5 Back to School Tips for Single Moms

Last Updated on September 14, 2023 by Lori Pace

The number of single mothers in college is undoubtedly increasing across many states in the U.S. Most of them face challenges balancing academics and being full-time moms. So, what are the tips for Single Moms to balance their personal life and school life?

Typical college life is usually full of assignments and other activities. As a result, doing your best in class as a single mother can exponentially be more difficult. Here are a few tips that will keep you going.

Back to School Tips for Single Moms
Academics and full-time moms? How?

Seek help | Back to School Tips for Single Moms

This could be a family member, friend, or babysitter. Whenever you crave an hour or two alone so that you can study or take a rest from the rigorous activities, you can always ask for it. All you need is to be specific about what you need.

Everyone needs help sometimes, and single mothers are no exception. Without help, most of the single mothers pursuing their favorite courses in the colleges would end up in isolation. It’s hard for single mothers to ask for help or admit they need help. 

Try to read more

As a single mother, you need to read as inspiring materials as possible. When the helper is around, you can use this time to revise for the exams or get involved in other educational activities. This can either be a writing exercise or your college project. You can use various essay examples from various sites to get inspired. The easy thing is to have a look at Black Lives Matter essay titles on WritingBros. Whenever you need help, you can always use the essay samples to enrich yourself with great vocabulary.

Keep in touch with your classmates

People, Students, University, Campus, Classmates
Stay connected with classmates!

Having lots of responsibilities may be why you keep forgetting things now and then. Forgetting is part of life, especially when you are handling many things simultaneously. So, how do you manage to keep the pace of the learning? Stay connected with your classmates at school, moms!

Quality connections are vital for college life. Create online groups to discuss topics that you are facing challenges with. Keeping in touch with your classmates via mobile phones is one of the benefits of technology in education.

Readjust your priorities

It’s normal for every mother to fall into the superwoman trap. That’s the feeling that they have to do all house chores and still attend to the kids. Doing this will deprive of reading time. Then, how do you get out of this trap? The trick here lies in being realistic with what you can do daily.

You can’t accomplish all the household tasks in a day and still get time to read deeply for the exams. If possible, you can take your clothes to the laundry. This will save you more time to cover extra study materials. The best thing here will be to lower your expectations of what you think you can do.

Say goodbye to guilt | Back to School Tips for Single Moms

When things get awry, it’s normal to feel like you made a mistake! And what follows is that you start blaming yourself for things that you can’t change instead of reading. You may be working too much, being embattled by your ex, or feeling that your family is getting “fractured.”

While it’s effortless to find something to nag about or feel guilty about, it’s always vital to focus on what is good and right for your family and education life. Focusing on what went wrong will keep you blind to the opportunities ahead of you. 

Keep realistic goals for yourself

Unrealistic goals are a major source of stress for most single mothers in college. Even if you share custody with the ex-husband, you will probably find yourself facing challenges with setting goals. It becomes hard to get through all things on your must-do list each day.

If it’s about performance, do not set too high goals for yourself. A slight improvement is better than setting too high targets that you will never achieve. If you fail to achieve them, you will find something to blame. And this will usually be your family. 

Conclusion

Every single mother face challenge when trying to balance education and being a superwoman. Most of them are probably acquainted with a nagging sense of guilt. To cope with these challenges, you need to keep abreast of what’s happening in class, say goodbye to guilt and readjust priorities. You can seek help whenever you feel something isn’t working as expected and keep reading quality materials. Keep connected with your classmates so that they can help you whenever you feel lost.

Lori Pace
Lori Pace

Lori Pace is a single mother of three daughters ages 7 and under. As a working mom from home, she balances kids, work and two crazy dogs with humor and love. Follow Lori as she honestly gives tips and advice based on her own experiences as a single mom!