I thought that you might like to know why and how this book came to be. Thank you for taking the time to review this book.

After my son’s father and I separated our physical homes, there was the obvious mourning of loss and sadness for the entire family. Although my feelings were of great sadness, loss and pain, my main objective was to make this change as seamless as I could for my son who was two and a half at that time. After custody and the age appropriate visitation schedule were established, my son started his every other weekend overnight visitations with his father. Because of his young age, I truly felt that if I kept a stiff upper lip and presented this as a fun experience for my son, he would just glide into this change without a glitch. I had no idea how wrong I was or the effect this new schedule would have on my son.

After the first visitation, getting my son to actually leave with his father was like trying to achieve world peace. Because he knew that he was going with his father for a long time (in a toddler’s mind), he was not okay about it. His tantrums were small at first, but they seem to subside after his father came to pick him up. It was when he came home that the new behavioral problems started surfacing – with a vengeance. Suddenly my sweet, loving (always full of hugs and kisses), fairly reasonable, adorable two year old turned into Attila the Hut.

He would go to his room and literally destroy it. I mean throw every toy he owned on the ground, try to break his toys, even throw his toys at me. Dinner time felt like World War III. Not to mention bath time and bed time. Everything that we did together became a fight.

I remember one evening he refused to go to take a bath. So, I turned and the lights off the TV and told him it was time to take a bath or we were going to go straight to bed, that it was his choice. He screamed at me and hit me so hard while yelling, “No, I can’t want to (that is how he used to say “I don’t want to at the age of two and a half) take a bath or go to bed – and you cannot make me.” He then turned the TV and lights back on and sat down. So, I turned off the TV and the lights again and said, “Then we are going to bed right now if we are not taking a bath.” So, he once again turned the TV back on. I, being the adult in the situation (ha ha) turned the TV off again and then picked him up. While I was taking him to his room, he was hitting me and screaming, “I can’t want to, I can’t want to, I can’t want to, I can’t want to!”

I sat him down in his room and told him to stop this behavior right now (I almost lost my mind right there I tell you. You already feel like a kicked dog when you get a divorce – but to have your child kick you too is almost too much to bear because of the raw emotion). He then proceeded to bang his head on the wall as hard as could while screaming, “I can’t want to, I can’t want to!!!!”

It was at this point that I realized that something beyond the normal two year old tantrums was afoot. I took him by the shoulders and asked him what was wrong. He then told me that he was so mad at me for making me leave and go to his dad’s house. Someone might as well have ripped my heart out and stabbed it to the wall at this point. I knew that the important thing for a child after a divorce for was to let them know that they are going to be cared for and loved, no matter what. I had read the divorce books – I knew that trying to maintain the routines was key, to expect some behavioral changes in the child – but to keep reassuring them that things were okay.

Let me tell you, nothing in those books was working for me. So I tried the “reassuring fun-approach” to try and diffuse the situation. I told him that he was so lucky to have two houses and that he got to spend time all alone with me and then with his dad – which most kids had to share their parents. That this was actually a really cool thing and that he should look at all the fun and cool things about it. Well, that did not work one iota. So, these tantrums continued for a few months.

Finally, I was at my wits end. I called a child therapist because I honestly did not know what to do anymore and his negative behavior was escalating. I told the therapist how I tried to reassure him how lucky he was because he had two houses, two sets of toys, and all that other stuff to try and make him see the positives of his visitations with his dad. This is when I got the shock of my life.
I am an older single mother (36 at the time), college educated, read all the parenting books – pretty much felt like I was a good mother who was ready for parenthood – I could handle anything a kid could throw at me – I had done the research!

The child therapist then said to me, “do you know that you are totally discounting his feelings? That when you respond by telling him to think of the positives after he tells you that he is upset about visitations and your family moving into two houses, you are basically saying this, “hey there – your feelings don’t really count – you should think this way instead.”

My jaw hit the floor. She told me that he is trying to tell me how upset he is, but that I am basically telling him to shove those feelings down and just be happy. I felt like the worst parent in the world.
That night, my son started another rerun of tantrum IV from last week. It was at that point that I said to his, “Do you miss me when you are at your daddy’s house? Did you know that I sure do miss you when you are there? And, did you also know that I think that it is sad that are family is now in two different houses? Does that make you sad also?”

His little eyes lit up, he jumped in my arms, and a muzzle could not have stopped him from spilling out his true feelings of the visitations. He told me how he misses daddy when he is here, he misses me when he is at daddy’s, he is so mad that he cannot see us together. He told me he was so angry and mad that he was just plain sad in his heart. And thanks to that therapist I told him this, “You know what, it is okay that you feel that way. Your feelings are totally normal and I hear you – I really hear how you feel.”
Now, I am not going to say that the heavens opened up and everything was totally perfect, but me acknowledging his pain and letting him feel it made it a lot easier for us to move forward. After that conversation, he did start looking at the positives and adjusting to the visitations.

So, I thought to myself – here I am a good parent, engaged and totally hands on in raising this amazing child - and I was doing the totally wrong thing to help my child get through this divorce and visitation schedule. How many other good parents are out there doing their best in this tough situation– but they and their children are not really getting down to the nitty-gritty of how they feel so that they can move forward? How many other parents are going throw this exact same thing?

So, that is why I wrote this book. It is my hope that this book is the spark that helps parents and children who are going through separation, divorce, and visitations to talk about how they feel – get it out there instead of shoving the anger down. I would love it if this book was a requirement for all divorced couples with children so that it helps the child (and the parent to be honest) talk about their feelings and start to heal and to move on.

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Michelle Shillings lives in Washington State with her son She is a technical editor and a single mom. She credits the idea of this book to her son who struggles with his visitations between his mom’s house and his dad’s house

Ms. Shillings said "As a parent, we want to shield our children from pain – especially when we feel it is our fault that they are feeling the pain of divorce or separation. I knew my son was having a hard time with the new visitation schedule but I kept telling him that it was okay. He was too young to really explain how he felt."

Hopefully, this book will help parents get more understanding about how their children feel and allow everyone to accept this difficult situation.

Additionally, I Can't Want To is a must have book for parents who share the visitation of their children with another parent. Even in the best separation situations, one of the toughest things to be asked by a child is the reason they have to do visitations between the parents.I Can't Want To can be a tool to help parents both understand and validate their child's feelings in such difficult situations so that the child can begin to accept, adjust, and feel comfortable with visitations between their parents.