Growing Up with Divorce: Helping Your Child Avoid Immediate and Later Emotional Problems [Paperback]

Neil Kalter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 1991

In the 1990s, 40 percent of all children growing up in America will experience the often devastating impact of a parental divorce. Now, here are reassuring practical strategies for dealing with your children's varied emotional responses to the event. Using extensive examples drawn from his own clinical experience and research, Dr. Neil Kalter describes the three universal stages of divorce, and how each stage affects children in various age groups--from infancy through adolescence. Inside, Dr. Kalter gives expert advice on how to:

¸  Recognize the signs of emotional distress before it gets out of hand
¸  Minimize your children's stress during a wide variety of potentially "explosive" situations--from joint custody to dating
¸  Pinpoint and mitigate the private fears that cause your children's "acting out" at home, in school, or with friends
¸  Communicate effectively with your child using a variety of indirect and non-threatening techniques

Written with insight, intelligence, and compassion, Growing Up with Divorce is an indispensable resource for all parents going through a divorce and the professionals who counsel them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Director of the Family Styles Project at the University of Michigan, Kalter observes that "divorce is a continuing presence in the psychological lives of the great majority of the children" he treats in clinical practice. Children's levels of development--cognitive, emotional and social--at the time of the parents' divorce creates an enormous variability in response. Kalter delineates five stages of development from infancy through adolescence, illustrates them through case studies and anecdotes, and demonstrates a variety of ways parents can help children at different stages cope with change and stress, and provide for possible long-range effects of divorce. This book presents a framework for those concerned with helping children of divorce grow in psychological health.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Professor Kalter has written a wise, compassionate, and eminently practical guidebook for divorcing parents that will help them to understand and to comfort their children. This is a book that has been needed for a long time." -- Judith S. Wallerstein, Ph.D., author of The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce

"I found Growing Up With Divorce very practical and helpful for parents. In particular, I liked Kalter's developmental approach to protecting young children and adolescents. It's a very timely and helpful book." -- T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Touchpoints and Families: Crisis and Caring --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; First Ballantine Books Edition edition (March 6, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449905632
• ISBN-13: 978-0449905630
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,747,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imminently helpful to separating families, October 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Growing Up with Divorce: Helping Your Child Avoid Immediate and Later Emotional Problems (Paperback)

As a divorce mediator, I've loaned several copies of this book to separating couples, never to have them returned. Now that the book has been reprinted, I'm ordering a dozen copies for my program, and will give it to separating parents because of its powerful message: "remove your kids from the middle of your marital conflict!"

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent refrence to assist children thru divorce troubles, October 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Growing Up with Divorce: Helping Your Child Avoid Immediate and Later Emotional Problems (Paperback)

Growing Up With Divorce by Dr. Neil Kalter has proven to be an excellent tool for helping the children through the emotional pitfalls of divorce. It is divided by age catagory, tells of the signs of emotional distress then gives practical solutions to help the children through their issues. Good tool to use again and again.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book on Emotional Effects of Divorce on children and adults, July 14, 2007

By 

J. Lerner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Growing Up With Divorce: Helping Your Child Avoid Immediate and Later Emotional Problems (Paperback)

This book looks at the emotions and stages that families go through with "good, bad, and ugly divorces". The book includes rarely discussed syndromes that may occur when one or more parents engage in emotional warfare and the resulting trauma for the children. For example, I have never read such a good description of parent alienation. This is an excellent book to give to people while they are considering divorce so they know what they have to face or how to proceed so that the children are spared great pain and fear. It is an excellent guide for mental health professionals for assessment of children and couples. (I am in social work.)