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Recommended Books

Only Child How to Survive Being One
Pitkeathley & Emerson | Souvenir Press | London
2006 reprint: ISBN 0-285-63148-9

'The' book. Pitkeathley and Emerson interview 60 only children on their experiences of growing up as an only child in this definitive book. They offer a guide to relationships and how to survive them, on work and on being a carer. The final section is for partners and new parents on how best to understand your only child. A very readable and accessible book.

New and used copies available from Amazon.

Only Child Experience and Adulthood
Bernice Sorensen | Palgrave MacMillan| London 2008
ISBN 978-0-230-52101-8

This book presents accounts of the experience of growing up without siblings across the world. The stories, collected through interviews and the writer's website, offer a range of only-child voices, which speak of the challenges and differences only-children face throughout their lives.

The complexity and multidimensional nature of the private, personal and public worlds of the only-child are discussed from a social and psychological perspective.

Important insights are given for people in the helping professions working with child and adult only-children. Above all the book demonstrates the importance of witnessing and existential validation for only-children whilst providing understanding to help guide parents and partners of only-children.

New and used copies available from Amazon