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Don't Divorce Your Children: Children and Their Parents Talk About Divorce
Jennier Lewis & William Sammons
Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group, 1999
MANY YEARS AGO, in a premarital counseling and family session with a 24-year-old bride-to-be, her future spouse, and his 8-year-old daughter from his first marriage, I asked the daughter if she knew what a "stepparent" was. She replied, "Oh yes, my mother told me that when my dad gets married, I will have a stepmother, and when he gets married again, I will have another stepmother, and when he gets married again, I will have another stepmother." Many such memories were conjured when reading Don't Divorce Your Children: Children and Their Parents Talk About Divorce, by Jennifer Lewis and William Sammons. It is a delightful and wellwritten book that conveys the fundamental and complex experiences of divorce.
This is a unique book that, among other strengths, has masterfully given voice to children who experience divorce through a case example approach. It offers the reader the opportunity to hear the stories of children who have experienced conflicts in adjusting to the changes resulting from their parents' divorce. Their views are presented in a creative storytelling narrative. The children's perspective is balanced by allowing both parents to give their perspectives on the conflicts with their divorcing spouses, and on the challenges that they see for...