Skip to main content

Thinking ahead for single parenting

Timesavers and single parent survival thinking

So there's a lot that i've been looking into for how i'd answer questions about what i'd do to help myself as a single parent. So here's a few ideas so far to refer back to, for real life later so i don't forget, and for answering interview questions...

- Children's shows in the car the night before

- Sort the children's clothes into a tidy pile in the order they need to be put on and the right way around.

- Do everything you can the night before, including setting the table

- quick and easy food options

-do the two kids washing on different days so that they don't get tangled up together - easier to sort out afterwards

- Save hours by stopping yourself from asking pointless questions like ' well, where is the other one' 

- Precook and freezing meals

- Ordering supermarket online 

- Couple of Go Bags / Easy play options*

    - for when ill

    - for in case of emergency

* Colouring sets, comics/Beanos, jigsaws, ...  Also options for lounge picnic / den making.

-Keep overnight bag options

- Thermal cup for me

- Layered sheets with waterproof sheet in the middle?

- Play therapy activities book when feeling frazzled & struggling for ideas

- Locked down tablet

**

Emotional capacity to support all difficulties in different ways. 

– being able to share time evenly when one might have more complex needs – example - had time with one whilst having a nap/ one having TV time / to have time with other. 

Little connecting things – painting nails, doing something where could chat without being eye to eye, rubbing legs.

If baths together hype them up – potentially baby gates so that can still see and hear us.  

Bounce off of people ‘ this happened / this happened/ ooh do you thing that meant this?’ 

Put in place ‘special time’ once a week with 30-40mins with just one of them. Protected time for them.

Quite a lot of visual aids with the kids, calendars to count down to particular things. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Playful frustration tactics

See this one and recognised myself in it too https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1M2hgBswdT/ That point of frustration is hard and sometimes I do take the moment to put on my own oxygen mask first, I.e. to breathe before I yell. Mostly though, it's better to be a robot or a lion or a monster.  Me doing a play roar and then acting surprised that it wasn't loud or came out wrong &  getting little one to do a bigger roar than me has helped her re regulate far better & far more frequently than trying to encourage calm when she's feeling anything but that!  It's mostly worked out that later she's been about being nervous or excited about something & not quite ready to work out what that feeling is or what has prompted it. A little time with a silly voice saved us a lot of yelling!
Post a Comment
Read more

Contact prep - the emotional rollercoaster

Oh my goodness! I have said I'd share the good and the bad and phew has this been highlighting a  lot.  This does - so far- have a good ending, but oh my goodness it's been hard work. I will therefore apologise in advance for some ranting and less positive reflections - this isn't everyone's experience, but it's worth sharing in case this is useful for anyone to be prepared/know it's ok! Honestly, Getting this set up has been a lot of hard work and nagging that it shouldn't be. I'm going to skip for now the bit of just getting to the stage of engagement with the social worker about direct contact  The social worker for contact is separate to any of the previous social workers. This social worker's primary responsibility is working with the bio family to support them - though also to be able to assess them - to know the headspace they are in and ensure contact is safe. They are normally responsible for both letterbox and direct contact. They should ge...
Post a Comment
Read more

Contact - letterbox

(See also  Contact: Letterbox and Voices of birth parents  &  Contact - settling in letter ) Different children and agencies have different letterbox agreements. Contact generally is something they're trying to encourage more in modern day agreements. I'll do a different post on the detail of why's and some of my own thoughts/reflections, but it's likely that there will be an attempt to have at least letterbox contact, even if not direct contact. So, our agreement is once a year, but whilst little one is younger and so much changes so quickly, then i try to put something together for each month, I don't always manage to write it in month, but have the extra bonus of getting to use it as a lovely tool to think about the changes, developments and achievements in that month. I've been able to share when LO is asking questions about them, or about when she was with them - one example was when a friend was pregnant they showed her their ultrasound and LO asked ab...
Post a Comment
Read more