Filled with an owl’s wisdom and a small puppy’s charm, Chip, The Puppy with Two Homes, is a fantastic tool for parents, caregivers, divorce lawyers, therapists, and child advocates. This highly stylized children’s book, brightly illustrated by Josh Wright, helps children of divorce adjust to shared custody by showing how a dog from the shelter was so adored by two families that he split his time between them. More than a story about a little puppy between homes, this engaging story leads children of all ages to recognize and accept new and conflicting emotions that are often prescribed by shared custody.
While anyone is bound to be affected when his or her home-life grows to include two separate houses and sometimes with two distinct families, Chip is especially overwhelmed. When two families found him at the shelter at the exact same time on the exact same day, they decided the best thing to do would be to share him. It made perfect sense. The only problem is that, for Chip, this is a difficult adjustment. It is tough to remember two sets of rules, two sets of habits, two sets of expectations, and even two types of beds. He just starts to get used to one home and it’s time to go back to the other.
There are times he feels powerless. He’s loyal to both families, but reluctant to explain his bewilderment until he takes a long walk in a beautiful garden where an incredibly smart owl clues Chip in how to look at things differently. Chip discovers that he has everything he needs to be happy in both of his homes, which ultimately helps even the youngest readers find creative and healthy ways to navigate their own life that has been split in two and sometimes multiplied.
During my years of working as an elementary school teacher and later as a child therapist, I became aware of the struggles that children experience living both at Mom’s house and Dad’s house following a separation or divorce. Shuffling back and forth within a given week, month or year is one of the biggest adjustments kids are asked to make. Traveling between homes and parents causes children to experience a full range of feelings, some of them negative. Chip, the Puppy with Two Homes was written with this in mind. This metaphoric and therapeutic story offers children help for developing a positive adjustment to dealing with shared custody. While children are helpless at changing their new reality, they can develop healthy thinking patterns, perceptions, and behaviors about self and a new family situation. This story is designed to tap into the child’s own inner resources and unconscious learnings that will empower each child to cope with this challenging situation in a healthy manner and ease his or her anxiety.
It is recommended that you do not interpret the story for your child, but listen to your child if he or she wants to discuss their own interpretation. The audio version of this work was released on CD in 2007. Since that time, I have received countless requests from parents, clinicians, and family attorneys for this story to be published in book form. I am pleased that now it is.
