A Transformational Approach to Family Law and Relationships

Useful Resources

Peace-Making is unique to its developer and founder. However, Nonviolent Communication, which is a part of Peace-Making, has many sources and resources in the community. For therapists, nonviolent communication training & practice groups in nonviolent communication see Therapist Referrals.

Nonviolent Communication Trained Lawyers

Steven Allen Smith, P.C.
5745 NE Glisan St.
Portland, OR 97213
503.228.7256

Nonviolent Communication

Centerpointe. For help in achieving theta wave meditation and the help it gives in reconciling right and left brain inconsistent conceptions Centerpointe has developed a series of harmonic sounds that provide a service I have not found elsewhere.

Internet Parenting Resources:

• WholeFamily.com
• Divorcesupport.com
• Kids’ Health
• Parenting Q&A
• Parents’ Place
• Divorce Info
• ParentNet
• The Fun Place
• APPI.org
• VIX.com

Selected Bibliography:

Some of these are technical and some are general. I have tried to include books suited for a wide variety of interests and orientation, some with various religious underpinnings, some psychological. Please select from them ones that call to you and seem to speak to your situation.

1. NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION
   • Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Compassion, Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Puddledancer Press, Del Mar, CA, 1999. This book teaches the fundamentals in a concise, clear way. However, nonviolent communication is a language. It requires practice. This book is an essential. So is live training.
   • Speak Peace In A World of Conflict, What You Say Next Will Change the World, Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Puddledancer Press, Encinitas, California, 2005.
   • Respectful Parents Respectful Kids, 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict Into Cooperation, Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson, Puddledancer Press, Encinitas, California, 2006.
   • Compassionate Classroom, Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson, Puddledancer Press, Encinitas, California, 2003.
   • Nonviolent Communication Workbook, Lucy Lue, Puddledancer Press, Encinitas, California, 2001.
2. RELATIONSHIP
   • I Thought We’d Never Speak Again, The Road From Estrangement to Reconciliation, Laura Davis, Harper-Collins, New York, 2002. Retelling of stories of those attempting to connect after injury that enable one to see the dispute from both sides and to see how fear caused a response in each that caused the warfare that caused pain, resentment and estrangement and that required forgiving to achieve reconciliation with oneself within the connection with the other.
   • Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Jerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2002.
   • The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John M. Gottman, Ph.D. and Nan Silver, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1999.
   • Relationship Rescue, A Seven Step Strategy for Reconnecting With Your Partner, Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D., G.K. Hall & co, Thorndike, Maine, 2000.
   • His Needs Her Needs Keeping the Romance Alive, Willard F. Harley, Jr., Fleming H. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003.
   • His Needs Her Needs, Building an Affair-Proof Marriage, Willard F. Harley, Jr., Fleming H. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, 1994, 2001.
   • Fall in Love, Stay in Love, Willard F. Harley, Jr., Fleming H. Revell, Jr., 2001.
   • Love Busters, Overcoming Habits that Destroy Romantic Love, Willard F. Harley, Jr., Fleming H. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002.
   • Your Love and Marriage, Willard F. Harley, Jr., Fleming H. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1997.
   • The Relationship Cure, A Five Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendship, John M. Gottman, Ph.D. and Joan DeClaire, Three Rivers Press, New York, 2001.
   • To Love and Be Loved, The Difficult Yoga of Relationship, Stephen & Ondrea Levine, Sounds True, Bolder Co, 1997.
   • Love and Survival, The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy, Dean Ornish, M.D., Harper-Collins, New York, 1998. The scientific support showing relationship is essential to healthy life. Relationship normally means with other humans, but can include a wider relationship. Exploratory hypothesis as to how and why.
   • Conscious Loving, The Journey to Co-Commitment, A Way to be Fully Together Without Giving Up Yourself, Gay Hendricks, Ph.D. & Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D, Bantam Books, New York, 1990.
3. GENERAL CONSCIOUSNESS AWARENESS SKILLS
   • The Four Gifts of Love, Williard F. Harley, Jr., Fleming H. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan,1998.
   • The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz, Amber-Allen Publishing, San Rafael, California, 1999.
   • The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz, Amber-Allen Publishing, San Rafael, California, 1997.
   • The Power of Now, A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle, New World Library, Novato, CA, 1999.
   • Practicing The Power of Now, Essential Teachings, Meditations and exercises from the Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle, New World Library, Novato, CA, 2001.
   • A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, Eckhart Tolle, Dutton, New York, 2005.
   • Through the Open Door to the Vastness of Your Being, Eckhart Tolle, Sounds True, 2006.
   • The Flowering of Human Consciousness, Eckhart Tolle, Sounds True, 2004.
   • Even the Sun Will Die, Ekchart Tolle, Sounds True, 2002.
   • Stillness Speaks, Eckhart Tolle, Novato, Calif. : New World Library, Publishers Group West, 2003.
   • Yoga, Discipline of Freedom, The Yoga Sutra Attributed to Patanjali, Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller, University of California Press, Berkley, 1995.
   • Power vs. Force, The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, David R. Hawkings, M.D., Ph. D., Bay House, Inc., Carlsbad California, 1995, 1998, 2002.
   • The Eye of the I, David R. Hawkings, M.D., Ph. D., Bay House, Inc., Carlsbad California.
4. MEDITATION SKILLS
   • A Year to Live, How to Live this Year as if it Were Your Last, Stephen Levine, Sounds True, Bolder Co, 1997.
   • The Heart of the Soul, Emotional Awareness, Gary Zukav & Linda Francis, Simon & Schuster, 2001. Recognizing the flow of emotional energy through the heart, the distraction used to escape pain, through power over causes one to miss love.
   • Living Meditation from Principle to Practice, Simpkins and Simpkins, Charles E. Tuttle, Inc. 1997, $16.95.
   • Journey to Center, Lessons in Unifying Body, Mind, and Spirit, Thomas F. Crum, Simon & Schuster, 1997, $12.00.
   • You Can Achieve Peace of Mind, Achieving Inner Peace No Matter What Life Brings, Jerry Dorsman & Bob Davis, Prima Publications, Rocklin Cal. 1994, 1998.
   • Inner Peace, How to be Calmly Active and Actively Calm, Paramahansa Yogananda, Self Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, CA, 1999.
5. PSYCHOLOGICAL MATURATION
   • Growing up Again, Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children, Jean Illsley Clark and Connie Dawson, Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, 1998. This book is intended to help parents understand their children’s psychological stage of development and what they can do to further their growth or what they might be doing that would confuse or hinder the child’s growth.

