According to Segrin & Flora (2011), the challenges faced by single parents include their tight bounds to jobs in order to be able to support their families. As such, their lack of time contributes to having less parental supervision and authority to their children and hampers their communication process. In such families, it is evident that many children spend less time with their mothers as compared to children in families with two parents. For other single parents, the pressure hinders them from engaging in parenting. Due to the lack of social support and little time for them to cultivate positive support networks, meaning, it spills over to their parenting styles. When this happens, it forces them to engage the services of a counselor. Instead of building their relationship, the children develop a negative mentality about their parents. Thus, long for the day, they turn eighteen for them to be independent.
Laissez-faire in the family arises as children find autonomy when they are not in their family unit. It is because of the emotional divorce present amongst family members and the absence of interaction (Supratman, 2018). In the end, it results in punitive or permissive parenting tactics. Thus, the single parents may be too strict on their children to the extent of pushing their children away unknowingly. By the time they realize their children are out of reach, they struggle to communicate with them. Since they have no support system in place, they may end up making irrational decisions that affect the lives of their children negatively. The punitive parenting style adopted also leads the single parent to lack follow-through on punishment. Thus, when their children face trouble in school, communication between them is poor (Segrin & Flora, 2011). As such, it hinders the possibility of children getting the needed advice from their parent on how well to behave and interact with others in society. In most instances, this behavior spills over to their adult life. It affects their relationships with people in the society as they are used to sarcasm and ridicule, which hurts their personality.
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Post-divorce communication for single parents is the most difficult thing to fix when it comes to interpersonal communication. Moreover, the relationships present in single parent families are more challenging to navigate. For children, they end up not being truthful. Lying to their parents is their lifestyle as children are protecting their territories from facing the same pain of divorce. In other instances, an unwanted strain is placed on their relationship, and children are not comfortable talking with their present parents because of the lack of communication present in the household. It contributes to the children not being able to engage with their parents; thus, the relationship is strained. In such a case, a parent needs to identify the problem and look at ways of solving to hinder a repeat of the same in the future. Elimination at an early age is vital because it may affect their children's future relationships and may result in them divorcing from their future spouses.
Effective communication for single parents needs a refined skill where the parent showcases what they would like to be present in their family. How one would like to be treated also helps in giving their relationship 'voice' and skills to cope with their family status, single parent. In doing so, the children will be able to learn how to deal with issues of expressing their feelings, what they desire, need, fear, want, and the things they are anxious about in life. In the end, the children will be braver to speak out, and through such an open platform, the family benefits in sharing.
Communication in single-parent families can be unlocked by ensuring that all members of the family can express their emotions and thoughts honestly and openly (Keating, Russell, Cornacchione, & Smith, 2013). In addition, they need to learn to share their uncertainties, experiences, hurt, worries, feelings, concerns, and memories, among others, as a way of creating a strong bond. By sharing their opinions, perceptions, beliefs, others' point of view, and interpretations goes a long way in helping them look at things from a different perspective. Besides, it gives room for them to appreciate each other. Reconnection in single parent families is possible once members ask questions and probe in order to understand where one is headed with their plans.
References
Keating, D. M., Russell, J. C., Cornacchione, J., & Smith, S. W. (2013). Family communication
patterns and difficult family conversations. Journal of Applied Communication Research ,
41(2), 160-180.
Segrin, C., & Flora, J. (2011). Family communication (2 nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Supratman, L. P. (2018). Family communication on single mother families. Jurnal ASPIKOM ,
3(4), 675-684.
