We are here to help you and your children.
And we've been here since 1957. Parents Without Partners is a international nonprofit education organization of custodial and non-custodial single parents-widowed, separated, divorced or never married. Since our first chapter was organized in 1957, we have joined together for mutual support so that our single parent homes can provide a healthy family environment for our children.
Our chapters are located in about all 50 states and most Canadian Provinces and Austria. Our members represent a typical cross-section of North American society, including all types of occupations, educational levels, faiths and beliefs. What we have in common is that we are single, and care about doing a good job in rearing our children.
The most important benefit we offer is that you will have the opportunity to meet sympathetic and understanding men and women within our chapters who have experienced firsthand the challenges of single parenting. You can gain a new perspective when you discover you're not alone, that others have triumphed over the same difficulties.
You will learn that your children need not be " victims " of a single parent situation. Your children will benefit, too not only from the PWP activities planned for them, but from the strength and self-reliance you can gain from the new parenting skills you can develop.
You'll be eligible for all the benefits programs we developed, just for our members, such as group insurance coverage at comprehensive rates, a low-cost credit card, discounts on travel, national child support collection services and others.
As a volunteer based organization, you will be asked to help at various activities. You get out of the organization, what you put into it.
What Our Chapters Do.
Our Chapters, with professional advice, conduct a variety of programs, and including:
Educational programs and discussion groups on subjects such as parent-child relationships in single parent families, effective communication, learning to love again, how to be alone without being lonely, and a variety of other topics. Some Chapters run special programs for the widowed, never married, or divorced.
Recreational activities for the children at low cost, such as camping, hiking, picnics, bowling and swimming parties, or crafts. PWP may be the one place where children from single parent homes meet others in the same situation, where they need not feel different, where they are never in the minority. Some chapters conduct discussion groups where parents and children together explore family concerns.
Social activities for adults provide opportunities to develop a circle of friends and a supportive network. Single parents meet others who care about family life and learn to re-enter the social world in a supportive, non-threatening atmosphere.
Community services are advocacy projects, where chapters reach out to single parents in the community or share their collective experiences. Chapters may conduct community educational programs on divorce, raise awareness about child abuse, lobby for legal changes helping single parents, complete listings of community resources, or raise funds for childen's hospital, among a variety of projects.
Ten Tips For Single Parents
1. Ask for help if you need it. Remember, it is a sign of strength, not weakness, to seek help and accept it when problems are overwhelming. Seek your professional counselor in your community, or from PWP and friends.
2. Allow yourself and your children time for adjustment
3. Remember that a single parent home does not attribute difficulties to your single situation. Weather you are the visiting parent or the custodial parent, your ability to cope makes an important difference.
4. Allow bitterness, jealously, blaming, revenge, and self-pity to disappear from your life. Such emotions drain energy from the important tasks of building a good home for your children and a new life for yourself.
5. Allow your children to respect and love the other parent. Do not belittle the parent or involve the children in battles, or force " them to choose ". Remember that the childen's feelings and perceptions of parents are not the same as those of a spouse.
6. Try to remember the positive parts of your marriage, but without living in the past. Share the good memories with your children.
7. Make sure your children understand they did not cause the single parent situation and that they are not being rejected by the other parent. Make sure they know you will not abandon them, and that you will be able to care for them.
8. Be open and honest, share your feelings with your children and let them share theirs with you. But do not impose your feelings, or demand their confidences.
9. Make and effort to think of yourself as an individual and not part of someone else. Examine old feelings of dependency and needless. The value you place on herself will be reflected in your childen's since of self-worth.
10. While it is easy to become wrapped up in your children, take some time for yourself. Use your single status as an opportunity for growth and development. Make each day count by trying something new or making new friends. Remember that your situation will change from old relationships and will lead to new ones.
Why Not Form A Chapter?
New chapters are always being startered. If no chapter exists in your community, we invite you to form one. With a minimum of 20 members, you may obtain a chapter. Forming a chapter is a rewarding experience, and you will know you have brought help to the many single Parents in your Community
Contact:
Parents Without Partners, Inc.
by looking in the phone book, in the white pages under Parents Without Partners for the nearest chapter or see our international web site at: parentswithoutpartners.org
