- ISBN13: 9780962050220
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Discusses basic concepts of marriage and divorce. Offers children a creative way to sort out the stressful feelings of grief caused by change…. More >>
When Mom and Dad Separate: Children Can Learn to Cope with Grief from Divorce
As a therapist, I use this book more than any other when working with kids going through a parent’s divorce. The progression in the book is excellent going from normalizing changes, to dealing with feelings, to feeling better about self, life and family. It provides natural opportunities to talk about each aspect the child goes through.
Sherry
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Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this for my boyfriends 4 year old daughter and 8 year old son. It’s been years since he and his ex have been living separate lives in separate homes but it seemed apparent that the children were still struggling to adjust. I dedicated an afternoon at B&N to read through various children’s books geared towards coping with divorce and ultimately decided to go with this one. I appreciate it’s neutrality between the mother and father role (quite a few seemed geared towards making the father seem like a dead beat) and while I really enjoyed reading through Dinosaurs Divorce, I was concerned about the page where mommy dinosaur is shown as an alcoholic/pill abuser.
We introduced the books to the children as fun activity guides where they get to create their own story through drawings and words. Both kids thought it was soooo cool that they could ‘write and draw’ in a book all about them. Personally, I was REALLY impressed at how easy it was for them to communicate in drawings and I was absolutely thrilled at the open dialogue that it created between them and their father about their feelings. In addition to helping discover some of the unhealthy misconceptions they both had about their parents divorce, it also allowed us to uncover his daughter’s tremendous fear of death (in particular losing either one of her parents while she is away from the other on visitation). Tom had recently lost both of his parents to cancer but there was no indication to us that the kids were upset by this and so we just assumed that they both had a very healthy understanding of life and death. As a result of our success with this book, we’ve also purchased “When someone very special dies” by the same author to help guide them through having healing conversations on this topic.
I would highly recommend this book as a great tool for open communication on an otherwise challenging topic.
Rating: 5 / 5
I use this in counseling elementary age students. Guided drawing like this seems to work well with some children, not well with others, but can be very adaptable for different ages. I find it’s a good way to start conversations with many students, and the drawing process itself seems to be very helpful to some. I really like pages on feelings; these are pretty much the same as some pages in Heegaard’s other books.
I will note that although the title says “Separate” many pages use the word divorce, so it gets tricky to use with my students whose parents are separated but not divorced. I just pick and choose the pages that don’t say “divorce” or use the other pages to inspire me for topics.
Rating: 4 / 5
In 2002, I seperated from my husband and my son who was 5 at the time had a hard time adjusting. I enrolled him in counseling and happened on this book. I must say it was EXTREMELY HELPFUL. My son was able to show me his feelings in pictures and I was able to make that connection that helped him cope with what was happening to our family.
I had two other children as well but they were too young at the time of the divorce to understand what was happening. Now that they are 5 also they are beginning to understand and one daughter in particular is having a hard time. I am sooo glad I refound this book. I just purchased it again for her and cant wait til we can start healing together when it arrives.
Rating: 5 / 5
I found this book extremely helpful in my therapy work with children whose parents are divorcing. The art therapy format was especially helpful for my nonverbal kids. The book nicely addresses many issues that may arise for children in a nonthreatening manner. Most of all, it did a good job of explaining “divorce”, a very grown-up concept, in kid terms.
Rating: 5 / 5