Polyamorous Families with Children: Condensed Lifecourse

 Earn 3 CE Contact Hours

Drawing on over 25 years of data from the Longitudinal Polyamorous Family Study (1996–present), this 3-hour workshop with Dr. Elisabeth Sheff offers a comprehensive look at the experiences of families with multiple adults raising children. Using a lifecourse model, Dr. Sheff begins with the early stages of polyamorous family life, including relationship formation, childbearing, and how parents talk with children about polyamory.

The presentation then turns to children’s own perspectives, exploring the benefits they experience, the challenges they encounter, and the strategies they use to navigate those challenges.

Finally, the workshop examines resilience across the lifespan, with a focus on how polyamorous families adapt to aging and loss in long-term multi-partner relationships. The session concludes with time for participant questions and discussion.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

• Identify at least three strategies that parents in polyamorous families use to care for their children.
• Describe the disadvantages that children in polyamorous families report and the strategies they employ to manage those disadvantages.
• Illustrate elements of resilience that polyamorous families demonstrate.
• Explain some of the advantages that elders in polyamorous families cite to aging in long-term multiple partner relationships.

Who Should Attend:

Family therapists, social workers, and mental health professionals

Meet Dr. Eli Sheff:

With more than 30 years researching consensual nonmonogamies, Dr. Eli Sheff is the foremost academic expert on polyamorous families with children. Dr. Eli has a PhD in sociology and is a Certified Sexuality Educator who has written four books and 30+ academic articles on nonmonogamies and BDSM/kinky sex.

She serves as a relationship coach, educator, and expert witness. Nonmonogamy is certainly not for everyone, and Dr. Eli can help people understand how it can work and why, and when it is a bad idea. She has appeared on hundreds of podcasts, television shows, and media interviews with outlets from NPR, National Geographic, and the New York Times to Cosmopolitan and Savage Love. Dr. Eli blogs for Psychology Today and always wants to make friends with dogs.

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