When you are a divorced parent, you've got your hands quite full. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done, and your kids can fire questions at you more rapidly than a cherry-spitting contest. Arguments over dinner and homework abound. Sometimes, you can get overwhelmed and want to throw in the towel.

Children don't understand overwhelm. They don't understand not having enough money. Your children never think to give you any up front heads up that they're going to have to go buy school supplies for their projects. They don't understand that bunches of kids yelling and laughing can get on your nerves. They don't understand their arguing can drive you nuts. They don't see the full picture.

But you do. And it's the full picture that we want to talk about here, because it's that full picture that will help you to unfold the courage you'll need in order to persevere with your Great Parenting Plan. You have made a plan, haven't you? You're not just winging it, are you?

The Great Parenting Plan is where you are all dressed up, dabbing the tears from your eyes, watching your child walk down the aisle at his graduation. It could be a high school graduation or a college graduation. That all depends on your plan. You want to take yourself in thought out to that point in the future where your child graduates and begins to move off into his own life, fully self-sufficient and capable. You've got to see the picture of how to get your child to that "dream" place from where each of you is at the present time.

Working backwards from that moment in the plan, but always keeping it in the forefront of your thinking, will help you get through those challenging moments that create overwhelm, those moments when you might not even want to be a mom or dad anymore. There is no quitting option though. Your kids are here and they deserve your best. It is your golden opportunity to summon up all of your resources and give it one heck of a go.

It takes courage to persevere with the Great Parenting Plan, and it takes thinking problems through thoroughly to unfold that courage. One of the nicest aspects of parenting is that the things you need to do the job are all built in. Yep. You had them when you were born. You've been building them while you lived your own life. Doing a parent's job is like earning a Doctoral degree. D. in strengthening virtues!

What happens is that your kids provide some test for you - they test your patience, or your courage, or your ability to love. And you have the option to say "Yes, I can" or "No, I can't.There are times when you might be thinking that you just "cannot" but your force yourself to say "I can" and then you just do it. Have you ever noticed that in life, when you make a commitment, somehow in someway the fulfillment for that commitment seems to just happen.

When I was a young parent, I needed a reliable car. Car wasn't in the budget that month, but we needed that car. I made the commitment. I don't remember ever not making that payment easily. Magically, when you make a commitment, whatever you've committed to actually happens - somehow, someway.

It will happen the same way with bringing up the courage to persevere. If you determine that, by gosh, you will persevere in doing the absolute best job you can to be their mom or dad, the courage that it takes in the moment (that'd be the moment when you're exhausted and they need a ride downtown,) you will bring up the courage to set yourself aside and provide what they need from you.

You'll do it repeatedly throughout the tenure of your divorce. You won't remember these moments when you see them at their graduation ceremony and you will be such a proud divorced mom or dad. You'll forget about all the overwhelm. Oh they'll have told you "Dad, puhle-e-eze don't cry at my graduation" and you'll try. You'll really try. Only you will know of all the times when you set yourself aside to care for them, of all those hundreds of details you handled to be a good parent, and you won't be able to help those escaping tears. They're tears of joy. I know.