What to Expect the Toddler Years (277 page)

Give yourself a break.
Giving to your child and ignoring your own needs benefits no one, and can even leave you feeling angry and resentful. So renew yourself regularly—whether it’s going out with a friend once a week or taking in a movie on your own twice a month. And don’t feel guilty about it. You deserve it—and, besides, it will make you a more effective parent.

Give your child plenty of love.
Love
can
make a difference—and can make up for a lot you may not have the time, energy, or means to give to your child. A child in a loving single-parent home who gets adequate attention and is listened to, respected, and disciplined has a better chance of growing up happy and well adjusted than a child in a two-parent home where love is in short supply. And, happily, love—like most of the best things in life—is free and self-replenishing; the more you give, the more there is to give.

Be generous with your time . . .
For the single parent, love may be easier to lavish than time, but it’s nevertheless vital that you spend at least a short time every day doing something fun with your toddler—even if that means that something else less important doesn’t get done.

. . . . but don’t “go easy” on your toddler.
Maintaining discipline is as essential (maybe more so) in a single-parent home as in a home with two parents. Don’t let any guilt you may feel tempt you to ignore misbehavior. Children of single parents don’t need the freedom to be rude, to hit others, or to ignore rules. Nor do they need extra time watching TV, more junk food, or regular reprieves from getting ready for bed. They need what all children need: the security that fair limits and predictable expectations provide (see page 47). But in setting limits, be careful not to make an issue of everything. Limit your “no’s” and your rules to what’s really important.

Don’t lean on your child.
Children have the right to be children and to enjoy the carefree time that childhood should be, no matter what their parent’s problems. Don’t burden your toddler with any
worries you may have or try to use her to fill your personal needs, such as the need for companionship. And be sure that your toddler understands that whatever your problems are, she’s not to blame.

Find your support elsewhere.
Find a friend or relative who has broad shoulders you can lean on. Better still, join a single-parent support group. Millions of single parents are out there—fathers and mothers, single by choice or because of divorce or death. Getting together individually or as a group with other single parents in your community can improve the quality of your life in many ways. Single-parent support groups—whether they hold formal meetings or simply share social events—can help to alleviate a sense of isolation while allowing you to share feelings, ideas, and support with others in similar circumstances.

Get together with parents from two-parent families, too. What you can learn from them is that all parents,
single or not, have the same feelings of inadequacy from time to time, the same feelings of being overwhelmed, the same need for support—that these aren’t the sole province of single parents.

Enlist an opposite-sex role model.
Children do better when they spend time with adults of both genders. So find at least one male relative or friend who is willing to spend some time with your child. (Single fathers, of course, need to enlist a female for this role.)

Be ready for the inevitable.
If your child is nearing age three, has friends with two-parent families, and there is no second parent in the picture, the question “Why don’t I have a daddy (or mommy)?” may have already come up or can be expected to soon. If it does not come up spontaneously, it may mean your child is afraid to ask; in that case you may, eventually, want to bring the subject up yourself. Be as honest as you can, but don’t get so complicated in your explanation that your child either doesn’t understand it or is overwhelmed. The details will depend on your particular situation. For example, if you’re a single mother by choice, you can say, “I wanted to have you so much that I didn’t want to wait until I found a daddy that I loved.” If you’ve just separated or divorced, see the facing page for possible explanations.

Explain that there are all kinds of families and that not all of them have both a mother and a father. Introduce your child to other children with single parents—both in real life and in books. Get her acquainted with, and talk about, your extended family, if there is one. For how to respond to the “Where do I come from?” question, see page 420.

And don’t take life too seriously.
You’ll need your sense of humor—often.

When these suggestions aren’t enough to tide you over the rough spots, don’t hesitate to seek professional help. Your clergyperson, your child’s doctor, or your own physician can help you find the right therapist.

“I’ve been my daughter’s only parent since she was six months old, when my wife decided she wasn’t ready to have a family and left. I’ve been doing all right, but sometimes I feel terribly inadequate and frustrated that I can’t be both a mother and a father to her.”

Pregnancy, childbirth, and breast-feeding aside, there is nothing that caring parents of either gender can’t do equally well. In fact, some fathers are by nature more nurturing than some mothers. Your feelings of inadequacy and frustration have less to do with the fact that you’re a man than the fact that you’re a parent. Almost every parent—married or single, female or male—comes to the job without experience and frequently feels inadequate. Parenting, after all, is not an easy job. Even parents who’ve already had several children aren’t immune to feelings of frustration and inadequacy.

Your feelings are normal and aren’t an indication that you’re a poor parent. You may not always be able to be both mother and father to your child, but with love and lots of hard work, you can nevertheless raise a happy child. The tips for the single parent in the previous answer can help.

“Ever since our daughter was born fifteen months ago my relationship with my husband has deteriorated. We are actually talking about divorce because we are worried about our child living in the midst of such turmoil.”

Living in a household filled with anger, acrimony, and accusations isn’t good for a child, but neither, for that matter, is divorce. There are no easy answers in a situation like yours; what’s best for the children (and the parents) in one family may not be best for another. One universal truth holds true for all families everywhere: Children do best in happy homes. So the first thing you need to do is to try to improve the atmosphere in yours by trying to make your relationship a better one. Often bandying the word “divorce” around is a cry for help (“I’m desperate, unhappy”). But dissolving a marriage isn’t the only way out of the misery.

