Co-Parenting After Divorce: How to Raise Happy, Healthy Children in Two-Home Families

Rating:
Summary: Practical help on doing right by your kids after divorce.
Review: Diana Shulman is to be commended! This is a marvelous, straight to the point little book that helped my ex and I get our heads on straight about how to keep our children's mental health intact. It's punchy and practical with lots of day-to-day hints on making the shuffle between Mom's and Dad's households as simple and untraumatic (for everyone) as possible. It's amazing how much useful wisdom can come in such a small, inexpensive package. If you are co-parenting a child you won't regret buying this book.

Rating:
Summary: Short, practical and very inviting to read.
Review: Short, practical and very inviting to read, this self-help book for divorcing parents imparts sound, useful information on a variety of topics including: telling your children about divorce, communicating with an "ex," handling different parenting styles, helping children cope with their feelings and helping parents handle their own feelings.

Rating:
Summary: Some good advice, but not a comprehensive resource.
Review: This book gave some helpful tips on how to make better decisions for the child's care after the dissolution of the parents relationship. But that's basically it: it had some helpful tips. It also only covered the basic issues, not all the bases. I wanted more depth and insight, and more help with learning to make things work creatively, ie, if the child is having separation anxiety, tricks the parents can do to make things more pleasurable for him than scary. It was at least realistic about the emotional trials that will go on between the parents after the separation as they see each other to maintain the child's care, giving a sense that things will be difficult for a while, but can be worked through.
The only thing that really bothered me about it was that it shamed people who co-sleep with their children-
"..do not allow your children to "zonk out" on the couch or sleep in your bed, particularly if your co-parent is working hard on having them sleep in their own beds! Whether you allow your children to sleep in your bed to relieve your own loneliness or ease your guilt about the divorce, it only interferes with their ability to fall asleep by themselves and undermines their sense of independence. The sensuality of sleeping in such close proximity can also stir up sexual feelings - an unintended result that can be confusing and/or frightening."
This view is very one-sided and doesn't give an added address to people who informatively practice co-sleeping, an increasingly common practice in America when children are young. Many parents co-sleep based on solid child-rearing principles. The author also doesn't bother specifying an age at which co-sleeping becomes 'independence-harming' or 'sexual', making it a very general statement, and doesn't bother to point out any research for the reader to consider. There is much research now into the benefits of parents co-sleeping with their children, such as child's increased sense of security and trust as they form their trust vs mistrust view of the world, and reduced SIDS deaths. Certainly not all parents have selfish intentions when they decide co-sleeping is best for their young children. And not everyone has a problem forgetting momentarily that their child isn't their mate and becomes aroused. This author should have given the reader an opportunity to consider the variables of their particular situation before handing out this 'one-size-fits-all' rule to ban co-sleeping.

Rating:
Summary: Co-Parenting After Divorce
Review: This little book was incredibly comforting and helpful through some really stressful moments. The best part was that I actually convinced my ex (or, I should say "co-parenting partner") to read it! - an amazing feat. I recommend to everyone experiencing this painful process.