Imagine the scene — your child spends all day at school, where they are expected to listen to teachers, follow directions, stay on schedule, and interact with dozens of other children. From the moment the school bell rings in the morning until they are dismissed in the afternoon, every minute of their day is structured.
They may have to wear a uniform, eat meals at a specific time, or even have a set schedule for when they can use the restroom.
When they come home after a long day at school, all they want is a space where they can decompress, feel safe and comfortable. Their bodies, minds and souls crave a place where they can feel understood and be their true selves — and nurturing homes make this possible.
So, how can you create a nurturing home? Especially when your time is already stretched as a single parent, and you have a never-ending list of things to do at home and at work?
Sometimes all it takes is a mindset shift to help prioritize having a nurturing home environment and fostering emotional safety as a single parent — all without adding another thing to your already full plate.
In article 3 of a 10-part series designed to give single moms actionable tips to help you navigate Single Parenting with more patience, gentleness and grace. If you missed the first article, you can read it here.
Prioritize peace over perfection
In Chapter 3, “Decide to Create a Nurturing Home,” in The 10 Best Decisions a Single Mom Can Make, Peggy-Sue Wells invites us into what appears to be a recurring event in her home: A cleaning man scrubbing acrylic and oil paint out of her white carpet.
It’s the product of her child’s latest art project, which got a little messier than anyone planned. But rather than criticize her daughter for the mistake, Wells accepts the minor inconvenience as a natural part of living in a home that’s meant to be lived in.
How often is our response the opposite?
How often do we subconsciously choose perfection — or the illusion of perfection — instead of the authenticity of our families?
It’s easy to choose perfectly clean houses and the appearance of well-behaved children over accepting that life is sometimes messy. Juggling multiple responsibilities as a single parent is hard, and there is no condemnation if you find yourself choosing perfection more than you’d like.
But with Jesus, we can opt instead to have peaceful homes that are accepting of mistakes and mishaps instead of constantly chasing perfection — which isn’t really attainable anyway.
Instead of yearning for magazine-ready living rooms and beautifully manicured lawns, we can instead foster a home culture that invites our children to bring their full selves across the threshold.
How to Build a Nurturing Home
Here are some practical steps you can take as a single parent to foster peace in your household and build a nurturing home for your children:
1. Accept life’s imperfections
Our children are not robots — and we wouldn’t want them to be anyway! When we do life with other people, no day will happen exactly as we plan it, so be ready for unexpected detours. Wake each morning and ask God to give you grace for all the surprises that will happen today.
2. Make provisions for your children’s mistakes
As parents, it’s easy to lose our temper with our children when their mistakes cost us extra money, time or energy. (I’m sure Wells would have preferred to use the money she spent on the carpet cleaner for something else.) But, as adults, we know our children are going to make mistakes.
As much as possible, prayerfully create buffer time in your schedule or money in your budget to account for those mistakes when they pop up. When you can prepare for them, they don’t sting as badly.
3. Ask God to help you
No parent plans to create an un-nurturing home. However, if we are quietly battling unresolved hurt from our own childhoods where we lived in homes when we could not make mistakes or weren’t allowed to behave like children, we can unintentionally pass these expectations on to our own children.
If you struggle with perfectionism or comparison, ask God to show you the root of these feelings. That way, you can seek healing for yourself and pass on the blessing to your children.
KEY TAKEAWAY
As single parents, we have the power to feed our children’s creativity, sense of self and hobbies. Unfortunately, we can also quench them. Ask God to show you areas where you might be battling with perfection and allow Him to free you from those strongholds.
ACTIVITY
Most children don’t like chores — and many adults don’t, either. Transform your next laundry day into an unexpected conversation about how special God made your child by playing Fold Up, Hold Up, a simple game that involves hiding a special treat inside a pile of laundry. Find this game and more now in the Everyday MomentsTM activities collection!
APPLICATION QUESTIONS
- Which of these steps can you take today to start building a nurturing home for your children?
- How can you nurture your child’s God-given talents this week?
KEY VERSE
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
PRAYER
Dear Lord, please empower me to create a nurturing home for my children. Please give me the wisdom to raise them well. In Jesus’ name, amen.
