Dear Dr. Norquist:
I am a single parent. My husband and I divorced a year ago. I have 2 sons, ages 6 & 8. I feel I’m through the major part of the trauma of my divorce. I’m settled in a new apartment with my sons, and have worked out the visitation schedule and child support. My ex-husband sees the boys every other weekend, and one evening each week.Everyone is starting to adjust to the changes in their lives. So, you ask, why am I writing to you now? I guess I’d like some advice on single parenting. I want to do the best for my sons, and I feel badly that they have parents who are divorced. I work during the day to help support our financial needs and the kids are in after-school until 5:30. This is the first year I’ve worked since my oldest was born. My parents live in Bergen County and they help out when they can, but I feel bad that I’m not home for my kids right after school. Can you give me advice on being a single mom?
Dr. Norquist responds:
It’s important as a single mom that you learn to take care of your own needs, so that you don’t turn to your kids to get some of those needs met. Being a single mom is extremely demanding emotionally and physically, especially so as a single working mom. You need to make sure you are managing your stress level and carefully setting priorities with your time and your outside commitments. Make sure you are giving yourself alone time; time-off from demands. Make time while the kids are with their father to be quiet, to do your favorite activities, to share with friends, and to have fun. Meditation and regular exercise are wonder resources for de-stressing and replenishing your inner bank account. Try to also maintain healthy eating and sleeping patterns.
Do your best to provide a cohesive, predictable family structure. You can do this through regular family dinners together, scheduled family outings and/or ‘game time’ for the three of you. Decisions should be made with the family as a priority. Through words and actions, share with your sons your joy in parenting them, loving them, and celebrating who they are.
Be supportive of their relationship with their father. For their own emotional health they need to feel his love, and to have his active presence in their lives. They need to be able to look up to and admire their father. Try not to voice negative feelings about your ex-husband when your sons are around. Statistics show that children who continue to have both parents actively involved in their lives after divorce fare best. Do your best to allow this to happen.
It’s very important, especially as the single mother of two sons, to set consistent, firm limits for your sons. This is often harder for single parents to do with consistency. It’s easier to be lax; because of guilt (stemming from the divorce and its consequences), because of a need for their love and closeness (as these needs aren’t being met by a spouse), and because of feeling tired, overwhelmed, and drained. Children desperately need limits, boundaries, and consistent consequences for transgressions. They need walls to push up against. Kids respect adults who set reasonable limits and follow through on the expectation they have set. Research shows that kids who do not have enough limit setting in their lives are more likely to use alcohol and drugs to excess, to drive when drunk, to suffer from depression and to have behavior problems. For more information on this, and on parenting in general, I’d recommend Dan Kindlon’s new book, Too Much of a Good Thing.
Try to let go of the guilt you are carrying with regard to the divorce. As parents, we need to be able to sit back sometimes and allow our children to experience the consequences of certain hurtful life situations (such as divorce). We cannot protect our children from all of life’s vissitudes. Rather, what is most helpful to our children is if we teach them how to perceive, and respond to difficult life situations in a way that builds character and self-efficacy. This immunizes them (as Dan Kindlon puts it) and gives them fortitude for facing future life stressors. If a child grows up thinking life is supposed to be a bed of roses, s/he is not prepared for coping adequately and positively with life’s stresses and demands.
Most importantly, be a role model of the lifestyle, values, and character that you would most like to see in your sons. Children imbibe who we are and what we do rather then what we tell them to do and be.
I hope this is helpful. Enjoy this time you have with your sons. It passes all too quickly.
(Dr. Sallie Norquist is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice and is director of Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, a center for upliftment and enlivenment, in Hoboken.)
Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, 51 Newark St., Suite 202, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700. Questions can address various topics, including relationships, life’s stresses, difficulties, mysteries and dilemmas, as well as questions related to managing stress or alternative ways of understanding and treating physical symptoms and health-related concerns. Practitioners of the following techniques are available to answer your questions: psychology, acupuncture, therapeutic and neuromuscular massage, yoga, meditation, spiritual & transpersonal psychology, Reiki, Cranial Sacral Therapy, and Alexander Technique Ó 2002 Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center