When Parents Part: How Mothers and Fathers Can Help Their Children Deal with Separation and Divorce

A practical, comprehensively researched guide to doing the best for your child during and after separation or divorce—from the bestselling author of Your Baby & Child, one of the world’s leading experts on child development and parenting.

“Wide-ranging, incisive, and candid.... Lots of sound practical advice.” ­—Psychology Today

Using the latest scientific research in child development, Penelope Leach details the effects of divorce on children in five stages of life—infants, toddlers, primary-school children, teenagers, and young adults—some of whom are far more deeply affected than previously thought. She explains recent studies that overturn common assumptions, showing, for example, that many standard custody arrangements for young children can be harmful. Leach’s advice is meticulously considered and exhaustive, covering everything from access, custody, and financial and legal considerations to managing separate sets of technology in two households, and she includes the voices of parents and children to illustrate her points. Above all, she holds up “mutual parenting” as the ideal way to co-parent after a divorce, offering concrete ways for parents to put responsiveness to their children’s needs ahead of their feelings about each other.

PENELOPE LEACH is a research psychologist, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a visiting professor at Winchester University, and a Senior Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London, and at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She has been president of the Child Minding Association, vice president of the Health Visitors’ Association, and president and chair of the Child Development Society. She has also been a consulting editor at Child magazine; a member of the Professional Advisory Council of the American Institute for Child, Adolescent, and Family Studies; and a member of the Curricula Board of Sesame Street.