Not Damaged Goods: A Successful Strategy for Children of Divorce from Infancy to Adulthood - Softcover

ANNE NEWTON WALTHER has a background in history and psychology. She is the author of Divorce Hangover, Not Damaged Goods and A Time for Treason. She has appeared on many national and local radio and television talk shows, including Oprah Winfrey, Sonya Live, and The Jenny Jones Show. She and her husband have raised five children and live in San Francisco.

These two works both focus on helping families adjust to divorce, but they have very different audiences. In The Co-Parenting Survival Guide, psychologists Thayer and Zimmerman, cofounders of the P.E.A.C.E. program (Parents Allied to Co-Parent Effectively), present straightforward advice to parents in high-conflict divorces. Their aim is to help ex-spouses reduce strife and concentrate on their children's needs. After explaining the concept of conflict in early chapters, the authors go on to offer specific guidelines for defusing common confrontations, such as parenting plans, transitions, special events, and new relationships. Thayer and Zimmerman insist that even one parent acting alone can lessen conflict. References for further research are included. On the other hand, Not Damaged Goods is written for children of divorce. Walther heads a divorce counseling firm and has written and lectured widely on divorce. Each of the eight chapters, arranged according to the age of the child from infancy through adulthood (age 30 and beyond), shares stories to help readers clarify their emotions, questions to answer and apply to their own lives, and exercises for building self-esteem. While the idea of providing stories and activities in a workbook-type format certainly has merit, the scope of Not Damaged Goods is so large that only a few pages apply to any age group and is therefore fairly superficial, recommending it for large collections only. As pointed out in Judith Wallerstein's The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce and Stephanie Staal's The Love They Lost (both LJ 9/15/00) divorce has long-lasting effects, and children in those situations require special attention. The Co-Parenting Survival Guide builds on those findings and is recommended for all libraries. Kay Brodie, Chesapeake Coll., Wye Mills, MD
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