allow children to experience their negative feelings when your own are so close to the surface. This can be especially hard if your child's feelings are about your single parent status.

One single mother, who adopted her daughter, told me that the other day her daughter said to her "You're a lousy mother, you know. I wish I had a Daddy instead of you." As the mother retold this story, she began to cry. Her occasional feelings of anxiety about whether she'd done the right thing, guilt about not "providing her daughter" with a father, combined with her worries about being an adequate mother all came rushing up at the same time, and she felt overwhelmed with hurt and sadness.

The truth is that children, ANY children, are tuned in to our feelings as parents. And how we feel about our circumstances, whether it be guilty, angry, sad, lonely or another feeling is communicated to them in no uncertain terms. Children don't have more mature ways of expressing themselves when they feel hurt by us or angry at us, so they often use their knowledge of our vulnerability to get back at us, or hurt us. Refusing to be hurt in a case like this is often the best strategy. If you're not hurt, and simply recognize your child's tactics to hurt you for what they are, then she won't find this method particularly helpful in the future.

But what happens if your child's goal is not to hurt you? What if he's angry that you divorced, or envious that his friend has two parents, or lonely because your spouse died? These feelings are difficult to handle, because chances are that you have similar feelings from time to time. In this case, as with all children, it's important to recognize and respect your child's feelings. This may mean momentarily putting your own feelings on hold, and almost certainly means resisting the temptation to take on your child's feelings, or fight his battles.

Children need, more than anything else, to be listened to, and to have their feelings understood. Yet many parents