Phil Watts
Shared Care or Divided Lives? (Second Edition) Dr Watts’ book serves as a timely reminder of just how important it is to keep your children’s happiness and wellbeing as the focal point of the separation process. He answers questions you may not have thought to ask, providing a range of practical suggestions for a variety of different situations. It should be required reading for any parent or professional person working with families during separation. Robin Bourgeois (Family Court Lawyer, WA). It is critical that the needs of the children are properly considered when parents separate. Unfortunately, separation has a profound impact on the parents’ capacity to function in a cooperative fashion when they most need to work together. This book is written to assist in understanding what children need and how to achieve it. Shared Care or Divided Lives? is a practical discussion of five main topics: •Family break-up as a psychological process •Developmental issues for children •How parental behaviour impacts the outcomes for children •Different processes for reaching agreement •Making shared care and other arrangements effective The essence of Dr Watts’ discussion is that a court can order the time to be shared on an equal basis but it is the parents’ actions which will determine whether the children end up with divided lives or whether they actually experience shared care. The power is in the hands of the parents. This book is a tool to assist in making shared care beneficial to all, especially the children. As a forensic psychologist with 25 years’ experience, and with over 1000 appointments as single court expert in the Family Court, Dr Watts has witnessed first hand the terrible impact of separation upon the lives of children. This book is a combination of his extensive experience coupled with psychological theory.
