Books for Parents
Giving Hope
Conversations with Children About Illness, Death and Loss
Now available
Co-written with Elena Lister M.D.
The best and only resource you will ever need for helping any child understand and cope with loss and death.
Just as death is inevitable, talking about death is an inevitable part of parenting. The authors offer us the way to have conversations that are as much about life as about illness, death, loss and grief; conversations that anyone who parents, guides, counsels or comforts children can have.
ISBN: 9780593419151 | Avery 2022
The Anxious Parent
Freeing Yourself from the Stresses and Fears of Parenting
All parents experience anxiety; it is a natural emotional reaction to raising a child. We worry about the things that happen, and we worry about the things that could happen. This is healthy anxiety. But there is also an unhealthy anxiety, an anxiety so powerful that it interferes with our judgment and behavior, and that can create a pattern of pointless parent-child confrontations.
Drawing on my clinical practice as well as my own observations as a parent, I explore the origins of unnecessary parental anxiety. The Anxious Parent reveals how our own experiences as children affect the decisions we make as parents, often adversely. The key to overcoming harmful parental anxiety is to recognize when our childhood associations complicate a situation. offers a “program for change” to help parents overcome these destructive reactions.
ISBN: 0-671-67920-1 | ISBN: 0-671-75578-1 Pbk | Skylight Press | Simon and Schuster, 1990, (1992 paperback)
Reviews of The Anxious Parent
“Anxiety seems to be synonymous with parenthood. Here is a handy, practical, and down-to-earth guide to overcoming the numerous, but needless, apprehensions that are faced by parents everywhere.”
—Lawrence Balter, Ph.D., Author of Dr. Balter’s Child Sense and Who’s in Control?: Dr. Balter’s Guide to Discipline Without Combat
—Eugene Mahon, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
Articles for Parents
“Children and Grief”
Letter to the Editor of The New York Times, November 21 2021, re: Miranda Featherstone essay
Read Letter to the Editor (subscription required)
CHILD Magazine, “Stages” column, a bimonthly advice column on parenting and child development issues
New York Times Women’s Magazines, Contributing Editor with Lisa Weiss, Ph.D.
Books for Children
Romeo the Rhino’s Rocky Romance
A Cautionary tale About Differences
Michael Ulick, Psychologist’s Afterword for parents and educators, Michael Schwartzman Ph.D. and Lisa Weiss Ph.D.
One day Romeo meets Astrid the Ostrich and they fall in love. But Astrid’s family sends Romeo away. Ostriches and rhinos don’t mix. Hunters arrive to gather ostrich feathers, placing Astrid and the other ostriches in grave danger. Only Romeo risks his life to help save the ostriches. He bravely chases the hunters away and wins the day. The differences that the animals felt towards each other are overcome; thus, an important lesson dealing with discrimination has been learned. An Afterword written by Dr. Michael Schwartzman and Dr. Lisa Weiss explores the subject of discrimination from a child’s perspective.
Amazon Reviews of Romeo the Rhino’s Rocky Romance
Articles for Professionals
“Fathers of Psychotic Children: Clinical Observations and Approaches to Treatment”
in Fathers and Their Families, edited by Cath, Gurwitt and Gunsberg, Analytic Press, 1989
“The Oral Deadlock: Treatment of a Psychotic Child”
by Anni Bergman, Michael Schwartzman, Phyllis Sloate and Arnold Wilson. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol. 31, No.2, 1983