How to Divorce Your Spouse Without Hurting Your Child

Every good parent approaches the painful issue of divorce with the best of intentions: you pledge to shield your child from adult concerns, safeguard your child’s tender feelings, and meet his or her emotional needs. You mean it when you say it, but divorce proceedings can and will test your resolve. Reality inevitably intrudes—fractious custody battles, foot-dragging, anger, resentment, financial woes. And the person who may suffer the most is the one whom you love the most—your child. In the Best Interest of the Child, the first book written from the point of view of the one person in the courtroom whose sole concern is the welfare of the child of divorce, gives you crucial information to protect your child and avoid common pitfalls.

As an independent child custody evaluator with eighteen years’ experience, Dr. Stanton Samenow has interviewed thousands of parents, children, relatives, schoolteachers, babysitters, therapists, pediatricians, and family friends. He is familiar with worst-case scenarios, often having been called in to help families resolve child custody disputes after marriage counseling, mediation, and litigation have failed, and he has gained a uniquely comprehensive per-spective of what helps and what hurts children going through their parents’ divorce. In this book, he identifies what parents most need to know to act in the best interest of their child.

In clear, compassionate, yet no-nonsense language, Dr. Samenow shows the child’s view of divorce, what’s at stake in the shift from one household to two, and why parents must see it through their child’s eyes if they hope to act on his or her behalf. He’ll help you identify basic parental styles and how they affect the way you and your spouse handle divorce proceedings. He provides a succinct overview of the legal system to help parents find the safest way through, with suggestions for working with attorneys and dealing with courts and hearings. Finally, he distills his extensive experience in advocating for thousands of children into seven errors parents commonly make and seven guidelines they should follow to help their kids get through divorce and get on with their lives.

“Even loving, well-intentioned parents lose perspective in the emotional turbulence of divorce—and it’s always the children who pay the highest price. But separation, divorce, and resolving child custody need not wreck everyone’s lives. There are ways to minimize the grief, anxiety, frustration, anger, and dissipation of resources. If you know what to avoid and if you take the positive steps I recommend, you can spare your child and yourself an enormous amount of suffering. You can act in the best interest of your child.”

Which of the Seven Deadly Errors of parenting are you making in the midst of divorce?
* Do you denigrate the other parent?
* Do you use the phone, fax, or e-mail as a barricade in your communication with the other parent?
* Do you make your child compartmentalize his or her life?
* Do you compete for your child’s affection?
* Do you align other people against your ex?
* Do you expose your child to adult issues?
* Have you introduced your child to a new love interest too soon?

In the Best Interest of the Child will show you how to avoid these mistakes and help your child thrive during a painful time.