How To Incorporate Positive Parenting Strategies As A Single Parent

Today, single-parent households are far more common than they used to be a decade ago. Single parenthood refers to raising a child on your own. There are multiple reasons a person can become a sole parent. A few common reasons that lead to a single-parent household include a loss of the significant other via divorce, separation, or death, or simply choosing to start a family on their own.
Most single parents worry about raising their children right while juggling between work, family, and running the household. The life of a single parent is fairly difficult, as they face challenges that normal nuclear families may not go through. Their stressful and always demanding lifestyle makes it tougher to connect with their children on a deeper level. Time is always a key issue with single-parent families. On the other hand, the guilt of not being mentally or physically present with their children most of the time can impact their parenting style.
However, it is essential to understand that happy and healthy children are raised by happy and healthy parents. Be it in a single-parent or nuclear family setting. Children do well when they are provided with positive parenting strategies that contribute to warmth, sensitivity, flexibility, positive responsiveness, and nurturing upbringing.

A Parent With Positive Parenting Attitude

Before discussing how to incorporate positive parenting strategies, it is important to list some points that enable a parent to provide positive parenting:

• Making conscious efforts to become a better parent
• Feeling confident in the parenting approach and keeping a close eye on its effects
• Having a positive social circle that supports single-parenting
• Accepting that there will be failures but willing to work around their imperfections
• Having a positive approach to life and parenting
• Being able to take care of themselves to be able to be there for their children

When a parent, especially a single parent, is not in the right state of mind or lacks the points mentioned above, it increases the risks of developmental problems, financial hardships, and negative psychological effects on the children. Therefore, disciplining oneself for positive parenting comes before creating positive parenting strategies for children.

How To Incorporate Positive Parenting As A Single Parent

Given the single-parent lifestyle, it may seem overwhelming to implement positive parenting strategies. But it can be done as long as the parent tries to stay consistent with their approach. Here are some ways to improve your parenting style:

Make the most of the available time

Understandably, managing time as a single parent is difficult. Hence, the focus should be on quality rather than quantity. Spending quality time with children can happen anywhere and anytime. Having fun in the smallest of moments makes the best memories.

Single parents should make the most of whatever time they have in hand to show love, support, and a healthy relationship regardless of the hardships in life. It can be as easy as reading a storybook before bed, having a singalong in the car, a sweet chat about how their day was, or preparing a meal together.

Creating healthy boundaries for children

Boundaries provide guidance. They help children in several ways and make the single parenting journey a little easier. Single parents often find implementing boundaries uncomfortable, as it is not easy to be consistent with them. Plus, children’s behavior can be challenging in a single-parent household.

Setting limits for children from an early age helps them to navigate through their future relationships. Learning about boundaries is an important life skill that is crucial for children to understand and hold. Acknowledging their feelings, setting clear rules and creating disciplinary actions for their developmental goals, and trying to be consistent with the latter will enforce healthy boundaries.

Naming problems and finding solutions

Addressing the problem to find its solution is a significant step to avoiding future issues. It is common to oversee the base of an issue and name it — misbehavior. Typically, children who indulge in misbehavior have other root causes.

Talking to children about their feelings and providing emotional support is crucial when it comes to single positive parenting. A child goes through an array of emotions that can result in problematic behavior when left unregulated. Taking the time to sit and communicate as a family about the concerns is the right way to find the solution for it.

Recognize the behavior apt for praise or discipline

A child strives for their parent’s attention. Recognizing a child’s actions correctly can be complex for a single parent, especially after a long and tiring day. Praising or disciplining a child’s actions creates a line between acceptable and punishable behavioral patterns.

Moreover, it is also about creating a balance. Most single parents struggle to create the right balance between praise and discipline. They either become too soft or too hard on their children. Striking the right balance by acknowledging exemplary behavior is necessary, and so is dealing with behavioral issues that may create future issues.

Being a role model

A child learns the most from their parents. In a single-parent household, all a child has is one parent to look up to. Children, by nature, are very exploratory. They like exploring the surrounding environment to draw out lessons, cause-and-effect, and form beliefs on what they observe. A mistake that most parents make is trying to make everything look perfect. Instead, a single parent should show their child their positivity, strengths, and determination to keep on going regardless of their failures.

Failures are inevitable. No parent can ace parenting with perfection. However, setting a live example for children while navigating through life with a positive outlook is the best way to incorporate positive parenting.

Take Away

Implying positive parenting strategies can help raise children who are confident in themselves. Through these strategies, single parents get a chance to understand their children and create a stronger bond. Even with a million challenges in hand, single parents can bring up successful children with love, affection, respect, and continuous support to thrive in life. 

Resources like these are provided by American SPCC – a national nonprofit dedicated to building positive childhoods for all children by empowering parents and caregivers with research-backed education and support.

This work is made possible by passionate donors and community advocates. Learn how you can get involved and support the mission here.