Two Homes, One Childhood

A Parenting Plan to Last a Lifetime

By: Robert E. Emery Ph.D.

Narrated by: Jonathan Coleman

A paradigm-shifting model of parenting children in two homes from an internationally recognized expert.

A researcher, therapist, and mediator, Robert Emery, PhD, details a new approach to sharing custody with children in two homes. Huge numbers of children are affected by separation, divorce, cohabitation breakups, and childbearing outside of marriage. These children have two homes. But their parents have only one chance to protect their childhood. Building on his 2004 book The Truth About Children and Divorce and a strong evidence base, including his own research, Emery explains that a parenting plan that lasts a lifetime is one that grows and changes along with children's - and families' - developing needs. Parents can and should work together to renegotiate schedules to best meet the changing needs of children from infancy through young adult life.

Divided into chapters that address the specific needs of children as they grow up, this book:

• Introduces Emery's Hierarchy of Children's Needs in Divorce
• Provides specific advice for successful parenting, starting with infancy and reaching into emerging adulthood
• Advocates for joint custody but notes that children do not count minutes and neither should parents
• Highlights that there is only one "side" for parents to take in divorce: the children's side

Himself the father of five children, one from his first marriage, Emery brings a rare combination of personal and professional insight and guidance for every parent raising a child in two homes.

©2016 Robert E. Emery (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Emery’s assessment of divorce and its effects on children is spot-on. Parents faced with divorce would do well to bring Emery’s book to the table at the next mediation session.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Two Homes, One Childhood provides a crucial road map for understanding children’s needs at every stage of development with guidelines for flexible parenting plans that change with the child’s needs over time. [A] brilliant, child-centered approach…a must-read for every separating parent and the professionals who work with them.” (Joanne Pedro-Carroll, PhD, author of Putting Children First, clinical psychologist, and child specialist)

“An invaluable guide and resource for parents working together to raise their children after divorce or separation. [Emery’s] advice and insight are sensible, sympathetic, and scientifically sound.” (Elizabeth Scott, Harold R. Medina Professor of Law at Columbia Law School)

Great Perspective

This book provides a great research based perspective on divorce with kids. The last chapter was particularly powerful.

Empowering, hope inducing

I'm barely at chapter 3 and feel pulled to write this review. Material is very helpful, full of practical yet research based details. It's the narration, though, that really makes this book next level impactful. I absolutely love love the narration, makes it easier to listen and helps one really take in what is otherwise a delicate, difficult subject.

Wonderful book!

Definitely read all the way through!

A must read for anyone with kids and divorce.

Good points made, but also false accuracy of the actual reality of what the normal man goes through

He made great points, I definitely took note of some points he made.

Unfortunately we cannot expect the same PHDs that have guided these courts into shuffling kids around like it’s 1940s Germany to say they’ve had it wrong for the last several decades.

Around the country, courts are either trying to embrace the more progressive changes that some are now aiming for, or they are still listening to the same old PHDs who got them in the mess to keep them in the mess.

MESS meaning? Around the country you have to be utterly blind to see the change in children, young, and teenage kids.
The writing is on the wall to those who view genders as equal. We have consequentially taken the father out of the home, and the reality of that is what we see everyday. Every other weekend and a night during the week is not enough time to actually have that fatherly relationship that we had once upon a time that help guide our children into successful, respectful, and most of all… EMOTIONALLY SOUND young adults.
How your kids will turn out as a young adult has never been guaranteed, but removing what GOD intended for that child is now wiped away and the final product of how your child will turn out is a flip of a coin now.

Dr Emery has absolutely no clue of the many things that are actually happening to the normal father and children. When he said, “alienation does happen but it’s very rare,” I laughed. He’s most likely just looking at statistics. Those statistics are not reality. Since it’s not a crime to alienate and not follow the court order, which some may argue, but when you call the police to report a violation of a CO, they tel you it’s a civil matter. This means it’s not ever recorded to become a statistic.

Like many other policies, they are based on the higher middle class and above stats. Like himself and his situation with his family.
Dr Emery doesn’t have one clue that the majority of American fathers which is consisted of the middle class can’t afford the lawyer they have to go hire when the mom violates the CO. They are supporting 2 homes, paying child support, they have no extra money to do anything other than just try to naturally be a father like GOD intended.
JUST GO HIRE A LAWYER AND REPORT IT SIR, is what not is told to us as fathers ‘RARELY’ like the doc mentions, it happens so damn much, the dispatcher at the police station says it like she’s annoyed because you aren’t the only one calling in that hour.

Now I’m sure the doctor thinks I’m only describing my situation. But I’m not. That’s the way they brush it off thinking, “well the system can’t be perfect an unfortunate very rarely something like this happens.” That’s his words I have to add again. But the judges who aren’t interested in the progressive movement of the family courts say the same thing.

This is the reality for tens of thousands of fathers. I don’t even have room to talk about the tens of thousands of fathers that don’t have the money to even fight for their rights.

The money involved with this, lawyers-doctors-negotiators-fees is what makes this court AUTHORITARIAN-ish.

Hopefully as a country we start looking at doctors as our grandparents did. With skepticism, and questions.
The amount of doctors involved in the shuffling of children in 1940s Germany is in the thousands.

Just like the mask mandates for 2 years, just like the trust they have abused in our family courts, “ITS FOR OUR SAFETY, it’s for the better to wear a mask, it’s for the better to listen to us on how many times a week you see your son.

Hitlers #1 quote at first to the people of Germany, “It’s for your safety!”