Family First

Why would powerful men like General David Petraeus cheat and risk so much? We are often puzzled when famous men who seem to have it all, like public acclaim, professional success, and a loving family, throw away their career, marriage, and reputation by having an affair. Ironically, these affairs rarely turn into long-lasting relationships. Fear of infidelity plagues many marriages today. My guest this week on “Family First,” is Terri Orbuch PhD, a marriage expert and director of a landmark 25-year, NIH government-funded study of marriage and divorce. Popularly known as The Love Doctor, Dr. Orbuch will explain how powerful men are especially vulnerable to common traps that jeopardize marriages. She will share the 5 reasons why powerful men cheat and how power creates blind spots when it comes to self-scrutiny. Past President of the International Association for Relationship Research, she will give us some important insights into keeping a marriage safe and healthy.

You can’t watch TV long without seeing an ad for a drug for enhancing sexual function. Sexual dysfunction is on the increase, but it’s not because we are all getting older or we need more drugs. Sexuality is a basic part of being human and sexual performance is closely tied to our sense of self. A fulfilling relationship between parents has a beneficial effect on the whole family. My guest this week is Dr. Robert Fried, a well-recognized expert and educator in biopsychology and behavioral neuroscience. His research has led him to conclude that we are actually eating our way to sexual dysfunction. Dr. Fried literally wrote the book on how diet can lead to sexual dysfunction later in life, “Great Food/Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness.” It's not in our heads, it's not a sign of age, nor is it lack of interest, but 70 million men and women have problems in the bedroom that may start in the kitchen. Dr. Fried will share his eating plan for sexual vitality and health.

Many parents feel anxious as their children approach the teenage years. Parents worry about peer pressure, losing their influence, being able to communicate effectively with their teens, wondering if they have prepared them well enough for life, asking themselves about whether they pushed too hard or not enough in academics, worrying about how much help they should give or will be allowed to give their teen as they approach young adulthood, fearing the worst when it comes to bad influences. My guest this week on Family First is Kyra Batte, a life coach to teens. She helps parents and their teens get through these uncertain years with the least hassle and the most self-assurance and resilience as possible. She will show how many of the fears felt by teens and by their parents can be overcome by healthy communication, attention to life balance, and care with self-talk. Kyra’s insights can make family life a whole lot better. Listen in and invite your teen to join us.

Parenting is perhaps the most important activity in all of human existence. And it can be incredibly difficult, worrisome, and exhausting, as well as exhilarating, fulfilling, and joyful. Are there simple steps which can make it easier on a day to day basis without jeopardizing long term success? As we approach the new year and round out the hectic family holiday season, I have decided to offer my own thoughts on “Family First.” based on my more than thirty years as a family therapist and educator as well as on my own experience as a parent and on the wonderful feedback I receive from my readers who have honored me by reading my books on parenting. I want to share with you some key steps which are entirely within your control as a parent and which can dramatically ease the burden of parenting while actually gaining more respect and cooperation from your children. I will be sharing the seven secrets from my book The Seven Secrets of Successful Parents, all seven! Please call in!

What happens around holiday time when so many people have cold or flue symptoms? How can you avoid them or limit their effects? Cold and flu are the most common infections that affect Americans. Children typically get 9 to 12 infections each year, and adults have about seven per year. Aside from making you feel miserable, these infections are the leading cause of lost work and school days. Also of not enjoying the holidays! Having the right strategies in place can cut your risk of getting sick this season. My guest this week is Jonny Bowden, known as The Rogue Nutritionist. He is a well-known authority on ways to get and stay healthy naturally. He will tell us his top nutritional picks for cutting down the frequency and duration of colds and flu, and will explain how to protect the respiratory system, which is our first line of defense from air-born infection. A few good habits can make all the difference. So have your family listen in about keeping the holiday season healthy.

How can a parent or teacher communicate to a child who has been identified as having learning differences or needing special education that they are still okay and have a great future ahead of them? What can they do about bullying or other behaviors of peers which make the child feel bad? Actually every child has her or his own learning needs and in an effort to address these needs, various programs have generated a lot of misunderstanding. My guest on Family First this week is an experienced teacher who has dedicated herself to removing the stigma attached to special education. Laura Reiff has created a book which parents can read with their special education child to help both of them deal with the many challenges ahead. Reiff’s book is “The Adventures of Naomi Noodles, The Wonderful, Amazing, Splendiforous Me.” The first of a series, it helps children and their caregivers overcome any stigma about learning differences and helps both end frustration, misunderstanding, and hurt.

More and more kids are being identified as having attention deficits. Often it is assumed that ADHD is a biological imbalance which requires medication to control. But drugs don’t solve the core problem. And the kids end up with habits and labels that may have unwanted consequences for their future. My guest this week on Family First is psychologist Dr. Craig B. Wiener, who specializes in the treatment of children, adolescents, and families. He has become well-known for questioning the growing tendency to make behavioral problems into medical disabilities. His groundbreaking work with ADHD shows that the behaviors included in the ADHD diagnosis can become frequent due to reinforcement, and in his new book, “Parenting Your Child with ADHD: A No-Nonsense Guide for Nurturing Self-reliance and Cooperation,” he gives parents a powerful new drug-free way to eliminate ADHD behavior by stopping those reinforcements and instead developing their child’s self-reliance and cooperation.

