As a child therapist I found this book to be very helpful. I recommend it to all my parents who are divorcing. It is in plain, straightforward language. This book can help the millions of parents who need some insight into what the reactions of children are when their parents divorce. The book discusses developmental, co-parenting, and a plethora of related issues. His style is compassionate, lighthearted, and genuine. A must read for parents who are divorcing and professionals who work with these parents.

M. Gary Neuman is a truely gifted author. His insights and information found in the Sandcastles book helped my family through an extremely difficult time in our lives. The understanding that my ex-wife and I walked away with helped us set the pace and tone for a more healthy future for my family. Although we won't be a couple anymore, Gary helped me see that we will be a family on many levels. It was a gift in a time when life seems vcry difficult for all of us. I can't thank him enough and I even have bought copies for my parents, ex-inlaws and my siblings. It has certainly become one of the most important books I have ever read. I would love to hear him speak if he is ever in California. Please inform me. Thank you to M. Gary Neuman for his reserach and depth of understanding the ever changing families in our country. A book LONG OVERDUE!!!!!!

I have read a number of books for divorcing parents, and this is by far the best. The range of information given is enormous (460 pages!) and covers almost any situation you can imagine. This is the ONLY book I have seen that discusses how to help infants cope with divorce. Neuman's discussion of the needs of children has given me the motivation to avoid fighting with my ex, even when he makes extremely aggravating remarks. His suggestions have also helped me keep my son's father involved; in fact, he spends much more time with our son than he ever did when we were married. The example dialogues are very helpful, and reflect the diversity of real families. Neuman is careful to avoid stereotypes, for example he gives anecdotes about deadbeat moms as well as deadbeat dads.

I first found this book as part of a Psychology research project.
The research that founded this book has influenced the way that government systems deal with divorcing families across America. It is one of the best resources I can think of for families that are going through divorce. Though the title states a decade after divorce the follow up has gone well beyond this. I have been divorced for 15 years - today I am purchasing a copy for my sister who is getting divorced after 18 years of marraige - This is one of those books that I have loned out and lost and loned out and lost repeatedly - they keep getting passed forward. Well worth the little investment of money and time.

It wasn't until recently (I'm almost 40) that I began to look at my parent's divorce as a source of some of my behaviors. I'm very functional,even successful, but sometimes wonder if I haven't been undercut by the blow of losing "home". This is an interesting read, and worth exploring by those who share my suspicion about their own lives. Knowledge is power. Good luck.

I found this book in a second hand shop during the time that my husband and I were considering seperating after an 18 year marriage. I found the book amazenly insightful. I saw the truth in what really happens to children after a divorce and not what the public portrays and "something they will get over." This book made me cry on nearly ever page. I was able to identify with many things, myself as a child of divorce. I did go ahead and get a divorce but this book absolutely changed my life and my actions. My ex husband read the book and we attended classes on how to behave and raise children in THEIR best interests. It has been three years now and even through there have been struggles, I feel I have done the best that a parent can in this situation. My exhusband and I are very amicable and cordial to each other. His child support is never a day late. He calls several times a week because we live in another state. He flies to see the children on spring break and they spend Christmas vacation and summers with him. We never bicker or fight or ever use the children. This book helped us see how parents can fall into patterns of destruction. We are both parents of our two children, and we feel that even though we are divorced we still need to co-parent. We discuss their future and make plans together for them. We owe this to our children. Our children have the right to two loving parents. Because of this book, we have been able to see better ways to raise our children with as little trauma as possible and give them a brighter future. I HIGHLY recommend this book to any couple considering divorce. You OWE it to your children.

As an adult whose parents divorced when I was about five years old, I can only imagine what my mother and father went through during that time. As a young child, I was too concerned with my own life and routines to even wonder how the divorce affected them. I do know that I had a very happy childhood, and I don't remember my routines being too disrupted.

My parents were among the millions of men and women who have decided on divorce. The process of divorce can be complicated as it is. But if there are children in the family, divorce can be a very traumatic experience for all involved. If divorce is not easy for the adults, why would it be any easier for the children?

