What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce

Rating:
Summary: Informative & helpful guide for divorcing families
Review: As an adult whose parents divorced when I was about five years old, I can only imagine what my mother and father went through during that time. As a young child, I was too concerned with my own life and routines to even wonder how the divorce affected them. I do know that I had a very happy childhood, and I don't remember my routines being too disrupted.

My parents were among the millions of men and women who have decided on divorce. The process of divorce can be complicated as it is. But if there are children in the family, divorce can be a very traumatic experience for all involved. If divorce is not easy for the adults, why would it be any easier for the children?

In the book, "What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce," by Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, divorce is looked at as being new beginning, since everyone's lives will be different from that point on. How can parents protect themselves from being any less of the parent they were before the divorce? How do parents explain their divorce to their children, and how can they protect their children during each stage of their new lives? This book contains these answers and much more. Parents who are going through or have already gone through a divorce will learn the best way to take care of themselves, their children, and how to handle many of life's situations as a divorced parent.

MyParenTime highly recommends this book -- it is easy-to-read and is written in a non-discriminating tone. It provides helpful information to parents who are going through a difficult time in their lives. It also focuses on the children at different stages in their lives -- because parents are not the only ones whose lives will be changed forever.

Rating:
Summary: If you a parent getting a divorce, you must read this book
Review: I thought this was the most helpful book I read on divorce and its impact on the kids. I have kids of different ages and there was VERY helpful information for each one of them. I would have been lost without this book. Besides the author has done research on kids of divorce for 25 years and really understands the long term effects of divorce on kids -- at every age.

Read the excerpt in the "look inside" section.

Rating:
Summary: Be careful of Wallerstein's work
Review: Judith Wallerstein has been amicus curiae (a friend of the court) in many custody related cases but she is certainly no friend of children who would like to have both parents in their lives.

Her research, which was presented in a pivotal custody case in California (In re: Marriage of Burgess), was very influential in the court's decision. That decision has been widely criticized and has led to countless children in the state growing up without one of their parents, usually the father. In recent amicus curiae briefs filed by Wallerstein she relies heavily on anecdotal accounts of cases in which she played no part and disregards substantial amounts of literature that highlight the harmful impact of the loss of important relationships to a child and shows that children do much better with two loving, competant parents. She has even contridicted herself on positions that she originally took in the Burgess case.

Her research has been widely criticized in recent years and this book will likely be no exception.

Rating:
Summary: well-written complete guidebook
Review: When it comes to the children (including adults) of divorce parents, Judith S. Wallerstein is considered the self-help guru based on the insightful THE UNEXPECTED LEGACY OF DIVORCE. Her newest effort to help families is a discerning collaboration with Sandra Blakeslee that provides a how to guide book to assist divorcing or divorced parents with helping their children survive the break up of the marriage.

The authors insist that the former spouses must straighten themselves out rather quickly so that they can be there for the children (think airline oxygen mask instructions). Infants and toddlers need immediate assistance while adapting to changes in care and nurturing. Preadolescents require empathy and the knowledge the parents will be there as they struggle with the emotional bombs of change. Teens will manipulate the guilt of the parents better than Machiavelli so provide empathy and understanding, but also remember the parent has feelings too. Even adults have issues that their splitting parents must not ignore. Other topics provide insight into the before during, after, and second marriages with a thorough index to further assist the reader.

This is a well-written complete guidebook encouraging the divorcees that with integrity they can handle the grenades their resentful, often angry children and perhaps their former partner toss at them.

Rating:
Summary: well-written complete guidebook
Review: When it comes to the children (including adults) of divorce parents, Judith S. Wallerstein is considered the self-help guru based on the insightful THE UNEXPECTED LEGACY OF DIVORCE. Her newest effort to help families is a discerning collaboration with Sandra Blakeslee that provides a how to guide book to assist divorcing or divorced parents with helping their children survive the break up of the marriage.

The authors insist that the former spouses must straighten themselves out rather quickly so that they can be there for the children (think airline oxygen mask instructions). Infants and toddlers need immediate assistance while adapting to changes in care and nurturing. Preadolescents require empathy and the knowledge the parents will be there as they struggle with the emotional bombs of change. Teens will manipulate the guilt of the parents better than Machiavelli so provide empathy and understanding, but also remember the parent has feelings too. Even adults have issues that their splitting parents must not ignore. Other topics provide insight into the before during, after, and second marriages with a thorough index to further assist the reader.

This is a well-written complete guidebook encouraging the divorcees that with integrity they can handle the grenades their resentful, often angry children and perhaps their former partner toss at them.