I know kids go through transitions but this one is killing me as a father. Every morning when my 2.5 year old wakes up, he hates seeing me. I mean, hates me. He screams, cries, and takes swings at me. All his wants is his mom. It doesn‘t matter if I move into bed with him at 5am, or wait ‘til he wakes up fully at 8am like this morning. I am the devil to him every morning. Eventually he warms up to me, but first thing, it’s like oil and water. I hope he grows out of it, because more than anything else he is the perfect height to always swing and strike me right between the wickets. Any suggestions?

Today’s show with Kristin Row-Finkbeiner of Mom’s Rising (www.momsrising.com) gave me a lot to think about.  I remembered back to when I had Connor, my five year old.  I felt isolated, alone and cut-off from the world.  I didn’t know what I was doing and it seemed I didn’t know how to re-engage in the world in a way that served me, my son and my family. 

It is a sad fact that the systems in this country don’t serve mothers, or family systems for that matter, and it is inspiring to know there are people out there fighting for our rights .  There are 83 million mothers in the US.  This means there are 166 million parents who all deserve to have a voice.  It is time to organize for the rights of our families and our children.  Motherhood should not be a barrier to equality nor should parenting in general. 

I thank Kristin for doing her work and for giving our listeners a way to get involved in improving our lives as parent’s and more importantly the lives of our children…

What a day, babysitter cancels, fight ensues with husband, and diarrhea takes over my little guy and grandma steps in to help…

Sometimes, support and trust come from the places you least expect them…an air-conditioned office (it was 100ish degrees in Portland today), a frantic grandma (who usually is overscheduled)  and a supportive village (husband, business partner, intern, etc…). 

What all of this made me realize is that we do really need a village to raise our children and that often times that village is right in front of us if we just ask… and trust. 

I have decided to live my life based on two mottos “it is all perfect” and “this too shall pass.”  We will see how it works out.

In the end, the day came to a close in a relaxed manner with the stress behind us… for now.

Love, Laura

You know when you wake up in the morning and roll over to find that beautiful partner lying there beside you and you can’t feel anything but love for them…that was NOT my morning! 

1^st, I wasn’t able to sleep in my own bed because the boys were in it will Freckles.

2^nd, I was greeted with a “Why are you looking at your iPhone?”  

3^rd, Not even a kiss good morning.

Fortunately for me, I had been informed the night before that Laura started her period, so I was prepared for her to be a little off. That’s not a generality. It’s just the way it is with my wife. So, I was prepared. But sometimes your spouse just rubs you the wrong way and they don’t stop. It gets to the point where everything they  do annoys you.

That’s why I love doing one show a month where Laura and I can just talk about whatever. I was prepared to talk about Joan Lunden and her Kinderkord, Jill Milligan and her book Grandma Rules, Maya Frost and her book The New Global Student and Jennifer Ward and her book I Love Dirt. All of them were guests on our show by Joan Lunden. I also had wanted to discuss the fact that father’s in the UK lost out on Paternity leave.

Parenting has great topics abound each month. But this morning, Laura and I were not going to talk about anything other than ourselves and our issues with each other. It was quite therapeutic. At the end of the show, I felt much better, so did she and we were really able to laugh about it.

Isn’t that the way that married couples do it? You start to get grumpy with one another, then there is some sort of fight and the longer you seem to discuss the better you feel. The air becomes clearer and sure enough you get beyond it and you are back feeling love for your partner.

Some of you may not feel that. What happens when you get into a disagreement with your spouse? Why can’t you get past it? Can you be unplugged with your spouse? Can you be unplugged with your spouse in front of other people? on a radio show?

Laura and I wanted to recap the entire month of July but got something different, something better and  something real. Today’s show was truly, Parenting Unplugged.

I’ll make this short. I just looked over our numbers for the first 6 months of our show and the trends are impressive. I didn’t realize how big this could become.  With the current rate of growth in weekly downloads and live listeners, which happens to be at 400%, Parenting Unplugged Radio could actually be downloaded 3.5 million times in the first year.

WoW!

Our goal was to be a resource for parents, but I guess I never thought about touching them 3.5 million times. Look, I understand that many of those 3.5 million downloads will be to the same iPhone, iPod, Blackberry or whatever type of device you use, but I also realize that our unique visitors numbers keep growing as well.