In the book, "What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce," by Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, divorce is looked at as being new beginning, since everyone's lives will be different from that point on. How can parents protect themselves from being any less of the parent they were before the divorce? How do parents explain their divorce to their children, and how can they protect their children during each stage of their new lives? This book contains these answers and much more. Parents who are going through or have already gone through a divorce will learn the best way to take care of themselves, their children, and how to handle many of life's situations as a divorced parent.

MyParenTime highly recommends this book -- it is easy-to-read and is written in a non-discriminating tone. It provides helpful information to parents who are going through a difficult time in their lives. It also focuses on the children at different stages in their lives -- because parents are not the only ones whose lives will be changed forever.

When it comes to the children (including adults) of divorce parents, Judith S. Wallerstein is considered the self-help guru based on the insightful THE UNEXPECTED LEGACY OF DIVORCE. Her newest effort to help families is a discerning collaboration with Sandra Blakeslee that provides a how to guide book to assist divorcing or divorced parents with helping their children survive the break up of the marriage.

The authors insist that the former spouses must straighten themselves out rather quickly so that they can be there for the children (think airline oxygen mask instructions). Infants and toddlers need immediate assistance while adapting to changes in care and nurturing. Preadolescents require empathy and the knowledge the parents will be there as they struggle with the emotional bombs of change. Teens will manipulate the guilt of the parents better than Machiavelli so provide empathy and understanding, but also remember the parent has feelings too. Even adults have issues that their splitting parents must not ignore. Other topics provide insight into the before during, after, and second marriages with a thorough index to further assist the reader.

This is a well-written complete guidebook encouraging the divorcees that with integrity they can handle the grenades their resentful, often angry children and perhaps their former partner toss at them.

I thought this was the most helpful book I read on divorce and its impact on the kids. I have kids of different ages and there was VERY helpful information for each one of them. I would have been lost without this book. Besides the author has done research on kids of divorce for 25 years and really understands the long term effects of divorce on kids -- at every age.

Read the excerpt in the "look inside" section.

Dr. Judith Wallerstein's compassion and insight are evident throughout her study of the suffering of children of divorce. This book literally changed my life in so many dynamic ways. First, you learn to forgive, then understand, and finally begin the healing process. I recommend this book to anyone who has suffered from the devastating pain of growing up a child of divorce. Jan Wylie

Anyone looking for a new paradigm for consciousness should read this book, in particular anyone without any prior knowledge of neural science. The book is full of the latest discoveries about how the brain works, including several experiments you can perform by yourself or with friends. In particular, I found that the experiment which the author(s) have you perform on yourself with your blind spot particularly discombobulating, as you watch as your mind "fills in" missing information, and even "hallucinates" things that aren't there. You're left feeling that you can't even trust your own eyes! The final chapter is particularly important, and required reading for anyone interested in how neural science affects our understanding of consciousness and self.

My only complaint is that the book seems schizophrenic; it is scientific, but constantly needs to reassure us as if it were afraid that a purely scientific understanding of our lives is somehow inimical to our artistic selves. The book continually quotes Shakespeare. I'm not sure if that's because the book has two authors, that Ms. Blakeslee was brought in to soften up the science a bit. It often seems as if there's a phantom author.

Even so, it's enjoyable can't-put-it-down reading and contains several important points which should add significantly to your understanding of your brain works and consciousness itself.

Imagine a woman sitting in front of a mirror who applies lipstick and mascara to only one side of her face because she is unaware of the other side.

Imagine one who is truly and fully blind but can locate objects in his visual field.

Imagine cold water in one's ear altering ones perception of the functionality of the left side of his body.

Imagine someone with a severed arm feeling his phantom fingers and routinely counting on them or feeling pain in them.

Imagine a simple experiment that you could perform to convince yourself that your nose is three feet long.

This is a fascinating book that no inquiring mind would want to miss.

