What About the Kids? - Softcover

Blakeslee, Sandra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786887516 ISBN 13: 9780786887514

Publisher: Hyperion - Acquired Assets, 2004

Synopsis

The groundbreaking handbook that helps parents guide their children through divorce and co-parenting -- including the introduction of step-parents -- from a New York Times bestselling author and child psychologist.

This is the definitive work from the renowned child psychologist Judith Wallerstein on a subject that concerns millions of American moms and dads: How can you protect your children during and after divorce?

Divorce is not a single event but a lifelong trajectory of changed circumstances that demand a different kind of parenting than we have ever known. In What About the Kids? Wallerstein draws on thirty years of in-depth interviews with children of divorce and their parents to show how to create a new family with compassion and wisdom. It covers issues that arise at the time of divorce as well as suggestions for talking to your children months and years after the event.

Eminent psychologist Judith S. Wallerstein shares her unique insight and advice in What About the Kids? -- the first comprehensive guide to easing the impact of divorce on your children -- including:

• The best and worst ages for children to experience their parents' divorce
• Right and wrong ways to explain divorce to your children
• Choosing a custody arrangement that's best for your child
• How to involve the grandparents -- a major resource?
• Getting the children on your side when you form new relationships
• The positive effects of divorce on children (believe it or not)
• How divorce can actually make you a better parent
• Raising children who grow up able to form lasting relationships

About this title

About the Author

Judith S. Wallerstein is the founder and executive director of the Center for the Family in Transition. She is senior lecturer emerita at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has taught for twenty-six years. She has spoken with more divorced families than anyone in the nation, and lectured to thousands of family court judges, attorneys, mental health professionals, mediators, and educators. She has appeared on Oprah, the Today show, and Good Morning America, among others. She is the author, with Sandra Blakeslee, of the national bestsellers The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts and Second Chances: Men, Women, and Children a Decade After Divorce; with Blakeslee and Julia M. Lewis of the bestseller The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study; and, with Dr. Joan Berlin Kelly, of Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce. She lives in Belvedere, California.

Sandra Blakeslee is an award-winning science writer who contributes regularly to the New York Times. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

From Publishers Weekly

The founder and executive director for the Center for the Family in Transition, Wallerstein taught at UC Berkeley for more than 25 years, but is best known as the author of The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which taught adult children of divorce how to recognize reactive divorce-based behavior patterns. Here with New York Times science writer Blakeslee, Wallerstein explicitly hopes to complement Dr. Spock and Dr. T. Berry Brazelton’s child rearing how-tos by showing parents how to guide children through the dissolution of a marriage. She does an excellent job. After a chapter that advises parents to get their own heads straight before dealing with the kids ("I wish I could tell you that it’s ok to lie down and pull the covers over your head, but that’s not possible"), Wallerstein addresses the developmental problems that infants and toddlers might face and ways of easing them into differing options for care. She’s forthright in talking about the reactions of older children ("Teenagers can be excellent manipulators. All of them do it, but children of divorce have much more to work with"), and talks about their needs with empathy, insight and rigor, but never loses sight of what parents need and feel, too. Chapters cover "The Breakup," "Parent to Parent" advice on custody and avoiding disputes, "The Post-Divorce Family," "Second Marriage" and "Conversations for a Lifetime," or talks that help kids not to be afraid of love and commitment. Addressing everything from parent-to-parent blame to the many forms of child-to-parent resentment, Wallerstein offers firm honesty and supportive encouragement. Divorcing parents will be grateful for it, and a confirmed Today show appearance and satellite TV tour should help spread the word.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion - Acquired Assets
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786887516
• ISBN 13: 9780786887514
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400