Communication Issues Facing Single Parents (Essay Sample)

Communication Issues Facing Single Parents Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Professor’s Name Course Date Communication Issues Facing Single Parents Parenting requires dedication and determination to guide children toward the right path while providing for their needs and wants from infancy to childhood and adolescence. For single parents, the responsibility is more challenging since one parent handles everything concerning the care of the children. As such, Single parents experience different challenges that may affect how they relate, engage with, and connect with their children. These challenges may adversely affect children’s development and child-parent relations. The report presents some communication issues facing single parents and ways of handling them more constructively. Communication Issues One of the issues that single parents experience is inadequate open communication with their children. According to Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, and Horowitz (2015), parents play a significant role in influencing their children’s conduct by effectively communicating expected and unwanted behaviors. The process is challenging for single parents who have to play many roles in the household to ensure that the children’s financial and physical needs are met. Fulfilling these roles may establish a situation where the parent is not always around and fails to communicate consistently with their children. In some cases, the children are left alone and may feel neglected. Therefore, when the parent is around, there may be conflicts as children engage in unwanted behaviors or develop poor relations due to inadequate communication. The second critical communication issue is a lack of emotional connection that hinders effective communication and relations between a parent and their children. According to Supratman (2018), children of single parents are subject to cognitive, behavioral, and affective problems as they lack adequate attention from their parents. Further, Fallesen and Gähler (2019) establish that single parents spend less time with their children on developmental activities, such as talking, reading, instilling discipline, and playing with them. The consequences include a lack of parent-child connection that escalates the issue of inadequate communication and conflicts. Handling the Issues Constructively Handling the issue of communication entails facilitating effective communication and creating time to spend with the children and engage in various activities to shape their behaviors. Single parents must develop a habit of communicating and encouraging open conversations with their children to facilitate positive social child development and improved academic performance (Zhang, 2020). They must correct behavior and guide children by explaining things clearly without leaving room for misinterpretation. Since these parents do not spend more time with their children, they should also engage in and encourage the expression of thoughts and emotions openly and honestly while sharing experiences and being supportive to enable children to gain the help they need. Secondly, despite their busy schedules and increased responsibilities, single parents should create time to spend with their children and engage in various activities to shape behavior. For instance, they can participate in playing, studying, and other connecting activities to establish positive parent-child relations that encourage continued open communication (Fallesen & Gähler, 2019). Adequate communication enables p...