Synopses & Reviews
A successful co-parenting relationship is as vital to your child's well-being and health as nutritious food or proper exercise. Research, anecdotal evidence, and plain common sense all point to the fact that children are happier, healthier, and better adjusted when both of their parents play an active role in their lives. Studies also show that the trauma children experience in the wake of a divorce or separation can be lessened when they see their parents getting along. Kids whose parents successfully co-parent feel more secure than those who have limited or no connection to one of their parents post divorce.
Co-Parenting 101 is based on the premise that co-parenting is a must, not an option. The involvement of both parentsnot just the primary guardianis the cornerstone of successful co-parenting. This is the first book written by a formerly married couple for whom co parenting is central to their day to day lives, and it offers a comprehensive, personal, and upfront look at how to effectively raise kids with an ex-spouse.
Authors Deesha Philyaw and Michael D. Thomas, the creators of the popular co-parenting website, co-parenting101.org, share their own experiences raising their children together, as well as provide professional advice from co-parenting experts. Through practical tips combined with expert parental strategies, this book a great resource for divorced parents with children.
For parents, less time stressed out about legal wrangling means more time to be fully present and engaged with the children. By learning to put their animosity aside, parents can focus on putting their kids first.
Review
Co-parenting 101 offers practical advice, information, and tools for parents that can be easily implemented, as well as a tremendous amount of hope. I recommend that parents read this book not only to avoid problems but also as a manual to consult when difficult situations arise.”
Susan Pease Gadoua, author of Contemplating Divorce and Stronger Day by Day
Review
As a marital and couples therapist, I have witnessed how contentious divorces affect both the parents and their children. It can be agonizing. I would highly recommend and encourage those folks contemplating divorce to read this book first. It is extremely practical with many vignettes of actual parent struggles, including the authors' own co-parenting journey. The interview with the authors' daughter is particularly touching and poignant, a powerful message for all divorced parents.”
Bari Benjamin, LCSW, BCD, licensed, clinical social worker
Review
An extraordinary book and required reading for separated and divorced parents, as well as mental health practitioners. [
Co-parenting 101] outlines some of the possible pitfalls of the co-parenting process with which clinicians like myself are all too familiar and regularly deal with therapeutically. But now we can refer parents to
Co-parenting 101 to help them mindfully approach the co-parenting process and examine the array of options they have in their parenting toolbox."
Robert F. Fierstein, PhD, licensed psychologist
Review
Deesha Philyaw and Michael D. Thomas have done the impossible. This formerly married couple not only co-parent their children without rancor, but in
Co-parenting 101, they teach us how to do it, too. What a helpful, detailed, and realistic guide to a widespread but much ignored situation! This book will help readers navigate the tricky and often treacherous waters of co-parenting with a former partner.”
Ericka Lutz, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Stepparenting
Review
As a family physician, I care for hundreds of families with parents living separately. The mental and physical health of children is directly impacted by the relationship between their co-parents. I'm recommending this book to every separated family I see. If parents were willing to step up and consider the suggestions made in
Co-parenting 101, their kids would be healthier and far more resilient!”
Deborah Gilboa, MD, of askdoctorg.com
Review
This is a long awaited book! Fruzzetti is a master clinician who does rigorous science in order to provide those of us doing treatment and those in need of it something that works. This is hope for all of us working with individuals, couples and families who suffer. Thank you, Alan, for this timely and important work.
—Suzanne Witterholt, MD, distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Associationand director of Ananda Services for Dialectical Behavior Therapy in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota
Synopsis
Co-Parenting 101 offers a comprehensive, personal, and upfront look at how to effectively raise kids with an ex-spouse. The authors are the creators of the popular website, coparenting101.org, and are co-parents themselves. In the book they share their own experiences, as well as provide professional advice from co-parenting experts. Through practical tips combined with expert parental strategies, this book will encourage and equip divorced parents to put animosity aside and put their kids first.
Synopsis
This revised and expanded edition of the classic relationship-skills book offers couples a comprehensive approach to better communication, greater intimacy, and deeper commitment. The new edition includes way to use acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) principles for better conflict management.
Synopsis
Love takes work, but, when it comes to relationships, it pays to work smarter. Couple Skills, Second Edition, revised and updated from the therapist-recommended classic, will show you how to work smarter in your relationship. You'll learn to improve communication, cope better with problems, and resolve conflicts with the one you love in healthy and creative ways. Each chapter teaches you an essential skill that supports greater relationship satisfaction and deeper intimacy.
New to this edition is a chapter on using acceptance skills, developed from the revolutionary new acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). These new approaches will help you to accept your partner's feelings (and your own emotions) without judgment. Using these techniques will help you decide what you really value in your relationship and then commit to acting in ways that further those values every day.
Synopsis
This is the first book to use dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help high-conflict couples regulate out-of-control emotions, tolerate distressing situations, and resolve problemsan approach proven to help even the most highly reactive couples build healthy relationships.
Synopsis
You hear and read a lot about ways to improve your relationship. But if you've tried these without much success, you're not alone. Many highly reactive couples—pairs that are quick to argue, anger, and blame—need more than just the run-of-the-mill relationship advice to solve their problems in love. When destructive emotions are at the heart of problems in your relationship, no amount of effective communication or intimacy building will fix what ails it. If you're part of a "high-conflict" couple, you need to get control of your emotions first, to stop making things worse, and only then work on building a better relationship.
The High-Conflict Couple adapts the powerful techniques of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) into skills you can use to tame out-of-control emotions that flare up in your relationship. Using mindfulness and distress tolerance techniques, you'll learn how to deescalate angry situations before they have a chance to explode into destructive fights. Other approaches will help you disclose your fears, longings, and other vulnerabilities to your partner and validate his or her experiences in return. You'll discover ways to manage problems with negotiation, not conflict, and to find true acceptance and closeness with the person you love the most.
About the Author
Matthew McKay, PhD, is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and coauthored numerous books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, When Anger Hurts, and ACT on Life Not on Anger. He has also penned two fiction novels, Us and The Wawona Hotel. McKay received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. He lives and works in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.Patrick Fanning is a professional writer in the mental health field and the founder of a men's support group in northern California. He has authored and coauthored eight self-help books, including Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, Couple Skills, and Mind and Emotions.Kim Paleg, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and El Sobrante, CA. She is on the faculty of John F. Kennedy University. She is a contributing author to the self-help classic When Anger Hurts and coedited the widely used professional book Focal Group Psychotherapy. She specializes in couples and family therapy and conducts workshops on parenting.