The Single Parenting Support Center

Every person is unique, but when you face a challenge like single parenting, you are never alone.  Countless men and women before you have faced the exact same situation and have survived and thrived.  The following guide is designed to help you navigate your journey with the best information and resources that helped other survivors when they faced the same challenge.  

TSC has scoured the Internet and assembled links to the very best single parenting resources: articles, blogs, forums and tools that can help you make better decisions and take action to overcome the range of physical, emotional and other challenges that you face.

As you’ll see, we always welcome your ideas and suggestions to make this Single Parenting Guide even more helpful to survivors like you.   

JUST FOUND OUT 

Survivors Say: Best Resources for Single parenting

• Single Parents Network: Resources for Single Parenting
• Focus Adolescent Services: Single Parenting
  
• Single Parent Center: Single Parenting Advice

The Big Picture

Raising a child is a daunting task to begin with and doing it on your own is even more difficult. Fulfilling the roles of two parents means being sympathetic and tough at the same time and often leads to stress.

To help you stay sane, finding support from books, friends, family and other groups is important.

Parents Without Partners: All Single Parents Are Welcome!

Your Single parenting

If you are a single mother, this site can provide great resources for the help and support you need in a variety of applications:

Single Mom: Resources for Single Moms

For single fathers, being a mother and a father can be rough, but this site offers advice and resources to help:

Great Dad: Advices for Expectant Dads

Your World

After realizing that you will be raising your kid(s) on your own, you may feel overwhelmed. To help you understand and control your emotions:

Making Lemonade: Discover the Art in Single Parenting

Single parenting Myths

• Single parents are not the norm
• Children of single parents have problems
• Single parents should remarry or marry to provide their children with role models

Information and Recommended Links for Survivors

• Met Life: Being a Single Parent
• Family Doctor: Being a Single Parent
• Baby Zone: Single Parent Index

Insurance & Work Matters

Insurance Matters

To help you find a variety of insurance options for single parent families:

About.com: Single Parents - Health Insurance

Work Matters

Being a single parent means that you may need more flexibility in your job. To help you find careers that are single parent friendly:

Forbes: Best Jobs For Single Parents

Health-care Providers Who Can Help

Therapists and mental health professionals can help you work through the stress of single parenthood. They can also provide family counseling and help your children come to grips with what may be a new situation.

To find out how therapy may benefit you, follow this link:

Therapy On The Web: Single Parents

The Emotional Roller-coaster

Being a single parent unleashes a range of emotions from anger, fear, loneliness to depression and anxiety. To help you cope, make sure you make an effort to get outside of your situation and meet new people and people who may be having or have had, the same experience. You may also wish to explore coping strategies and healthy ways to manage your feelings of loneliness and anger. Support groups and therapists, as well as friends and family can help you find ways to successfully manage your feelings.

Books Survivors Recommend

• Positive Discipline for Single Parents : Nurturing, Cooperation, Respect and Joy in Your Single-Parent Family
• Raising Great Kids on Your Own: A Guide and Companion for Every Single Parent
• Single Parenting for Dummies
• The Complete Single Mother: Reassuring Answers to Your Most Challenging Concerns

What Survivors Wish They’d Known

Dealing with Single parenting: Information and Recommended Links for Co-Survivors

How you can help

• Befriend or mentor the children
• Include the children in your own family activities.
• Provide a meal for the single parent family

What to say   

• "Can I get you anything from the store?"
• "Can I watch the kids for you?"
• Tell them how much you care about them

What not to say

• "You should get married"
• "You never should have split up”
• "Your kids are going to be messed up”

Things you can do for a survivor every day

Offering practical help, like running errands and taking care of the kids are all great ways to ease a single parent’s burden. You can also let them know you are thinking of them by calling, emailing, or stopping by for a visit. If you are also a single parent, find a way to swap duties or do mutual activities as families.

How to build a support network

• Set up your TSC Co-Survivor Profile
• Create a support group for your friend or family member.
• Interact and provide updates

How to help a survivor deal with day-to-day challenges

How to help you child succeed in school: About.com - Help Your Child Succeed on School

Once you find your groove as a single parent, it is important to stop and take stock of the support systems that helped you.

Check out this site for steps to take if your single parenting relapses. It offers emotional support and advice along with new treatment options and differences between treating a relapse and an initial diagnosis:

Achieve Solutions: Recovery Issues for the Single Parents

For an incredible story of a single parenting survivor and the feelings he experienced during treatment and after recovery, take a look at:

About Personal Growth: The Story of a Single Parent