When parents are angry and frustrated, and feel they can’t take any more from their kids, they usually either blow their stack and then regret it later, or try to control themselves by holding it all in. There's another option, to learn healthy, constructive ways to release all that anger and get it out of your body, safely, quickly, and efficiently. My guest this week on Family First is award-winning author and therapist Jude Bijou who says that parents should take a page from their kids' playbook. Psychotherapist Jude Bijou has found that most kids know instinctively the healthy ways to release anger, sadness, and fear and then feel instant relief. She shows parents how to do this in an appropriate way that won't traumatize their kids' fragile psyches. Her groundbreaking discoveries appear in her book Attitude Reconstruction: A Blueprint for Building a Better Life and she will be sharing on Family First the simple principles which have helped countless clients and students.

As a society we are concerned about the trauma of childhood abuse or spousal abuse witnessed by children, about bullying, and about parental neglect, when kids are left on their own with little direction or attention to basic needs. All of these adverse experiences impact our kids into adulthood. They require conscious effort for recovery and public awareness to reduce their occurrence. But what about when none of these things has occurred and yet a person still feels not good enough, or strangely alone and unconnected? My guest this week on Family First is Dr. Jonice Webb, who has identified and investigated this more subtle kind of abuse, which can go completely unidentified and still have profound effects. She felt compelled to draw awareness to the problem and has as her goal to bring this unseen force from childhood out of the darkness and into the light. She seeks to make people aware of it and its effects and to give them the words to talk about it and the tools to fix it.

We hear a lot about how our educational systems are flawed and are both failing our kids and stressing our economy at the local, state, and federal levels. It may be that we have demanded far too much of our schools. They were designed to teach kids the basic skills they need to function in the modern world. But now as a society we have come to expect them to sit for our children before and after academic hours and to be primarily responsible for teaching basic health, sportsmanship, moral values, compassion for others, and more. But it’s not working. These functions have been the responsibility of parents throughout history until only a few decades ago. Some parents are taking back that responsibility and my guest this week on “Family First” is a leader in this “unschooling” movement. Dayna Martin is Founder, Creator, and Conference Diva of Life Rocks! an annual conference in New Hampshire where families come together to learn, have fun, and share their experiences.

Today people are still dying of cardiovascular problems after almost a century of research. Predictors include elevated blood pressure, cholesterol, and tryglycerides, so pharmaceutical companies have developed chemicals to lower these numbers, but we are learning more and more about unwanted side effects to these drugs, most recently impaired memory in some patients who are taking statins to lower cholesterol. Plus the long term studies leave some doubt whether artificially lowering cholesterol actually is as preventative as had been hoped. But there are natural ways to reduce these predictors and these have only good side effects. My guest this week on Family First knows a great deal about these natural strategies. Dr. Keenan will discuss preventative cardiac research relating to nutrition and food and ways that we can improve our family’s health with some simple dietary and lifestyle changes.

When a child struggles to learn, it can snowball into a much bigger problem. Parents worry about behavior in school, social skills, math, reading, and writing problems, organizational challenges, how to interact with teachers, whether to consider medications, and more. Especially in a competitive job market, parents feel pressure even in the early childhood years to see that their children succeed at school. My guest Dr. Richard Selznick has many years experience helping families to resolve these problems. He is the author of the new book School Struggles: A Guide to Your Shut-Down Learner's Success, which builds on the well received information in his previous book The Shut-Down Learner: Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child. He offers practical, straightforward advice which has helped educators, school psychologists, and parents. Dr. Selznick shows parents and teachers how to address the problems felt by struggling students and how to help them learn to their full ability.

If you ask someone if they have any stress, they either roll their eyes saying, “Doesn’t everybody?” or they laugh saying, “Who me?” We all have stressors in our lives, at home, at work, even on our dinner plate. Many assume it’s just that way and if we feel worn out there is nothing to do but fill up on energy drinks or medications. But my guest this week says this is a formula for ruin. Peter M. McCarthy is author of the new book Adrenaline Nation, in which he describes how the chronic stress of modern life is not only making us sick but is also bankrupting our economy. He will share the changes that we can make to turn this process around and regain our ability to protect our health from stress. He holds a Doctorate in Traditional Naturopathy from Trinity College of Natural Health and is President of the Texas Complementary and Alternative Medicine Association and Chair of the Texas Health Freedom Coalition, the largest state level grass roots natural health advocacy network,

Some relationships are more difficult than others. Sometimes a friend or even a child can be difficult to handle. They can try your patience and seem incorrigible. Can we learn some tricks from our four-footed friends? My guest this week on Family First says absolutely! Charmaine Hammond is an international transformational speaker, author, and radio host, helping people live inspired, resilient lives, and she is a leading trainer in corporate North America, helping transform workplaces. Charmaine Hammond is the award winning and bestselling author of On Toby’s Terms and Toby The Pet Therapy Dog – and his hospital friends, and also Bounce Forward. She has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul - What I learned from the dog. She is now coauthoring a new book GPS Your Best Life. Her book On Toby’s Terms is currently in development to become a major motion picture! Get your whole family to listen in. Charmaine will be sharing Toby’s lessons!

