When you make a promise, try your best to keep it! When you follow through on the promises you make to the people in your life, you show them that you value and care about them.
Open & Ongoing Discussions
Maintaining open and ongoing discussions about your values and beliefs in your relationships creates an opportunity for deeper understanding and connection with your loved ones!
Fairness, Caring, & Integrity
Children often learn through the actions and words of their parents. Be intentional about being a good role model for your kids!
A True Friend
In healthy friendships, both people accept one another for their flaws and imperfections.
Single Parenting: Self-Care
Single parenting takes a lot of time, energy, and strength, and it can be extremely draining. Sometimes you may feel like you are constantly racing to keep up with all of the responsibilities you are juggling. It is important to take time for yourself to recharge your batteries. When you engage in self-care and take care of your own needs, you can be the best version of yourself for your kids!
When engaging in self-care, try to approach it from a holistic perspective. Tune into the different areas that factor into your overall well-being. This may include your physical health, emotional and/or spiritual needs, relationships, and mental health.
Self-care looks different for everyone. We encourage you to find what works best for you and schedule time to engage in your self-care activities every week!
Single Parenting: Seek Out Mentors
Your relationship with your child is important and can help them build trust, feel loved and cared for, and learn how to have healthy relationships with others. However, it’s also important to promote loving and trusting connections between your kids and other adult figures in their life. A great way to help your children build a sense of community and feel supported is to seek out other adult mentors who you trust. Involving other adult mentors in your child’s life can help them broaden their horizons, build social skills, and develop new points of view.
You can seek out role models in a formal and/or informal capacity. Some parents may have friends and family members available to spend time with their kids. However, this isn’t always the case for some single parents. Other ways to seek out role models for your children include joining community organizations, such as a faith group, sports teams, or clubs. Teachers, coaches, and parents of other kids your children are friends with, are also potential people who can serve as mentors!
Single Parenting: Seek Support
Being a single parent is filled with many wonderful and joy-filled moments! Your kids are a source of laughter, fun, excitement, and love, and they can warm your heart everyday. Though single parenting is rich in special moments and happy memories, it can also be overwhelming and draining.
Keeping up with the many demands that life and parenting throw at you can be challenging, and although you are strong and capable of doing things on your own, know that you don’t have to. A key part of thriving as a single parent is to surround yourself with a strong support system and to ask for help when you need it!
Lean on the people in your life, who care about you and your kids, for support. Maybe you have family members or close friends who you can count on and trust with your kids. Other sources of support in your life may look more formal, such as a single parenting support group or a trusted babysitter. Regardless of what your support system looks like, when you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed, reach out to them for support. This may look like someone providing a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, or help with babysitting/child care so you can take the night off.
Asking for help from your support system can help you feel less overwhelmed during stressful and chaotic moments. We encourage you to reach out to the people you know you can count on when you find yourself in need of support!
4th Annual Healthy Relationships Week!
Join HRI in celebrating and promoting healthy relationships during the week of Valentine’s Day! HRI will provide a series of online resources and tips, as well as face-to-face programming during the week of Valentine’s Day to help the Guilford County community strengthen their relationships. Whether you are single or in a relationship, there is a resource for everyone!
To register for Healthy Relationships in Older Adulthood (Greensboro): click here.
To register for Healthy Relationships in Older Adulthood (High Point): click here.
To learn more about Family Fun Day on February 15th, click here.
Single Parenting: Regulating Your Emotions
Single parenting can be an intensely emotional experience, full of lots of ups and downs. It’s natural to feel a wide range of emotions any given day with the many responsibilities and life demands coming your way. Some moments will be full of joy, such as hearing your children’s laughter or getting an unexpected hug from your teen. Others, however, may be more challenging and filled with feelings of stress, anxiety, anger, and frustration. Know that it’s okay to feel this way. Experiencing tough emotions is a part of being human; no one is perfect, and we all have bad days. It’s how we choose to respond to these emotions that matters.
Practicing emotional self-regulation is a key element in keeping your cool as a single parent and modeling effective emotion regulation for your kids. Healthy emotion regulation starts with owning and accepting your emotions. When you allow yourself to tune into and experience your emotions, you create an opportunity to better understand what you are feeling and to respond in a positive and constructive way. This is especially important during moments when you feel angry or upset and feel like you are on the verge of losing your temper. Here are some quick and easy strategies to keep your cool and respond constructively when feeling angry or upset with your kids instead of reacting in a way that may escalate the situation even more: 1) take some deep breaths to help you calm down and 2) walk away from the situation to take some time to process what you are feeling before responding. For more tips to help you stay calm and regulate your emotions, visit our Split Seconds: How to quickly regain composure as a parent blog series.
Single Parenting: Create Ground Rules & Structure
Setting clear ground rules and establishing routines promotes structure and stability for your kids. When your kids know what to expect, it is easier to get things done, enforce discipline, and promote healthy interactions within your family.
Whenever possible, try and create a regular routine to help with daily tasks. This may look like establishing morning, bedtime, after school, and meal time routines. When your kids have a clear plan, they will know what to expect, which can lead to more structure and organization, making daily tasks easier for you to manage as a parent.
In addition to establishing regular routines, setting clear ground rules can help reduce chaos and stress as a parent and lead to more consistent and effective discipline. Sit down with your kids to create ground rules that everyone feels comfortable with and is willing to agree upon. Try to keep the rules as simple as possible, as they will be easier to remember, and your kids will be more likely to follow them consistently. Having a predetermined set of rules that everyone has already agreed upon can make discipline easier for you as a parent, while also helping your kids learn how to make positive choices.