When Parents Part

From the author of the bestselling Your Baby and Child comes a book full ofcompletely practical, comprehensively researched information and advice on howyou can do what is best for your child when you are going through a separationor divorce.Using the latest scientific research in childdevelopment, Penelope Leach covers the various effects of divorce on childrenin five stages of life--infants, toddlers/preschoolers, primary school children,teenagers, college students/young adults--many of whom are far more deeply affectedthan previously thought. She explains recent studies that overturn many commonassumptions and that show, for example, how many standard custody arrangementsfor very young children are harmful to children's attachment to their parentsand therefore to their brain development. There is evidence to suggest that thepractice of having infants and toddlers spend regular overnights with noncustodialparents may be damaging, and the practice of dividing children's time equallybetween the parents is seldom best for the children.Leach's advice is meticulously considered andexhaustive, covering everything from access, custody, and financial and legalconsiderations to managing separate sets of technology in two houses, and sheincludes the voices of both parents and children to illustrate her points. Sheexplains why mutual parenting is the ideal way to co-parent after adivorce and delineates ways to carry this out. And throughout, she makes clearthat, most importantly in any separation or divorce, both parents must puttheir relationship to their children and responsiveness to their needs ahead oftheir feelings about each other.