How Parenting Coaching Supports Single Parents

Parenting is hard enough.  Being a single parent can be even more isolated and overwhelming.  A parenting coach can be a godsend to a single parent in need of support. 

 

Single parents are more likely to be judged. 

 One of the most important roles a parenting coach plays is to give whole-hearted respect and understanding.  

Single mom Sarah told me, “I feel like I am parenting in a fish bowl.  I go to drop my child off at child care and can feel the other moms tracking me with narrowed eyes.”   

Another single mom, Cathy, said, “When I’ve got my kids with me at the grocery store, even though I’m not on assistance, I overhear people making comments about poor single moms.  How can they even tell?” 

Still another single mom, Arya, complained, “People look at me like just because my husband left me, I must be a bad parent, too.” 

Whether they became single parents by accident, through choice, through divorce or break up or even death, somehow people feel freer to give unsolicited advice they would long hesitate to give to a coupled parent.   

As a parent coach, I’m not concerned with how or why you became a single parent—or even that you are a single parent.  I’m going to support you in becoming the parent you want to become.   

My job is to be your biggest cheerleader and to hold a vision for the parent you can be that is even greater than the one you hold for yourself.  

No one is perfect.  Families come in all shapes and sizes.  Every parent—whether he has a parenting partner or not—has the capacity to grow ever more as a parent. 

A parenting coach is there to provide education, inspiration, motivation and, ultimately, transformation. 

Single parents are more likely to parent from guilt.   

All parents can fall into the trap of over compensating for working late or losing their temper, but it is especially hard for single parents not to parent from a place of guilt. 

When single parenthood comes about because of something like an accidental pregnancy or a failed marriage, it is very hard not to feel you have ruined your child’s life. For a long time after my divorce, I beat myself up for choosing to father a child with a man who did not have the maturity and the grit to work on a marriage that was faltering.  Through that choice, my little girl was now condemned to spending her childhood going back and forth between two homes.   

In the beginning, I fell into a pattern of trying to use treats—outings, sweets and toys—to make up for my guilt that she was not seeing her dad for half the week.  I wanted to make the times with me especially nice, not knowing what was going on at her dad’s house.  When I picked her up, I would bribe her away from her sadness by taking her to the arcade or by stopping at Baskin ‘n’ Robbins for a mint chip cone dipped in sprinkles.   

Fortunately, I had a friend who had the guts to tell me sternly that I wasn’t doing my daughter any good and that now I had to be both the good cop and the bad cop. The buck stopped with me.   

When clients sign up to work with me, part of the contract is that I will tell them what, in my professional opinion, is potentially damaging to their children (like a new toy every week!). 

I do not tell them in judgement or to make them feel bad:  Parents come to me because they want to interact with their children in a way that will allow them to thrive both now and in the future.   

At the same time, parents are still the parent:  They know themselves, their children and their situation best.   

They can take or leave my advice.  There are always other parenting topics we can work on.  

Single parents are more likely to treat their kids as equal decision makers 

Being a single parent is lonely.  Being responsible for every little decision is exhausting.  That’s why it is not surprising that single parents are only too willing to share some of the decision making with their children. 

It starts innocently. 

A parent asks a child, “What do you want for dinner?”, and the child answers.  Another time, the child announces, “We should grill hotdogs tonight.”  The parent is relieved not to have to figure out what to serve for dinner. 

Of course, if this happens from time to time, that is perfectly fine.  After all, children are people, too.  But when a child decides what the menu should be every night, he is taking on an adult role.  There is a subtle power shift in the relationship. 

My client, Michael, was telling me about finding furniture for his post-divorce apartment.  He said he had his eye on a leather couch, but his eight-year-old daughter wanted a sofa with flowered upholstery, so he went with that instead. 

This is an example of a dad treating his daughter as if she is his wife:  Dad was paying for that sofa, was paying for the apartment it would go into, and was the one who would be living in the apartment full time.  Allowing a child a say in the living room furniture is too much control for a little kid.  On the one hand, it teaches her to think she has power in the household; on the other hand, it creates anxiety because at some level she knows she isn’t capable of taking on full adult responsibilities. Let her pick out her new sheets or what color to paint her room to express her individuality:  Dad needs to stick to being the adult and taking care of adult concerns.  

Micheal was shocked at the idea that letting his daughter pick out a sofa was burdening her with too much responsibility.  He didn’t really care, and it made her happy.  His view of the situation was short sighted.   

Parenting coaching can help you avoid pitfalls you don’t even know you are headed towards.   

 As a single parent, one of the best gifts you can give yourself is an on-going relationship with a parenting professional who can be your trusted resource.  By working with you over time, your parenting coach will get to know you and your kids more and more deeply, allowing her to fine-tune her advice and suggestions more and more accurately.  

Ten years into Joyful Parenting Coaching, I have had the pleasure of watching one of my early clients, a single mother through adoption, create a safe, secure and stable home for her now 12-year-old.  Recently she sent me a note thanking me for being a key part of her parenting team over the years. 

I’d be honored to be on your parenting team. 

Sign up today for a Getting to Know You Call.