Dr. Ramachandran uses scientific methodology to tell us why. Actually he is telling us what is going on in the brain that results in these manifestations. And unlike the speculative Freud, he designs simple tests to test his hypotheses.

He and his colleagues have found much about the inner workings of the brain and the nature of the human condition. Much of the work has been elucidated by studying the behavior of brain injured individuals. The findings help us understand why denial and confabulation and defense mechanisms are so a part of the human condition. His findings suggest that part of the left hemisphere of our brain is obsessively resilient at attempts to alter our world view. Perhaps there is a deep rooted reason in our brains why we often seem to talk 'over' one another.

"The left hemisphere's job is to create a belief system and a model and to fold new experiences into that belief system. If confronted with some new information that doesn't fit the model, it relies on Freudian defense mechanisms to deny, repress or confabulate -anything to preserve the status quo."

Ramachandran's central and most perplexing and challenging question in the book seems to be: "How could something as deeply mysterious as consciousness emerge from a chunk of meat inside the skull?"

His answer to the question seems to be, "Science - cosmology, evolution, and especially the brain sciences - is telling us that our sense of having a private nonmaterial soul 'watching the world' is really an illusion...."

I would argue, on the other hand, that "I" or "consciousness" or "self awareness" is qualitatively different from the physical processes of mapping and manipulating data from the external environment and providing motor outputs, intriguing and counter intuitive as these processes might seem.

I would argue that these processes do not "give rise to" but "facilitate a merger" with or are "associated" with consciousness. The color red is BOTH a specific frequency of light AND a spiritual entity in MY awareness - yet these two manifestations are QUALITATIVEY different.

Dr. Ramachandran, himself, is perplexed how Savant talents can be explained by Darwinian Evolution. How can certain individuals routinely come up with the cube root of a six figure number in seconds? How can another know the exact time of day, to the exact second, without reference to a timepiece?

I think Ramachandran builds a good case for an autonomous [phantom] functioning in our brains without awareness. He says, "Indeed, most of your actions are carried out by a host of unconscious zombies who exist in peaceful harmony along with you (the 'person') inside your body!"

What he has unfolded are the marvelous and mysterious complexities of gathering data from the external world for presentation, manipulation and execution. He quotes the cosmologist Paul Davies saying: "How we have become linked into this cosmic dimension is a mystery." I think that word linked is very descriptive. How is the intersection of the spiritual and the material interfaced?

Shakespeare suggested we are like actors on a stage. There is a qualitative differences between the act and the stage - the interaction of conscious souls and the evolutionary mechanism that created the substrata - the spiritual [greed, love, smell, music, mathematics, awareness] and the physical.

Ramachandran tells us correctly that Eastern mystical traditions like Hinduism refer to the "I" as an illusion but he does not mention that reincarnation is also a prominent component of these traditions. In the Western religious tradition there is an "immortal soul" that is postulated.

Dr. Ian Stevenson, Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the Health Sciences Center, University of Virginia, in his 1997 book, "Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect", has done some scientific research with children who claim to remember a previous life.

He has obtained specific information from children which he has matched with their former identities. Their seems to be a relationship with birthmarks and death - particularly of the violent type - linking specific present and past identities. These evidences would tend to support reincarnation of something like a "soul."

On a more speculative plain, the external world might eternally be out there on a timeline, where 'souls' can visit what we might regard as the proper seats of consciousness in humans, much as one visits a zoo.

There is likely more out there in the continuum of reality than is as of yet found in our dreams or science.

Dr. Ramachandran keep asking those questions. Keep reading the footprints of God.