   The balance of the books listed in psychological maturation address adult maturation and psychological stages of growth and understanding.

   • Theory of Everything, An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, Ken Wilber, Shambala Publications, Inc. Boston, Mass., 2000.
   • A Sociable God, Toward a New Understanding of Religion, Ken Wilber, Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, 2005 with 56 page Introduction updating original 1983 edition.
   • The Simple Feeling of Being, Ken Wilber.
   • Spiral Dynamic: mastering values, leadership, and change : exploring the new science of memetics, Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan, Cambridge, Mass., USA : Blackwell Business, 1996.
   • Integral Psychology, Ken Wilber, Boston : Shambhala : Distributed in the United States by Random House, 2000.
6. HARMLESSNESS-DETERMINED RESISTENCE
   • Gandhi on Non-Violence, Thomas Merton; New Directions 1964
   • Gandhi, His Life and Message for the World, Louis Fischer, Mentor, 1954.
   • The Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, Dhirendra Homah Datta, University of Wisconsin Press, 1953.
   • The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi, Raghavan Iyer; Oxford University Press 1973. Student of philosophy writing a study of Gandhi’s thoughts spend much time relating it to other philosophers. Limited insight on what Gandhi was doing precisely. Generally helpful in looking at Gandhi’s ideas. Excellent for review of Satya, Ahimsa and Satyagraha.
   • Gandhi’s Truth, Erick H. Erikson, W.W. Norton 1969 pp 97-394;
   • Gandhi, Columbia Tristar, PG, 1990, 187 minutes. It is difficult to get much from these books about how or why what Gandhi did worked. Each author wrote, studied and understood from within the warfare paradigm. Each lacked the concepts to grasp fully what Gandhi was doing or how he did what he did. Still understanding what Gandhi thought he was doing is important. Skim the assessment by the authors. By gleaning these books one can wring valuable understandings about Gandhian thought from which one can piece together some insight.
7. PARENTING SELF AND PARENTING/TEACHING CHILDREN
   • AGES AND STAGES OF GROWTHB WHAT KIDS NEED AT DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
     • Growing up Again, Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children, Jean Illsley Clark and Connie Dawson, Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, 1998
   • COMMUNICATION
     • HOW TO TALK SO KIDS WILL LISTEN AND LISTEN SO KIDS WILL TALK, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
     • Parent Effectiveness Training, Dr. Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, New York, 1975.
     • How to Talk So Kids Can Learn, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
     • The Secret of Happy Children, Why Children Behave the Way They Do- and What You Can Do to Help Them to Be Optimistic, Loving, Capable and Happy, Steve Biddulph, Marlowe & Co. New York, 1984, 2002.
   • DISCIPLINE AS TEACHING SAFETY AND STRENGTH
     • Taking Charge- Caring Discipline that Works At Home and At School, JoAnne Nordling, M.S., M.Ed. SIBYL Publications, 1999. The best in teaching a simple structured approach to categorizing the type of behavior occurring and giving specific ways to deal with the behavior as correction of a mistake, lovingly but with the firmness that gives structure and safety. This book is a technical jewel.
     • Try and Make Me! Simple Strategies That Turn Off the Tantrums and Create Cooperation, Ray Levy, Ph.D. and Bill O’Hanlon, M.S., Rodale Reach, St. Martin’s Press, 2001. Expands upon Nordling’s techniques expressly for parents who need skills in dealing with a child who needs control and uses tantrums and direct power over methods.
     • Time-In, When time-Out doesn’t Work, Jean Illsley Clark, Parenting Press Inc. 1999. Used Ask, Act, Attend, Amend as four teaching parental responses. Ask to invite the child to think. Act to avoid, intervene, correct, direct. Attend to find out what is so about the problem and act to teach the child. Amend to teach children atone for mistakes.
     • Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline The Seven Basic Skills for Turning Conflict into Cooperation, Becky A. Bailey, Ph.D. William Morrow and Company, Inc. 2000. Turning parents from fear base discipline to loving guidance requires a new discipline for parents.
     • The Dog Trainer’s Guide to Parenting – Rewarding Good Behavior, Practicing Patience and Other Positive Techniques That Work, Harold R. Hansen, Sourcebook Inc. 2000. Good for parents wanting to remove anger and frustration from their parenting style. Focuses on technique.
     • Don’t Take it Out on Your Kids-A Parent’s Guide to Positive Discipline, Katharine C. Kersey, Ed. D. Berkley Books 1990. Based on Driekurs work. This takes you out of punishment and warfare discipline and fight for control and provides an important piece of structure and loving nurturing.
     • There’s gotta Be a Better Way: Discipline That Works!, Dr. Becky Bailey, Loving Guidance, Inc. 1994. Equal to “Taking Charge” but with a different perspective. The two books compliment each other by adding their combined vision. This book states concepts more clearly.
     • Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline The Seven Basic Skills for Turning Conflict into Cooperation, Becky A. Bailey, Ph.D. William Morrow and Company, Inc. 2000. Turning parents from fear base discipline to loving guidance requires a new discipline for parents. General discussion of how to think about and approach discipline generally with a list of 7 skills, 7 disciplines and 7 values. Focus is upon learning to be the person who then expresses easily the lessons children need to learn. Theory of the book is that loving children, teaching them how to guide themselves and correcting their mistakes reliably produces competent, productive, high self-esteem adults. Judging, punishing or controlling, is unpredictable in its results, except that such adults will predictably have lots of personal work to do before they can be well rounded and successful in each of the important areas of their life. Many aspects about the book are wonderful. The author clearly knows of what she speaks and has many excellent insights and lessons. Correcting one’s own behavior is the only effective way to teach. Teaching without learning is ineffective. However, her use of seven powers of self control, seven disciplines and seven values seems like the imposition of a memory device that doesn’t grow out of its subject but is imposed upon it to help remember it. When I try and understand and interrelate these concepts, I got confusion, lack of definition and frustration. My conclusion was that Dr. Baily’s organizational structure implied a thought method to me that was not helpful to me. It may be that she intended it as a memory or organization device not a method of thought or analysis. It may also be that she has reasoned to these wonderful conclusions from another method of analysis that I am less familiar with and so less able to follow her process. The book will be helpful to people who ignore the structure or who can follow it better than I.
     • The Encouraging Parent, How to Stop Yelling at Your Kids and Start Teaching them Confidence, Self-Discipline and Joy, Rod Wallace Kennedy, Ph.D., Three Rivers Press, New York, 2001. A good systematic instruction in discipline structures.
     • The Loving Parents’ guide to Discipline, How to Teach Your Child to Behave Responsibly-with Kindness, Understanding and Respect, Marilyn E. Gootman, Ed.D.,The Berkley Publishing Group 1995. Lots of examples and good discussion of positive discipline structure, ages and stages of development and changes in what the child needs.
     • Smart Love, The Compassionate Alternative to Discipline That Will Make You a Better Parent and Your Child a Better Person, Martha Heineman Pieper, Ph.D. William J. Pieper, M.D; The Harvard Common Press, Boston, Mass., 1999. The authors are a clinical social worker with a private practice counseling parents and mental health professionals, the other is a child and adult psychiatrist and psychoanalyst consulting with children’s agencies and hospital clinics devoted to children with developmental problems. Together they speak with great authority and have lots of specific case examples of situations and responses and results that give life to their description of a positive discipline structure and how it nurtures children and can reverse damage done by permissive or controlling behavior that has left children expecting unhappiness and behaving to produce self injury, defeat and loss. We are powerful agents in shaping children’s life, options and expression of their possibilities.
     • How to Behave so Your Children Will, Too!, Sal Severe, Ph.D. Greentree Publishing, Tempe, Arizona, 1997.
     • Why Gender Matters, What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences, Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph. D., Random House, Inc. New York, 2005.
     • Raising Boys, Why boys are Different- and How to Help Them Become Happy and Well Balanced Men, Steve Biddulph, Celestial Arts, Berkely, 1997.
     • The Secret of Happy Children, Why Children Behave the Way they Do- and What You Can Do to Help Them to be Optimistic, Loving, Capable and Happy, Steve Biddulph, Marlowe & Co, New York, 2002.
   • CHANGING TIMES BOYS AND GIRLS
     • Raising Resilient Children, Robert Brooks, Ph.D. and Sam Goldstein, Ph.D. Contemporary Books, 2001.
     • Real Boys- Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, William Pollack, Ph.D., Random House, 1998.
     • The Wonder of Boys – What Parents, Mentors and Educators Can Do To Shape Boys Into Exceptional Men, Michael Gurian, G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1996.
     • Violence Proof Your Kids Now, How to Recognize the 8 Warning Signs and What To Do About Them, Erika V. Shearin Karres, Ed. D., Conari Press, Berkeley CA., 2000.
   • TEENAGE
     • Kids, Parents & Power Struggles, Winning for a Life Time, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, Harper, Collins, New York 2000. This book is based upon the emotional intelligence work of Goleman, Gottman and others.
     • Raising the Spirited Child, Mary Sheedy Kurcinca, Harper, Collins, New York 1999.

