Home

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
Don't Divorce Your Children is about the ups and downs of parenting before, during, and after divorce.

WHO IS IT WRITTEN FOR?
Don't Divorce Your Children is for any parent, male or female, thinking about separating from their spouse, already negotiating a divorce agreement, or long divorced.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE BOOK?
The short term practical goal of Don't Divorce Your Children is to help parents help their children through the life changes divorce inevitably brings. The longer term goal is to ensure parents lay a sound base in the early years, so they can maintain an ongoing close and healthy relationship with their children as they grow into young adults.

WHAT AGE CHILDREN DOES IT DESCRIBE?
The diary format of Don't Divorce Your Children gives voice to the thoughts and feelings of children as young as four and as old as eighteen. While some suggestions are age specific, the advice and guidelines at the end of each chapter are applicable children of any age.

WHY A DIARY FORMAT?
By contrasting diary entries from a child and a parent writing about the same event we can illustrate how children see the world and how their behaviors make sense when their point of view is understood. These insights enable parents to modify their own behavior in order to prevent creating complex problems out of potentially easily soluble ones.

WHY PEDIATRICIANS WRITING ABOUT DIVORCE?
As primary care pediatricians we are in the privileged position of caring for families in sickness and in health over a period of years. Those years encompass the "before-divorce period", the "crisis-of-divorce period" and the many years of recovery. We have seen the decisions and strategies that work to foster strong parent-child relationships and those that lead to problems, either immediately or in the future. We have consulted not only with our own patients but with hundreds of parents across the country who do not need extensive mental health counseling--just enough understanding of their children"s needs and their own abilities and responsibilities to help themselves and their children through hard times. We have written this book for fathers and mothers who do not want to risk divorcing themselves from their children as they extricate themselves from their marriage.

WHO ELSE WOULD BENEFIT FROM THIS BOOK?
Any concerned adult: grandparents, teachers, coaches, school psychologists, mental health professionals, social workers, pediatricians, nurses, attorneys, family court officers, judges could all enhance their understanding of the needs and rights of the children of divorce by reading Don't Divorce Your Children.