There is no single endeavor that an individual can undertake as difficult, demanding, or rewarding as parenthood. With all the joy comes stress and self doubt, constant questioning and aggravation peppering the most exclusive high a person can ever know. We find parenting such a roller coaster of emotions because nowhere on earth can we find a deeper love than that we hold for our children.
Children of course, do not come with an instruction manual or a prefabricated list of do’s and don’ts. We learn about parenting right along with them as they learn about life. And ironically, they teach us more about living than we could ever teach them.
As miraculous as raising children is, children themselves do not understand the miracle it is to be ours and they often go through periods of time that are remarkably taxing. When their taxing moments coincide with outside stressors it is easy for even a phenomenal parent to find themselves overwhelmed and in need of a much deserved break. Asking for help when it is needed is a sign of good parenting.
Often parents that are overstressed don’t ask for help because they do not know where to turn. When they have reached a stressed out overload. The best time to ask for help is before it is a necessity. Parenting support groups can provide much more than overload assistance.
Parenting support groups are wonderful places to meet with other parents to discuss daily issues, bounce discipline ideas off of, and find readily available help when things are just becoming a little too much. There are parenting support groups that are available for just about any situation. There are groups for single parents and parents with disabilities and parents for children with disabilities and parents of chronically ill children and parents who simply don’t want to turn into their parents.
If you look hard enough you can find a parenting support group for just about any situation. The United Way runs various support groups as do parenting organizations and many psychological counseling services. Parenting groups are more than just a place to vent frustrations and seek advice for behavioral problems. They are places that combine personal interaction with other parents which often lead to life long friendships. They are places where parenting techniques can be exchanged and viewed under critical eyes and a free exchange of parenting ideas and opinions.
If you can not find the parenting support group that suits your needs, chances are that other parents in your area can’t find one as well. Starting a parenting support group is as easy as listing a few free advertisements in your area publications, grocery store bulletins, online, and perhaps a few flyers left in parent prone locations. Simply getting the word out to parents that you are starting a support group of your liking is usually enough to bring in phone calls asking for information.
When starting a parenting support group, situation oriented groups are a good thing, such as single mothers’ support group. However, avoid overly specific groups that leave no room for individuality such as single mothers with overbearing former mother-in-laws with distant fathers’ support group. That’s a little too specific and alienates quite a few single mothers in various situations.
In this day and age, father related support groups are becoming more popular. There has been a dramatic shift in fatherhood expectations as well as the way most people approach raising boys in the last ten to twenty years. Fathers are now expected to be more emotionally involved yet didn’t necessarily have role models that exhibited the same behavior.
Parents of teenagers are now flocking to support groups. Teens suddenly seem to come with very adult problems that we as adults still have a hard time making sense of. Adolescents as young as ten and eleven are faced with adult sexual content and violence and drugs and drinking and relational issues that we consider to be adult issues. Parenting is simply not as easy as it once was and it is okay for parents to find like minded people to figure out the best way to raise a child through to adulthood.
Teen related support groups offer a place for numerous people to address teen parenting without judgment. Teen parenting “takes a village to raise the child.” Sometimes a parent has to be resourceful enough to create their own village.