Rama is a brilliant, world renowned neuroscientist. Phantoms recounts personal experience and personal, sometimes humorous observations, and could be read for these qualities alone. It is a great book because of what it has to say. The subject is how the brain works from a conceptual viewpoint, with a focus on consciousness. Typically, the behavior of patients with brain damage suggest hypothesis, and these hypothesis are investigated by additional experimentation, as well as by brain imaging, which can detect which neurons are firing in response to stimuli. The physiology of the brain is considered, but only to the extent necessary to the narrative. A warning to the reader: the book is disarming in that some very difficult material is presented in a wonderfully simple and engaging style; this is not a book to be read in one sitting. I would have benefited from more material in the last chapter on what is the essence of conscious perception; while the ideas are exciting, I need more examples to pin them down. To nitpick, I think Rama. slights the artistic capabilities of animals, and is a little condescending, and perhaps not very knowledgeable, about psychiatry. He makes fun of evolutionary psychology, but also makes use of it.

As a previous reviewer said, the couples interviewed were above average means and I did not see any discussion on finances or money. [however, I hopped around a bit in the book]

I've read (oops, don't know where...) that money is a frequent cause of divorce. Were all these couples above average means? That doesn't sound like a true representative sampling.

Perhaps that's a minor point, but in my own marriage of 21 years, money issues have been quite challenging at times. I'd like to hear how other couples resolved those problems.

On the other hand, the book offers the promise that there are still good marriages out there. That the words "happy marriage" are not oxymoronic.

And it's always interesting to take a peak into the lives of someone else, with the high goal of learning how to improve your own situation.

Rose

I very much enjoyed reading about all of these happy marriages. The categories were interesting, and I agree with the author that many marriages encompass one or more of them during the course of a lengthy marriage.

It's inspiring to read real stories about couples beating the odds and loving it. As a newlywed, I found myself aspiring to overcome the obstacles that lie ahead in my marriage so I can look back on my happy marriage 10 years from now and perhaps be eligible for a study such as this one.

The couples, though, seemed all to be slightly removed from the world of John Doe in PoDunk USA. Some were doctors and CEOs; many seemed to be the top 1%. That aspect, of course, may make all of this "circumstantial data" less likely to apply to most of us. But we can always aspire.

When we came upon this book, both my husband and I were in the middle of painful, long, stretched-out divorces. We made the decision to read the book together, yet independently. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. The insights gained from these pages literally pulled us through some very trying times. We both absolutely loved it! Judith Wallerstein is a wise, compassionate woman. After reading the book, both my husband and I understood (too late, unfortunately) why our first marriages hadn't worked out. Neither one of our marriages had the romantic component.
We've been together now for 6 years, and ours is definitely the "romance" marriage. What a difference! This is our second marriage for both of us, but we are determined to succeed this time. So far, excellent! We highly recommend this book to anyone considering marriage. It is important for any young couple to become aware of the consequences of not properly separating from their family of origin. A couple needs to form a new family unit without undue interference from parents.
We feel that what the book shows best is that the success of a couple's relationship has more to do with how strong a "we" they form than any other factor. Neither my husband nor I had a strong "we" in our first marriage. We also both had lousy sex lives. It was reassuring to realize that other happy couples felt that sex within a loving marital relationship is the best sex there is. We agree.

This book contains vitally important information for anybody connected with or considering divorce. This includes parents, step-parents (actual or prospective), divorce lawyers, judges, social workers, teachers and, or course, the children of divorce themselves. Dr. Wallerstein devastatingly and eloquently describes the host of familial, emotional, social and financial problems faced by these kids- problems that not only endure to adulthood but may frequently even intensify. It will not be comfortable reading for those involved with divorce, but it will be extremely useful.

I have three basic reservations about the book:

1. Dr. Wallerstein spends more time discussing how we can "improve" divorce than how we can improve marriage. Granted, many divorced people have no choice in the matter, and they need good advice. But wishful discussions of two mature and unselfish divorced parents cooperating for the good of the child begs a question: if these parents are so capable of working together that they can deal well with the thorny and delicate parenting problems associated with a divorce situation, why not put those skills into building a better marriage? After reading this book, I am convinced that the latter would be far easier, less complicated and better for the kids!

2. The book seems to view cohabitation as similar to marriage and unmarried sexual activity in adults as normative. Both these views are as indefensible as the view that divorce is harmless.

