Parents and Children in Varied Family Structures

Divorce and Successful Shared Parenting

Marriage, divorce, and children's adjustment By Robert E. Emery

Children and Divorce: What You Need to Know

This site is has tons of information on the different areas of concern with children and when going through a divorce.  It provides link to different articles of concern about custody and different types of custody.  I feel if you have any kind of question or just want more general information, this is a good one to review.

Children of Divorce and Adjustment

Useful site that is divided by the age of the affected child.  It also provides general, useful information about all children in a divorce situation.

"In my Daughter's Eye's" by Martina McBride

In my daughter's eyes I am a hero
I am strong and wise and I know no fear
But the truth is plain to see
She was sent to rescue me
I see who I wanna be
In my daughter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal
Darkness turns to light and the
world is at peace
This miracle God gave to me gives me
strength when I am weak
I find reason to believe
In my daughter's eyes

And when she wraps her hand
around my finger
Oh it puts a smile in my heart
Everything becomes a little clearer
I realize what life is all about

It's hangin' on when your heart
has had enough
It's giving more when you feel like giving up
I've seen the light
It's in my daughter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes I can see the future
A reflection of who I am and what will be
Though she'll grow and someday leave
Maybe raise a family
When I'm gone I hope you see how happy
she made me
For I'll be there
In my daughter's eyes

The first chapter I chose was Chapter 3 because since I'm personally a single mom of three, I felt like I could really relate to what this chapter was all about.  Being divorced for five years now, I have experienced a lot of the different stages a family goes through when divorcing.  Divorce is a very difficult situation but if you keep your children's happiness and success as the main goal, you can make the process a positive one for all.

I choose the above links/picture/video because when going through a divorce, you will inevitably experience some hard times that will be hard to compromise on.  I also feel that you can never have too much information or support systems.  The more that you prepare yourself with, the better all will end up as a lot of the times, you can only understand one side until you get the whole situation presented to you in another way.  Until ones realizes that there was fault on both sides, its hard to move forward in a positive and healthy way.  As for the video I included, I really liked it for a couple of reasons.  First, is because it shows the reality of the labeling a single parent gets.  When you become that single parent, society does put a label on you that is hard to change.  Single parenting is one of the hardest times of ones life but for some reason, you are looked at as a failure and you have to work hard at changing the impression of that.  Gingerbread organization is there for support to help in moving forward.

Last, Martina McBride says it best in her song, "In My Daughter's Eye's."  Like any parent, mother or father, you only want to be the very best for your daughter and to be the very best for her to look up to.  On the days that seem hard to finish, you need to look into the eyes of your daughter and realize that all she wants is you and before you know it, she will be moving on as a parent herself and hopefully you were able to provide a good foundation for her and it wont matter if you were single or dual family.