Most of us never think of children needing respite care. When I owned a child care facility we provided “respite child care” for foster care moms and dads. Some of the kids had so many issues that the foster parents needed a day away from the kids. They needed time to regroup and regenerate themselves. Some just needed a day to rest.

The foster care children came to us for the entire day. After a full day of activities with people that knew how to help them, how to keep them in control and stimulate their creativity, they went home to a rested foster care family. It worked out well because the kids got a break and the families got a break.

In case you are wondering exactly what the word respite means, I looked it up for you. The meaning that makes sense for us in regards to children of divorce is, “Respite: An interval of rest or relief.”

After Thanksgiving and along with the up and coming holidays, some children of divorce are going to need a place of respite. They are going to need to feel the hands of Jesus encircle them. Ask if they would like a hug. Many will reciprocate. They are going to need to hear the voice of loving Christian souls speak soothing words to them. They need an interval of rest or relief from their hectic, chaotic and confusing world. Your Sunday morning group can provide the respite some so desperately need.

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Single parents come to me all the time asking for help in disciplining their children. Remember they are parenting alone and there is no one in the house with them late at night or on a day-to-day basis to help them parent their children. It can get overwhelming to say the least.

Here are ten examples of some of the kinds of questions I get about parenting alone. Sometimes single parents need a more in-depth answer depending on variations such as age, developmental abilities or other situations. For our purposes here these answers are short and to the point.

Please feel free to share with the single parents in your church.

1. What do I do when my toddler screams at me and I can’t get him to pick up his toys?

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Did you know that something a child experiences today could affect him or her for years to come? Did you see the latest research on adults who faced a childhood trauma? (You can see complete chart at this site. http://www.ministrybestpractices.com/2012/11/adult-disorders-linked-to-childhood.html).

The chart I’m referencing is the study I mention several weeks ago called the ACE Study, Adverse Childhood Experiences (http://acestudy.org/). This chart is great for ministers to have in their offices. It is one of the first charts I’ve seen that ministers can take and use in their churches as they minister to congregants. It explains what happens to adults when they have experienced an adverse childhood experience.

This chart doesn’t mention that divorce is an adverse childhood experience but the ACEs study does mention it. You can find more about the ACE Study at the link above and http://www.cdc.gov/ace/index.htm.

One of the things I like about this chart and these kinds of studies are they verify what I have felt and known for a long time. Many of us that have worked with children know that when they experience a trauma such as divorce that it affects them in many ways. For instance one of the results of trauma or crisis causes children to endangered or worthless.

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This week we conclude our discussion of the mistake we’ve made when working with the child of divorce and their out of control behaviors.

Mistake #6 – Time Out

We sent kids to time out to “think about what they had done”. Here’s probably what really happened during that time.

Teacher:

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Last week we looked at the mistakes we have made when working with children from divorced homes that have out of control behaviors. This week we continue exploring mistakes of the past.

Mistake #3 – Everything Was Based On How the Adult Felt

If the teacher felt happy then all was good. Oh my goodness, do you remember the happy face/sad face signs? I am so embarrassed to share this but, since I want you to explore your mistakes, I’ll share some of my worst ones. I very clearly remember one incident.

We had paper plate hanging on a chair. We had this 4 year old kid who was so out of control. The chair was set over against the wall by the bathroom. I told this little four year old,

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Many children living in divorcing single parent homes experience tremendous stress leading to some out of control behaviors. When they come to your church, your volunteers question what on earth could be causing these kids to act like that. They may wonder if there is any discipline in the home at all. It is not that their parents are bad parents or that they aren’t trying, but more likely it is because there is confusion and chaos in the child’s life. Many of these children live in high conflict situations where they experience high stress levels.

In the book Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors, Heather Forbes and Bryan Post reference these children in their “Stress Model” chart. They say,

“Children who are misbehaving are seeking external regulation.”

