Parenting is hard. And you don’t need us to tell you that. It can be incredibly tough, especially as a single parent, doing your best to put food on the table, keep them happy, and then controlling your own emotions and stress.
Then there’s everything else that goes on in life. And you’re not the only one. There are parents all over the world. In fact, all throughout your neighbourhood there are people faced with various battles from financial woes to health scares, stresses of work and even struggling to get through alcohol addiction treatment. And if we could help just one person, we would.
That’s why parents need to stick together, and a great way to do that is by forming a parent support group.
That may seem daunting, but it’s not, and all you need to do is put a few things in place and encouraging and loving parents will come flocking…
When setting up a group, you firstly need to determine what it should be used for. What is its purpose?
That should be one of the leading statements when setting the group up. You can create a mission statement and even goals that people can see and determine whether this also applies to them. It may be that you also want to set it up with a name.
Once you’ve got what your group is about, it’s time to start promoting it. It may be that you want to hire a venue, meet at a coffee shop, or even just create an online group. A good idea is to push it through various local Facebook groups and messageboards, as well as printing posters and putting them in local shop windows.
Parents need to know it exists, and when they do, they will come. You may even be able to get support from local organisations and schools.
How often do you want to meet up? Do you need volunteers to help you set up? Where do you want to host it? This should all be determined in advance and each session could have different themes, or it could be a place to catch up and know that every parent isn’t alone, they have each other too.
From there you’ll end up creating a group of people that support and love one another, potentially even finding your children new friends for play dates too.