If you are a single parent, chances are that you are blue in the face from having recited all of your responsibilities to yourself over and over again. You know about everything that you need to do for your child, you are well aware of the fact that you are on your own and in the end you have some sort of an action plan for dealing with the days ahead.
In spite of all of that, there is likely one aspect of your life that you have not had a chance to think about and that is your leisure time.
While it may be tempting for you to ignore the urge to carve out time for yourself in favor of your children, you need to realize that even the most ruggedly independent person needs some time to get away from it all, even if that is only in their mind. It is very easy to stagnate and develop depression symptoms if you don’t take some time off which is why an essential action for every single parent is to make sure that they spend some time doing leisurely pursuits on a regular basis.
This does not mean that you have to leave the house to go partying. In fact, if you have a hobby at home such as knitting, painting, sewing, gardening or anything else that allows you to stay inside your house while enjoying yourself, you can always schedule some time for that hobby each week. It would be a great solution to giving yourself leisure time. Even if you don’t have one, there are many great home-based hobbies out there that you could easily build up.
If you don’t have a hobby and do need to get out of the house in order to get some leisure time, you might see if you can get someone to watch your child for a few hours each week. Other single parents are great for this because you can always just return the favor on another night, but even hiring a babysitter to watch your child for a few hours one night a week is pretty inexpensive.
