Children Come First: Mediation, Not Litigation When Marriage Ends

For three decades Dr. Howard H. Irving has championed the use of divorce mediation outside the adversarial court system to save couples and their children from the bitter legacy of legal wrangling and winner-takes-all custody battles. Now, calling on his vast experience mediating more than 2,000 cases, Irving has written Children Come First directly for couples contemplating or undergoing divorce.

In this book the author takes a tripartite approach that points out:

• the dangers of the adversarial approach to divorce,
• the benefits of divorce mediation, and
• how parents can put their children first during and after their divorce.

Children Come First is written in a reader-friendly style with case studies, charts, and diagrams, as well as illustrations from the author's renowned practice. Ultimately, this book takes parents through the process of building a shared parenting plan that places their children's interests uppermost while still addressing the parents' unique situations and needs.

Howard H. Irving is internationally recognized as the co-founder of therapeutic family mediation and is a founding member and past president of Family Mediation Canada. His previous books include Therapeutic Family Mediation, and he is professor emeritus at the University of Toronto's Faculties of Social Work and Law. Dr. Irving lives in Toronto.