It isn’t uncommon for couples with a new child to let their relationship fall into disarray, or to neglect their marriage as they nurture their newborn. But the relationship between husband and wife should stay at the top of their priority list, coming even before their relationship with the new baby. Though this may seem selfish on the surface, it’s actually very much in the child’s best interest; nothing makes a child feel more secure than a secure relationship between her parents and nothing makes her feel more loved than seeing that her parents care about each other.

Still, few new parents take the time that’s needed to make their relationships work in a truly satisfying way. If that’s been the case in your home, making an effort now to make up for that lost time may well save your marriage—and protect your child. Devote time each and every day to just-the-two-of-you; try to rediscover the intimacy you shared before your child was born. Snuggle in the morning before you get up (if your toddler’s been sleeping with you, reclaim your marriage bed); speak on the phone during the day at a time convenient for both of you just to chat and say “I love you.” (Ban any “You pick up this, I’ll pick up that” transactions during this call.) Have dinner and conversation after your daughter’s asleep at night; once a week (religiously) take in dinner, a movie, or another activity you once enjoyed as a twosome (hire a sitter to stay with your toddler, prevail on a relative or friend to sit, or find another parent to exchange favors with). A child-free weekend away could also prove extremely revitalizing to your marriage (see page 773).

Of course, at this point, your marriage may need more skilled mending than a do-it-yourself approach can offer. Often, professional intervention can make the difference. So before you call a lawyer, talk to your clergyperson, your doctor, or someone else you both respect
about your marriage and about finding the right therapist for couple’s counseling.

While revitalizing your relationship would be better for you, your spouse, and your child than giving up on it, some marriages can’t be saved. If you both try hard to make your marriage work, but the discord nevertheless continues, then you need to think about a split (see below). If you do decide to split, counseling can help you build separate lives that will continue to protect your toddler.

“My husband and I have been unhappy since long before our toddler was born. We’ve given our marriage every chance, and even spent a year in counseling, but it’s become clear that we can’t make it work. We’re worried about how our splitting up and my husband’s moving out will affect our son.”

It’s an unfortunate fact that when parents are at odds—whether they live together or are separated or divorced—the children are the victims. Though splitting up won’t be easy on your toddler, staying together wouldn’t have been, either. Living in an unhappy home with parents who are constantly fighting is often worse for children than adjusting to separation and divorce. It also gives them a model of a poor marriage to emulate and makes it difficult for them to learn what a good relationship is like.

First of all, don’t compound your pain with guilt. If you’re certain your marriage doesn’t stand a chance, getting out of it now is probably a good idea for you and may be less traumatic for your child (younger children tend to be much more resilient in the face of a family split than older ones).

Still, when the only world you’ve ever known suddenly falls apart, it can be very frightening and distressing. Studies show that though many children of divorce become happy and well-adjusted adults, they tend to have more behavior problems in childhood than children in happy, intact homes. In many cases these problems appear to have been at least as much a result of the unhappy home as of the divorce. They usually started developing when the marriage first began to fail and simply got worse or more pronounced when the actual breakup came.

It’s difficult to predict how any particular child will respond to his parents’ divorce. Some children show the effects early but get over the hump within two or three years of the divorce (unless a battle between the exes takes over where the husband–wife feuding left off, keeping up the stress); others seem fine at first and don’t show any negative signs until a few years after the split. Some have enduring problems that haunt them into adulthood; others gain strength for having gone through the ordeal. More boys than girls have serious problems adjusting; especially vulnerable are those who displayed a difficult temperament early in life (see page 200). When custody is awarded to the mother, the absence of a caring father at home may be particularly tough for a boy; those who see little of their fathers during their childhoods and have no substitute male presence in their lives may later have trouble making and keeping friends.

Not surprisingly, children who come from homes with high levels of negativity, a lot of conflict, and unsatisfactory conflict-resolution styles (such as those involving verbal or physical attacks or abuse, power assertion, or the use of withdrawal rather than compromise) and who have parents who are disengaged, neglectful, or ineffectively authoritarian (where “Do as I say, or else . . .” is a common warning, but the threat is never carried out) are least likely to do well.

Children who do best come from homes in which the custodial parent pays attention to them, discipline is fair, and limits are consistently enforced.
Many of those who turn out to be competent, successful adults have a good, solid relationship with at least one parent (usually the parent they lived with). Some succeed by learning to manipulate others (having learned early to pit one parent against the other in order to survive) and some by becoming very sensitive and empathetic (often having had to care for younger siblings—or even the custodial parent).

Everyone may be better off in the long run if an unhappy marriage breaks up, but the short term may be pretty trying. Toddlers often have a difficult time with transitions of any kind—even leaving the park for home or leaving a game of cars for lunch can spark tears or temper. A transition as major as this one is bound to have a significant effect on your child. But approaching the changes in the following ways can help acclimate your toddler to the family’s new dynamics more quickly, and hopefully minimize the mayhem in his life—and yours:

If you can’t “stay friends” with your ex-spouse, try to establish a business-like relationship. (Remember, it’s possible to do business with someone you don’t like.) Meet on neutral territory, without your child when possible, to discuss his needs. Keep meetings short and as stick-to-the-essentials as possible. When you do meet with your toddler in tow, agree to show him that the two of you can still deal with issues concerning him with respect and caring. By treating each other with respect you can teach your child a lot about human relations and also strengthen his self-esteem.