by Stephen Bate

Created on: January 30, 2008

Single Parent dating strategies? It's a scary subject! For whatever reason you find yourself single and with all of the parental responsibilities, and, suddenly, you find that it's best to put together a strategy for getting "back out there"! I found that it was hard enough being a single parent anyway, without being told one day that, if I wanted to find love again, then I had to plan for it and ensure that the first date was carried out with the precision of a military operation!

Thankfully, it turned out not to be that strict and difficult, indeed relaxing into the whole thing ultimately helped a lot, but I did find that a few ideas and plans before and during a first date did ensure that I, and my date, felt comfortable.

Before the date :

Don't dwell on the past. This may be your first attempt, since becoming single, to get back on the dating scene and you may feel that you are exposing yourself again to the issues that caused your last relationship to break down. Relax! Not all men will have affairs, let you down and disappear. Not all women will find your humor, habits or friends annoying and leave you for a better life. Variety and tastes are more apparent in personalities than anywhere else, so please allow yourself to be strong and allow the potential new date the benefit of the doubt, otherwise this date is doomed from the start.

Make time for the date. Ensure that the date is arranged on a time and day that you KNOW you can make. It's crucial to ensure that you can clear a time of your parental responsibilities and stick to it. There's nothing worse than for the date to be postponed because of a child-related matter, and it's unlikely that the relationship will go far.

Tell your date that you have kids. Your children are bound to pop up in conversation, so it's best to make sure that your date knows they exist before the date. That kind of shock, and their reaction to it, could spoil the whole thing. If they react badly when you tell them, then the relationship was probably doomed anyway.

Find a trustworthy child minder. This one is obvious, but make sure that you trust the person into whom you have trusted the care of your children. They may well have been the focus of your life since you became single, so you will only become tense and nervous on the date if you feel that they are not being properly looked after.

Prepare yourself to be intimate. You have probably been just Mom or Dad for a while, so it's important to remember that you are a loving,

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