In my life, the five most important roles I fill are as follows: father, head of household, son, student, and friend. Each role is very challenging and requires a lot of attention.

I am twenty-eight years old and a single father of one. My son Alec lives with me and is the central part of my life. Raising a child requires different communications skills then other relationships. When I talk with Alec, I have to understand that he is just learning the tools of communication and needs time and more importantly patience to allow him to attain them. This is where I think I need practice. Patience does not come naturally to me and I have had to develop it in a short period of time. But as any skill, it still can use further honing to allow me to communicate with my son more effectively.

The role of head of household comes with the above role. I am again raising my son on my own, and because of that, little communication is necessary. There is no one else to discuss household decisions with. I do seek advise from my parents and I use their praise or lack of praise to evaluate my performance.

This leads me to my next role, that of son to my parents. I have a very good relationship with my parents. I have noticed that as I have aged, the relationship between them and myself has grown stronger. I think the main reason for this is, we now can identify with each others situations. So, if you ask my parents about me, they would probably say, I was the best son in the world, as most parents would.

The next role is the easiest to evaluate. The evaluation of how good of a student I am, comes from my grades. I have no problem there. I haven`t seen any low grades in some time. I enjoy school and interacting with professors and fellow classmates.

The last role, the role of friend, is probably the hardest to me. I have a life the is quite full and when I am needed by my friends, I find it hard to tare myself away from other things. I am not good at managing time. My friends usually get left out of the loop.

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