5 - Take responsibility for your life today. Remember whatever lead you to where you are today, you are responsible for another life - innocent life of a child, who did not ask to be born. Your child is not responsible for experiences or events that made you become a single parent. Your child is completely dependent upon you through no choice of their own. Don't let them down or hold them accountable for your actions (or actions of their absent parent). They are powerless and vulnerable to possibly less-than-ideal consequences they face as child of a single parent. Your role and influence in their life is paramount to their chances of becoming a happy, productive, successful adult. They need you more than their words will ever tell.

6 - Set up daily rituals and regular routines. Your child needs stability and security. One way to provide this is by developing a daily routine. Simple things like - going to park every Sunday afternoon, eating dinner together each night, sharing a treat before nap time or reading a book together before bed every night, will become activities that your child looks forward to and can count on to occur with regularity.

7 - Be consistent and dependable. Create realistic rules and a standard of discipline that you stick to all time. If you're consistent with your child, he or she will learn what is acceptable behavior and what is not. They will also learn what you expect from them and what they can expect from you. If you're dependable, they will know that they can always count on you to help them with their homework, be there for dinner or tuck them in bed at night. They have to be able to depend on you. You're most important person in their life. Try to remember that no matter how tired you are at end of day or how frustrated you may become when they're fussy - They need you to be there for them. You should cherish every moment with your child - they are best blessings on earth.

Resource Box - © Danielle Hollister (2003)

Danielle Hollister is Writing Host at BellaOnline http://www.bellaonline.com/site/writing

and BellaOnline’s Writing Zine Publisher www.bellaonline.com/articles/art157.asp

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Danielle Hollister is a professional freelance writer/editor/researcher with more than ten years of experience working for websites, newspapers, public relations firms, and private companies.

She has been the Writing Host at BellaOnline since the site was launched three years ago at: http://www.bellaonline.com/site/writing

The challenge of good parenting is to find balanced between being there for our children and being there for ourselves, as well as balance between freedom and responsibility - to be personally responsible to ourselves rather than be a taker or a caretaker.

Our decisions need to be based on what is in highest good of our children as well as ourselves. If a child wants something that is not in our highest good to give, then it is not loving to give it. If we want something that is not in highest good of our children, then it is not loving for us to expect it. It is loving to support our children’s freedom to choose what they want and to be themselves, as long as it doesn’t mean giving ourselves up. Children do not learn responsible behavior toward others when their parents discount their own needs and feelings to support what their children want. Our own freedom to choose what we want and to be ourselves needs to be just as important to us as our children’s freedom and desires.

On other hand, if we always put our needs before our children’s, we are behaving in a self-centered, narcissistic way that limits our children’s freedom. We are training our children to be caretakers, to give themselves up for other’s needs and not consider their own.

The challenge of loving parenting is to role-model behavior that is personally responsible, rather than being a taker or caretaker. This is our best chance for bringing up personally responsible children. However, we need to remember that we can do everything "right" as a parent, but our children are on their own path, their own soul’s journey. They will make their own choices to be loving or unloving, responsible or irresponsible. We can influence their choices, but we can’t control them. They have free will, just as we do, to choose who they want to be each moment of their lives. All we can do is very best we can to role-model loving, personally responsible behavior - behavior that supports our own and our children’s highest good.