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“Can you believe he didn’t even come to his own granddaughter’s graduation?”

With fire in her eyes my friend continued with,

“He didn’t even bother to call or send a card. What’s wrong with a man like that?”

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THE SINGLE PARENT DILEMMA

What do you say to the single parent that comes to you with this problem?

“What can I do about my kids being exposed to things they shouldn’t be when they are at their other parent’s home? He shows them R rated movies, plays music that’s not appropriate for their age and has his latest girlfriend spending the night while they are there. What can I do? He even has different social and religious standards. My kids, who are only in elementary school, are already seeing a difference in what I allow and what their father allows.”

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“She wants you to do what?” The dad said after his son explained his mom wanted him to keep his iPhone with him when they went on vacation.

It seems as though the mom wants to keep in touch with his son when he is at his dad’s all summer. Summer months can become sticky and messy for both sides. And it can become extremely stressful for the child caught in the middle.

• Dad may want his time with his child and he may want it uninterrupted.
• Mom is worried about little things, and she wants to make sure her son is using his inhaler and taking his allergy medicine.
• The kid just wants to have fun and keep everyone happy.

There are a hundred different scenarios we could play out like the one above. Here are a few:

• Recently a single mom who was upset about something that had happened recently with her child contacted me. It seems as though the dad had taken the kids to a water park out-of-state. Mom was okay with the water park, but what she wasn’t okay with was the fact the dad left one of the kids standing alone for half an hour while he went to wait in line to go down the huge water slide. The young elementary age child was left completely alone while the older brother and dad enjoyed the water park. The little girl was petrified someone would kidnap her. The little girl didn’t feel like she could talk to the dad so she came home and told mom.
• Another young dad is concerned about his three preschoolers this summer when they visit their mom. How do you trust someone with your children that you no longer trust as a spouse? You hope and pray your kids will be safe but you wonder every minute they are gone if they are safe. You wonder if they are having a good time. This dad wonders if his little children miss him while they are at their mother’s.
• One summer my son went to live with his dad for the summer. In August when he came back home to live, he told me many days his dad took him to the local water park and left my twelve-year old son standing outside the gate waiting for the park to open an hour later. My son was at the water park for over 9 hours on hot summer days by himself. He said it was boring to be there alone all day. He didn’t want to tell me what was going on at the time because he wanted to live with his dad and didn’t want to disappoint his dad by coming back to our home.
• A single mom in my single parent class is very worried about her kids going to Europe for two weeks with their dad and his girlfriend. They are young kids and they will be going to several countries. She brought her concerns to our group and we are praying intensely for her children’s safety. She has purchased an iPhone and will get it set up so her son can check in with her periodically from overseas. Her children have not been away from her for two weeks. The girlfriend hasn’t exactly been reliable here in the states. Mom has reason to worry.

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Who Is Raising Our Children?

We all know that our children are our next generation. Unless there is a conscious effort on the part of an adult, people will parent their own kids the way they were parented. Being parented doesn’t necessarily mean that a mother and/or father raised you. For generations, people like grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends have raised children. We have even had children being raised by people unknown to the child such as foster parents.

The Bible, as well as history books, are full of stories of children being raised by someone other than their birth parents. These people grew up and became parents and did fine for the most part. The differences in children being parented today are societal influences (computers, internet, video games, TV, etc.) and other entities that are raising our children especially children from single parent families. The significant other, or a cohabitating partner, is one example – a situation which, by the way, says, “I can’t commit to marriage but I will commit to letting you influence my child for several years.”

Who Is Influencing Our Children?

Children from single parent families spend the majority of their waking hours in group care. They either have parents that are attending school full time or parents that are working – some of these parents are working two or more jobs or going to school and working. One small study showed that school age children might very well be in child care 300 to 400 hours more per year than even in public school. When one counts summer, school vacations and holidays, early outs and parent teacher conference days the child will spend many more hours overall in the childcare facility.

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