3. In a few spots (e.g. page 108), the book appears to hold children in general to a rather low behavioral standard. Parents might get the idea that destructive behaviors like drug experimentation, teen sexual activity and heavy drinking are "normal" just because they are common in our culture. But regardless of how accurate Dr. Wallerstein's data may be, she should have clarified that parents who want authentically successful kids need to raise them to be good, not just "average".

However, in spite of the reservations, I recommend this book for the information related to the long-term consequences of divorce. For those considering divorce who have a choice, the message taken from this book should be: avoid it! For those with no choice, the message from this book should be: understand what your kids are experiencing and put them first! For the rest of us, whether Dr. Wallerstein agrees or not, the message should be to work towards stronger legal restrictions on this extreme solution.

I might get personal with this review, but in my defense, this book will most certainly stir up emotions for *anyone* who has been through a divorce. Author Judith Wallerstein has studied children of divorce for 25 years, and in this book she compares them with children from intact families. The results are universally startling, and unfortunately the audience who needs this book the most are those least likely to hear the message - parents. As the pressures on a single parent mount to gigantic proportions, we tell ourselves little white lies about how well our children are doing. This is only human. The universal dilema of divorced families is that children need more attention while parents have less to give them.

However, even the youngest children (3 years) quickly learn to play our games, to act happy in order to receive Mommy or Daddy's approval. It is in your childrens' best interests for you not to fall into this trap. By simply being in a divorced family, your kids have much greater odds of drug and alcohol abuse, deliquency, poor grades, lesser educational future, and a very slim chance of creating a healthly family of their own. The legacy of your failed marriage will carry through much of their adult lives as part of their self-worth and self-confidence. By remaining brutally honest with your children - and brutally honest with yourself - you can help prevent your children from hiding their emotional needs and eventually becoming numb to them.

Many of the popular myths surrounding children and divorce are simply not true - "Isn't it better for children to leave a house full of conflict?" No. Wallerstein has compared hundreds of children with similiar domestic situations - constant fighting, infidelity, substance abuse, etc. - and in every case the children fared better when their parents remained married despite their problems. The most disturbing message I farmed from Wallerstein evidence is that divorcing for the sake of another relationship, or because you simply can't "work it out", is an act of criminal selfishness. You are trading your childrens' happiness and future for your own. The fighting and bickering does not stop. No matter what you circumstances, seek professional councel before you continue.

Unfortunately, Wallerstein neither considers the pressures on a divorced family as a whole, nor offers concrete solutions. Her suggested solutions are not well researched or supported. How can a woman without education be expected to work full time plusgo to night school, yet still gather enough energy to spend time with her children? A parent in this situation is trapped. The legal system and men in general are also reviewed in a shallow atmosphere of judgement and unrealistic expectations. If you are already past a divorce, this book can do little more that offer you a glimpse into the mind of your child, or if you are a child of divorce, help you to understand what other childs (now adults) feel about their parents' divorce. Still, this book has worth a read if only because it negates some of the most popular philosophy in our divorce culture. Fight the Power!

This book is the latest in a series of books written by Wallerstein about children and divorce. It provides excellent insights into what children are going through. As the child of divorce myself, I found myself thinking "YES" when ready each page. Her observations about what kids are feeling were brilliant and right on target. It's an uncomfortable book -- many parents won't want to know what they're putting their children through, and children won't want to live again through feelings that they might very well not wish to examine. Nevertheless, this is an absolute must-read for anyone who cares about a child of divorce. Since adults are so much more articulate and well-connected than children, it is often only their perspective that is heard when divorce is discussed. But children must be heard too! Wallerstein's comparisons of the children of divorce and the children of "intact" families who grew up in the same neighborhoods, is also invaluable, highlighting the unique problems children of divorce face. I recommend that anyone who finds this book useful should also read THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD and THE NARCISSISTIC FAMILY. Both books deal with similar themes, and can be similarly useful in dealing with children of divorce, adult children of divorce, or adult children of dysfunctional families.