Helping Kids Understand Your Family Situation

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Single Parenting: A Mix of Families on the Web

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 12.9 million single-parent families in 2006, including 10.4 million single-mother families and 2.5 million single-father families. Because these numbers are fairly substantial, more and more parenting and family resources on the Web contain a section devoted to single-parent families explaining what life is like as a single parent. This Web guide highlights some of the best.

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Advice for Single Parents

Dealing with the responsibilities of child rearing as a single parent essentially doubles what you ... read more »

Resources for Different Types of Single Parents

Single parent families are created out of a variety of situations. If you’ve got questions ... read more »

Helping Kids Understand Your Family Situation

Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges of single parenting is helping a child understand your family’s individual circumstances. Whether it’s explaining a parent’s absence or supporting a child as he works to understand a divorce, you can find age-appropriate resources on the Web that can give you some ideas about helping your child understand his family arrangement.

Dulcinea's Insight

As you research the Web for helpful hints about how to talk to your child about your single-parent family, the Web sites you find will generally advocate nothing but maintaining total honesty in your family. Your task will be ensuring that what you share with your children is appropriate to their comprehension at the time.

See our findingDulcinea Parenting Web Guide for online resources that offer advice on talking to children about tough issues.

Dulcinea's Picks

For information geared toward kids …

KidsHealth is a popular children’s health resource that addresses mental, emotional and physical health issues. This page aims to sensitively help a child understand single-parent families and takes care to explain the reasons a single parent will likely be exceptionally busy with work and other obligations. Find related articles about kids who spend considerable time by themselves or who wish they could share their feelings with others.

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For information geared toward adults …

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry has a section on helping children understand and cope with the emotions that might result from their parents’ divorce. Emphasis is placed on ensuring that your children understand that the divorce was not their fault. Also see the related article on helping children deal with grief after the loss of a loved one.

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BabyZone gives single mothers some advice about how to explain a father’s absence to a child in this helpful article.

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