(By Topic, Alphabetically by Author)

Separation and Divorce

These books are general in nature and deal with the practical affects of accepting that your relationship is over and now you pick up the pieces. They all are without the insight of Nonviolent Communication, so they have limitations.

For Parents:

Does Wednesday Mean Mom’s House or Dad’s
Ackerman, Marc J. (1997)

The Good Divorce
Constance Ahrons (1994)

Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends
Bruce Fisher (1992)

Between Love and Hate
Lois Gold (1992)

Through the Eyes of Children: Healing Stories for Children of Divorce
Janet Johnston (1997)

Be a Great Divorce Dad
Kenneth N. Londrell (1998)

Child Custody: Building Agreements that Work
Mimi E. Lyster (1996)

The Divorced Parent
Stephanie Marston (1994)

Caught in the Middle
Lynda McDermott (1992)

Helping Children Cope With Divorce the Sandcastles Way
Gary Newman (1998)

Mom’s House. Dad’s House: Making Shared Custody Work
Isolina Ricci (1980)

Joint Custody With a Jerk
Judy Corcoran and Julie Ross (1996)

Helping Children Cope With Divorce
Edward Tebey (1994)

Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope With Divorce
Joan B. Kelley and Judith S. Wallerstein

Where’s Daddy? How Divorced, Single, and Widowed Mothers Can Provide What’s Missing When Dad’s Missing
Claudette Wassil-Grimm (1994)

Sharing Parenthood after Divorce: An Enlightened Child Custody Guide for Mothers, Fathers, and Kids
Ciji Ware (1982)

For Children:

Pre-School / Early Elementary (Ages 3-7)

A Very Touching Book
This has anatomically correct drawings of adults and helps children learn that they cannot and must not keep secrets from their parents and they have the right to decide what is good touching and what is not. It helps innoculate a child, by education, against being alone in a world that seems to allow sexual abuse.

The Dinosaur’s Divorce
L. and M. Brown (1986)

Where is Daddy? The Story of a Divorce
Beth Goff (1969)

Two Homes to Live In: A Child’s Eye View of Divorce
Barbara Hazen (1978)

Divorce is…A Kid’s Coloring Book
K. Magid and W. Schriebman (1980)

Divorce is a Grown-Up Problem
Janet Sinberg (1978)

Always My Dad
Sharon Dennis Wyeth (1997)

Middle / Later Elementary (Ages 8-12)

How Does It Feel When Your Parents Get Divorced