Does the end of summer have you feeling drained? Many parents look forward to the summer to do things with the children and be free of school and sports schedules. But then by the end of summer they are looking forward to the discipline of the school day and week, only to find the readjustment stressful and even overwhelming. This week health author, fitness expert, and award-winning pharmacist Sherry Torkos returns to Family First as our guest to share great practical tips for making that readjustment with greater ease and with confidence that you are protecting your family’s health and well-being. Sherry Torkos has researched a number of critical health issues and is gifted at making the scientific information accessible to the general public through her many books on various aspects of health. As a mother herself, she has explored many child health issues. She now will share some quick energy dos and don'ts that will get you and your children feeling energized for fall.

At least half of our nation’s families have been touched by divorce. The high costs and stress on family members of completing the divorce process is legendary, especially if the process involves litigation. Is there another way? My guest this week on Family First is Crispino M. Pastore, Esq., whose mission is to help his clients avoid costly and destructive litigation. He founded the Main Line Family Law Center in 2011, together with his wife Sharon Pastore, after his years of conventional family law practice left him feeling that his hands were constantly tied as he witnessed the destructive nature of the litigation process. He now employs a uniquely integrated approach to assisting clients in resolving their separation and divorce matters. Using expert divorce and parenting mediators, life coaches, therapists, and financial planners, he can assure his clients that their settlements will be fair and reasonable while ensuring that all of their rights and interests are protected.

Our children are exposed daily to news of violence, war, fleeing refugees, children orphaned by conflict. How do we help empower them to believe they can be part of making the world a safer, fairer, more peaceful place? This is one of the goals of the September 21 celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace, a day of ceasefire and non-violence celebrated world wide. My guest on Family First this week is Lisa Parker, who helped to found Peace Day Philly in 2011, believing that Peace Day holds a great opportunity for cities across the world, including Philadelphia. She serves as coordinator of the initiative for 2012, and is Co-Chair of the CITIES Peace Team, an international sub-committee of the International Day of Peace NGO Committee at the United Nations. The CITIES Peace Team shares models, practices, and resources related to Peace Day observances and helps increase connectivity of cities across the world that promote and/or organize observances for Peace Day.

As our population ages, an ever bigger proportion of our population will be dealing with end of life issues. What can we learn from the experience of those dying? What can they teach us about life as well as about death, and how can we help to make their transition more peaceful and love-filled? My guest this week on “Family First” is Becki Hawkins, author of the new book TRANSITIONS: A Nurse’s Education About Life and Death. Becki Hawkins is a natural storyteller and a great listener and she brought those gifts with her as she sat by the bedside of seriously ill or terminally ill patients for more than 30 years, as an oncology and hospice nurse. It is her compassion and warmth that encouraged so many of her charges to share their heartfelt thoughts and experiences with her. On “Family First” she will share what she has learned from her experiences and also reveal a kind of blueprint for how to help our loved ones to go through their end of life transition in peace, grace, and love.

Are social media a distraction and obsession or can they be a force for positive change? Will our children waste time and energy and become sleep deprived searching yet another site, or go into debt consuming whatever is advertised online, or will they find a way to use this new tool to make their world a better place? My guest this week on Family First is dedicated to making social media an instrument of change. Sarah Mazzone is a Registered Nurse, active blogger, new mother, and leader in the movement to live simply and buy what is needed from American manufacturers and from one’s local community. Sarah Mazzone developed her growing blog, “made in usa challenge.com,” to build on her love for writing and her desire to explore American consumerism and associated issues. Sarah specializes in health and wellness, informatics and technology, and research and writing. Find out how to build your family’s health and our nation’s economy by being conscious consumers and communicators.

Do you or someone close sometimes feel that you are never quite good enough or don’t quite measure up? Most Americans feel bombarded by constant messages that they must work harder, learn more, and be better to get what they want in life. My guest this week on Family First says the pressure is killing us, literally. Author of the new book Adrenaline Nation, Peter M. McCarthy knows stress first hand as a former Air Force pilot and then a pilot for Southwest Airlines. But it was seeing all the health problems among his loved ones that led him to discover what stress was doing to us and to dedicate himself to revealing how stress is not only making us sick but also bankrupting our nation. McCarthy earned his Doctorate in Traditional Naturopathy from Trinity College of Natural Health. He is President of the Texas Complementary and Alternative Medicine Association and Chair of the Texas Health Freedom Coalition, the nation’s largest state level grass roots natural health advocacy network,