Books About Separation and Divorce  |  Websites

Books About Separation and Divorce

There are a LOT of divorce books out there, and more coming out every day. For those of you who’ve asked for help separating the wheat from the chaff, here’s my current short list. I’ve steered away from the preachy, gimmicky, and self help-ish, and toward the solid, well-informed, and reassuring. Not an exhaustive culling, just a good start. Have a favorite of your own? Let me know.

For Adults

• Child Friendly Divorce: A Divorce(d) Therapist’s Guide to Helping Your Children Thrive, Diane M. Berry
• The Good Divorce: Keeping Your Family Together When Your Marriage Comes Apart, Constance Ahrons
• Collaborative Divorce: The Revolutionary New Way to Restructure Your Family, Resolve Legal Issues, and Move on with Your Life, Pauline Tesler and Peggy Thompson
• Mom’s House, Dad’s House: Making Two Homes for Your Child, Isolina Ricci
• Divorce Solutions, Marcy Jones
• Crazy Time, Abigail Trafford

For Young Children

• At Daddy’s on Saturday, Linda Walvoord Girard
• I Don’t Want to Talk About It, Jeanie Franz Ransom
• Loon Summer, Barbara Santucci
• Mama and Daddy Bear’s Divorce, Cornelia Maude Spelman
• Was it the Chocolate Pudding?, Sandra Levins and Bryan Langdo
• We’re Having a Tuesday, D.K. Simoneau
• Two Homes, Clare Masurel
• It’s Not Your Fault, KoKo Bea, V. Lansky

For Older Children

• What in the World do you do When Your Parents Divorce? A Survival Guide for Kids, Kent Winchester and Roberta Beyer
• Mom’s House, Dad’s House for Kids:Feeling at Home in One Home or Two, Isolina Ricci
• A Smart Girl’s Guide to Her Parents Divorce, Nancy Holyoke for American Girl Publishing
• Divorce is Not the End of the World: Zoe and Evan’s Coping Guide for Kids, Zoe and Evan Stern

Other Helpful Tools for Divorcing Parents

• Enligntened Littles (www.elittles.com): This website offers appealing and original tools for helping young children understand and navigate divorce. For example, there’s a terrific, simple visual calendar to help kids track their two-home schedule.
• “Split: A Film for Kids of Divorce (and Their Parents)”  (www.splitfilm.org).  The wonderful short film by and for children with parting parents is perfect for helping reeling kids feel less lonely and alone, and for use as a conversation starter for families. See my review here: Split Film Review by Kate Scharff
• Family Wizard (OurFamilyWizard.com): This online services simplifies co-parenting by offering an a la carte  variety of tools such as shared calendars, streamlined schedule changes,  easy expense tracking, centralized information sharing (report cards, medical records, etc), messaging, and monitored communication.  Essential for higher conflict parents, helpful for all.

Websites

Divorce (General):

• Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC)
  The AFCC is the premier international association of professionals dedicated to improving the lives of children and families through the resolution of family conflict. The AFCC site is a wonderful source of information.
• Association for Conflict Resolution

Collaborative Divorce:

• International Association of Collaborative Professionals

Collaborative Divorce in the DC area

• The DC Academy of Collaborative Professionals (DCACP)
• Collaborative Dispute Resolution Professionals (CDRP)
• Collaborative Divorce Association (CDA)
• The Collaborative Project of Maryland (offering low and pro-bono Collaborative services to families of modest means).