Synopses & Reviews
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce gave us new and important insight into the long-term effects of divorce on children who have grown into adulthood.
What About the Kids? is a new book that tells parents in unprecedented detail how to help their children over the long haul--what to say, what to do, what to expect--every step of the way.
Tapping into the latest findings on how children develop, this clearly written guidebook helps parents understand why children at different ages react the way they do to divorce and how to head off trouble before it begins. The book follows divorce chronologically so parents can find advice for whatever stage of the experience they are in, including how to help older children many years after the breakup.
- Part One--The Immediate Breakup: What you need to know to get your own life back on track, what to tell the children, how children react, the reasons for their reactions, and thoughts on when is the best time to divorce.
- Part Two--The First Few Years: Setting routines, getting legal help, choosing the right custody to fit your child, finding support, and how to realistically follow the advice 'don't fight.'
- Part Three--Assessing the Post-Divorce Family Five and Ten Years Down the Road: Take another close look at yourself and your kids. Divorce requires a new kind of father, mother, and teenager.
- Part Four--When Outsiders Join the Family: Dating, sex, remarriage, blended families, holidays, and what step-parents need to know.
- Part Five--Conversations for a Lifetime: How to talk with your children as they enter young adulthood so they feel safe and free to seek relationships based on love, trust, and mutual commitment.
What About the Kids? is the ultimate resource for any person wishing to ease the effects of divorce on children, and for all divorced parents who want to ensure their children's future happiness.
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
Synopsis
Now in paperback--a groundbreaking guide that tells parents how to help their children at the time of the breakup and in the many years that follow within the post-divorce and remarried family--from the
New York Times bestselling author of
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce.
In the tradition of the best parenting guidebooks comes a new work by the renowned child psychologist Judith Wallerstein on a subject that vexes millions of American moms and dads: How can you genuinely protect your children during and after divorce? Wallerstein answers this important question based on 30 years of in-depth interviews with children of divorce and their parents.
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 shows parents 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 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.