Takes a hard look at the consequences of intense conflict between divorced parents This book explores both the causes and consequences of high-level, stressful conflict between divorced parents on their children's development. It also provides concrete advice to help parents work together to the benefit of all involved, most importantly the children.

From leading researchers, this book presents important advances in understanding how growing up in a discordant family affects child adjustment, the factors that make certain children more vulnerable than others, and what can be done to help. It is a state-of-the-science follow-up to the authors' seminal earlier work, Children and Marital Conflict: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution. The volume presents a new conceptual framework that draws on current knowledge about family processes; parenting; attachment; and children's emotional, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral development. Innovative research methods are explained and promising directions for clinical practice with children and families are discussed.

The Child's Interests in Conflict addresses one of the most pressing issues of any multicultural society, namely the conflicting demands on children from minority groups or children born to parents of different cultural or faith backgrounds. What a family may consider to be in the child's best interest and welfare in court decisions may not be shared by society at large. Each can be guided by faith, culture, and tradition. Society can view the child as being exposed to a significant harm or to risk of harm if certain traditions are followed, while, in contrast, parents can believe that their child is harmed or is in harm's way if that tradition is not respected. Focusing on such circumstances in Europe, the contributions in this book - all written by internationally leading experts and with a interdisciplinary element - address situations of conflict regarding: a child's upbringing and education in general * the shaping of a child's cultural or faith-based identity * underage marriages * the circumcision of boys * the role of faith and culture in society's placements of children outside the care of their family * the role of faith in cross-border child abduction and disputes over parental responsibilities. Attention is paid to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and to less well-known national case law, as well as to recent national legislation, all of which show not only the complexity of the issues discussed, but also the differing ways multicultural challenges are dealt with. The book strives to answer, inter alia, how legal systems should navigate between the competing claims and conflicting interests without forgetting the main person to be protected, namely the child; and how the scope of tolerance, recognition, and autonomy should be defined. (Series: European Family Law - Vol. 41) Subject: European Law, Human Rights Law, Family Law, Children's Law, Socio-Legal Studies]

Graca Machel, UNICEF's special rapporteur, also scrutinises sexual crimes in time of war, the fate of orphans, the disproportionate suffering of children endure in civil wars, and their special vulnerability to such side-effects of conflict as famine, disease and social fragmentation. "The Impact of War on Children" is an urgent call to action-for the commitment and tenacity needed to protect children from the atrocities of war. Children present a uniquely compelling motivation for mobilisation, and an opportunity to confront the problems that cause their suffering. This book is complemented by 16 evocative photographs by Sebastiao Salgado, a documentary photographer of world renown, covering Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Rwanda and elsewhere.