Single Parent Connection Provides Lessons in Self-Esteem, Self-Control : Good Parents Don’t Necessarily Come in Pairs, Says Leader

If you belong to the Single Parent Connection, your homework assignment may be to share a ride with a fellow parent, swap baby-sitting, or look in the mirror and tell yourself, “I’m gorgeous inside and out.”

These chores are assigned because, according to the staff at the Panorama City support group, what single parents need most are self-esteem and a good networking system.

The Single Parent Connection is an offshoot of something called The Focus Center, a drug and alcohol abuse prevention agency. Staff members there believe that the best way to prevent child abuse and substance abuse is to promote a positive self-image among single parents and their children. Training parents who can cope with life, set limits and be role models is the key to bringing up youth free of drugs and alcohol, the center’s staff says.

“When I came here, it was ‘poor me,’ ” said Sharon Abdulrazak, 38, who has been a regular at the center for five years. “Now I feel like I’m real lucky and fortunate. As a single parent, I may be a better parent to my daughter than some parents in a two-parent family.”

Started in 1981

The Single Parent Connection began in 1981 when Focus Center Director Marilyn Nelson, armed with a Los Angeles County grant to do drug prevention work, went door-to-door in North Hollywood. Visiting 97 households, she met seven single parents, five of whom came to the first meeting.

This year, about 100 families will participate in the Single Parent Connection’s 15-week sessions. Members come from as far as Los Angeles and Santa Monica to attend the weekly meetings, which usually have 12 to 18 participants. About three-fourths of the groups are women, but the number of men is increasing as more and more fathers get full or partial custody.

There is a waiting list of 40 to 50 for the Single Parent Connection. Potential members are screened by interview to ensure that they can work well in groups.

At the meetings, parents try to develop skills like limit-setting and communication. Member Cheryl Overturf, 27, said she has learned “active listening”: if her 7-year-old daughter tells her, “I really hate school,” Overturf will answer, “It sounds like you had a really terrible day,” rather than contradict, “But you’re really good at school.”

As a result, she said, “The kids are more likely to come up and tell me anything.”

At a recent session, one parent complained that she wanted to spend quality time with her children, but all they wanted to do was watch television. Other parents offered suggestions, ranging from making Christmas decorations with construction paper and glitter, to getting rid of the television altogether.

Resists Giving Answers

Group leader Mary Mitchell, who is a single parent herself, resists offering any answers. She wants the group to solve problems collectively.

“It’s an exercise in self-discipline for me, but our philosophy is, ‘You guys have the answers,’ ” Mitchell said.

The single parents also learn to boost their self-esteem. Members are discouraged from voicing “pig messages” about themselves, like “I don’t deserve to have fun. I should only work.” A joke-store aerosol can of “Guilt Spray,” which sprays a rose-scented mist, is kept on a wicker table at the center of the group circle. If someone gives a “pig message,” another group member will reach for the bottle and give the offending member a dose.

Mitchell has the group concentrate on positive messages. Perhaps the most important one is that the single-parent family is not a “broken home.” In a society “where more than one quarter of the families with kids under 18 are headed by single parents,” the single-parent family should be considered normal, Mitchell says.

The Focus Center also runs a group for children of single-parent families. The “Costars” group began simply as a baby-sitting service for parents who attended meetings. But staff at the center noticed that the children’s behavior reflected their parents’ ups and downs. So they turned Costars into a play-and-discussion group that explores the children’s feelings about themselves and their families, and develops their communication and social skills.

On a recent night, 10 children from ages 1 to 11 participated in the group. Eight put their names in the “happy” square of a “How Do You Feel” chart; two names were charted “sleepy,” and one, “excited.” During past sessions, Costars coordinator Pat Canada and several volunteers, usually college students, helped the children write “all about my single-parent family” and read them stories like “Do I Have a Daddy?”

Any Number in a Family

“We impress on them that a family can be any number of people,” Canada said.

Said one 9-year-old girl, “I like to meet other kids different ages who have the same single-parent families. It gives me a feeling like I’m not alone.”

But the Single Parent Connection’s work does not end with these weekly meetings. Since single parents often feel isolated, the groups are turned into support networks. Between meetings, Mitchell calls each member to make sure he or she has phoned another parent in the network. (“You haven’t called anyone? Why not?” the energetic coordinator will say.)

Trade Baby Sitting

Members often trade baby sitting or services like haircuts or motor-oil changes, and many members stay plugged into the network for years after their session has finished.

And there are monthly Friday night get-togethers at Banger’s, a pub restaurant in Tarzana; Halloween parties; a yearly trip to Marineland; camping trips, and other social events planned by graduates now serving on the Single Parent Connection’s Advisory Board.

Before coming to the Single Parent Connection, “I felt like I was the worst person in the world, like I was a bad mother, that no one would go out with me,” said Overturf, who has since attended three of the group’s sessions and is a member of the advisory board. Now, Overturf said, she likes being a single mother.

“I enjoy having all the decision-making to myself,” she explained.