These ten books are the top sellers in parenting children through the changes you are facing in your life, and the ways in which it affects your children.
1. How To Talk to Your Children About Divorce Written by Jill Jones-Soderman and Alison Quattrocchi. This guide aids the parent in listening, believing, and nurturing their children though this difficult time. It is clear, concise and insightful.
2. Making Divorce Easier on Your Child- 50 Effective Ways to Help Children Adjust Written by Nicholas Long and Rex L. Forehand. This book offers immediate answers and quick advice about dealing with the different problems children of divorce face, without having to wade through information about divorces impact.
3. The Truth About Children and Divorce Written by the nationally recognized expert Robert Emery who applies his experience as a researcher, therapist, and mediator to show parents how our powerful emotions and the way we handle them shape how we divorce—and whether our children suffer or thrive in the long run. His message is hopeful, yet realistic.
4. Difficult Questions Kids Ask and Are Afraid to Ask About Divorce Written by Meg Schneider and Joan Zuckerberg. The questions children ask during a divorce can be hard to address because parents aren’t sure how much to explain or how to go about it. This book gives parents a helpful guide to addressing the questions children may ask as well as those they may be thinking but afraid to ask
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5. It’s Not Your Fault, Koko Bear: A Read-Together Book for Parents and Children Written by Vicky Lanski, this book is written at a reading level for age 4-8, and reassures children that their feelings are normal, that their parents will still love and take care of them, and that the divorce is not their fault. At the bottom of each page are tips for parents to discuss with their children. It’s a really cute idea for a really difficult subject.
6. Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce This book, written by Judith Wallerstein, the executive director of The Center for Family in Transition makes some great points, such as parents need to deal with their own feelings before talking with their child. It is a very common sense approach for a time when common sense seems to be fleeting.
7. Helping Your Kids Cope With Divorce the Sandcastle Way The Sandcastle Workshop, now mandatory in many counties across the country is an intensive workshop for children, where they use their creative energies to express feelings they may be having due to divorce. It is an excellent outlet for children who may need help voicing their feelings. Written by Gary Neuman.
8. Joint Custody With a Jerk Written by by Julie Ross and Judy Corcoran, this book is good for anyone, even those not going through divorce because it teaches strategies for using in crisis situation and how to effectively communicate with a difficult person.
9. Good Parenting Through Your Divorce Written by Mary Ellen Hannibal and Judge Ina Gyemant, this book is a guide for active, receptive listening to your child, and help dealing with the myriad of emotions your child faces with the changes and adjustments of divorce.
10. The Co-Parenting Survival Guide-Letting Go of Conflict After a Difficult Divorce The authors of this book, Elizabeth Thayer and Jeffrey Zimmerman are the founders of Parents Allied to Co-Parent Effectively (PEACE). A service for high-conflict divorced or divorcing parents. They offer advice ranging from conflict resolution to dealing with stepparents, advice that could save parents thousands of dollars in legal fees and protect kids from needless misery and trauma.
