Single-parent Counselling

Counselling can offer support and a regular time just for you to explore whatever is important. It may be that you have recently become a single parent and are reeling from the end of your relationship, with little space at home to experience your feelings. Your child(ren)may be more clingy and upset, needing more care, which can be tiring and stressful.

You may be trying to find a way through complex and painful issues such as divorce, custody of your child(ren) whilst trying to work out your new financial situation and where you are living. All of these, may be very stressful and emotionally draining experiences, so the opportunity to talk and “get some of it out” with a caring, understanding counsellor can be important.

Your identity can go through a big change as you become a single parent. If you have been used to being in a couple, you may well find that you are treated differently as a single person. Perhaps you are no longer invited to social things with friends in couples. Or, well-intentioned friends who are single say “I know how you feel” and the same with friends who are parents. However, there is something different about the combination of being both single AND a parent. It can be a very tiring combination, you are responsible for caring for your child(ren), running the home and working to finance everything. Your own needs for a break, and social time may go to the bottom of the list.

It is also important to appreciate the positives of being a single parent, it can bring a closer relationship with your child(ren), a confidence in your own strengths and stamina that lasts through life and the development of practical and organisational skills.

Counselling can support a reconnection to the positives in your own personal experience and an acknowledgment of all you are doing.