Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D.

Peter attended Hofstra University in New York from 1974 to 1978 and studied Biology and Psychology, eventually settling on Psychology as a career, and graduating with his Ph.D. from the School, Community and Clinical Psychology Program at Hofstra in 1983. He has taught in university psychology, education and computer science departments.  He was a pioneer in the area of artificial intelligence applications in medicine and diagnosis, speaking at a world conference at Harvard University in 1984.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s Peter rounded out his writing as a writer and editor for Scholastic Publications Family Computing, Creative Computing and Softside magazines. He has written on topics such as educational computing, children and computing, cooperative gaming, software design and implementation. He has written more than a dozen books in the clinical and child developmental areas of psychology, including a college textbook in child development, parenting and divorced parenting consumer books, and books on anger management and conflict resolution. 

While Peter maintains writing interests in child psychology, parenting education and the psychology of people and computers, he maintains a busy clinical practice. He is the executive director of SmartParenting: The Family Center, a clinic which delivers court-related services to high conflict individuals and families. Peter has been appointed to more than 5000 cases by the Family, Criminal and Supreme courts in New York. Peter and his SmartParenting staff have been influential in several major court decisions relating to custody, visitation, parenting and the use of experts in high conflict family cases. Peter has lectured psychologists and attorneys all over the country on the role of experts in court cases and in reviewing and understanding methodological aspects of custody evaluation, and has been a trial consultant in New York and Houston. He has developed innovative psychological services in his role with the courts including a parenting education environment which teaches parenting skills in a real life setting, using a house where people interact with their kids and are guided and educated in real time by staff social workers who monitor the interactions in the house with state of the art closed circuit video. Peter has also developed reconciliation counseling programs for children and parents who have become estranged through the divorce process. Peter has played an influential role assisting the courts as well as law enforcement in cases involving family murder, child physical and sexual abuse and International kidnapping and abduction cases. He is a founding member of the London-based “Glugs,” which develops preschool and other educational programs for preventing childhood obesity.

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Last updated January 12, 2011

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