Laura and I decided to do something different and do something that could make a difference. So far, with all of your support it has really started to happen. We look forward to talking more about the ups and downs and twists and turns that parents go through with their kids no matter what age they are.

3.5 million downloads. It’s a great place to start!

I am sitting here thinking about co-parenting… life as wife, mother, woman. What an interesting journey it is… filled with joy, sadness and everything in between and it is all of our experiences combined that make us able to continue to walk the path together… to hopefully learn from our mistakes and move forward.

I am looking forward to this week’s show as it is a wonderful time for us to connect and reflect with you, our listeners, about the journey so far… This month we have chatted with people who have taught me to be a better mom (play with my kids outside, explore travel and think outside of the box)… we have discussed things I know nothing about (stepmothers)… and have commented on things very close to home (grandmothers)…

The essence of why I do this is authentic connection… authentic connection as a co-parent and authentic connection with all of you…

I hope you listen this week either live or via download… one more opportunity for us to be reminded that we are all connected… as we are all essentially co-parenting the next generation… whether they are mine or yours.

Thank you! Thank you to with Jill Milligan, who authored Grandma Rules and was our guest on the show. It was really nice to connect with someone from the older generation who gets it. She wasn’t all high and mighty about how the younger generation doesn’t respect grandparents. She turned that philosophy on its head. Maybe Grandparents need to respect what the younger generation is trying to do. Life is crazy, life is tough and if that means that Grandparents need to follow the instructions of younger parents then so be it. Maybe I shouldn’t spoil my grandkids with ice cream, double cheese grilled sandwiches and TV. Maybe I should do it differently. Maybe I should do it with Grandma Rules, which is there aren’t any rules at all.

Personally, I feel like Grandparents struggle to let go of the parental reigns. I may need to remind them, these aren’t your children. You are out of touch with parenting young children. You did your job now move on. Am I crazy for saying this? Am I out of line?

I am not here as a parent to make my parents feel good about there parenting. I am hear to raise my children the best way I can and that may mean I do it differently. That may mean that parenting has evolved. That may mean that Grandparents haven’t yet.

I am writing this before our interview with Jill Milligan, who wrote a book called, Grandma Rules. I suggest you check back and see if I have written a post show blog. I usually do. Her book appears to be very light hearted and fun but it fires me up a little. Hear me out, Laura and I are trying to raise our children differently than my parents and Laura’s parents did. I want to be clear. They did the best with what they had. But that being said, sometimes Grandparents think they deserve respect from a 5 year old because they are 65 and I completely disagree. In fact, I get upset when I see a grandparent disrespecting a young child with shame, blame or other harmful words. Just because it happened to them when they were kids doesn’t mean they need to pass it on. It needs to stop and taking off a belt, or punishing a child is not the way to get the positive message across.

Now I am sure Jill isn’t focusing on this in her book. I haven’t read it yet, but Grandma Rules. There is much humor there but also some serious issues. A grandma Rule may be that they get to eat Ice Cream and watch TV for an hour right before they go to bed. I don’t like that rule. I would be much more inclined to support, a big bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce and a book or a board game. No TV. There are studies out that show how bad TV is to watch right before you go to sleep.

As for my parents, they are getting more and more used to the way Laura and I do things. Personally, I don’t think they like it, but they are keeping their mouths shut more often and letting me handle a “bad” situation. Usually these “problems” are so easy to fix. I just connect with my kid for a minute or too and presto, problem solved. Seriously, it works. My parents might say something like, “Big boys don’t cry.” or “If you want some ice cream, you better stop crying.” Do I ever get so frustrated at my kids that I want to say things like that? Yes. Have I? Probably, but it is something I aim not to do and I apologize for it, because really all a child wants is love and connection, especially when they are young. For those of you with teens, I am not there yet, but if you read up on the comparisons between 0-8 year olds and 13-18 year old, you will find they are almost identical in many ways. I suggest you scan through the book, Natural Learning Rythms – it’s right on and magical.

Many parents don’t agree with me, in fact there are a few in my own family. I will say this, my parents have 3 kids and 6 grandchildren. Of the 9, 5 can be judged pretty impartially by me. I would say my parents and my brother and his wife have done a very nice job. Of course, I will also say that of the 5, three have utilized therapy at some point with numerous benefits. I course, I won’t name names…

But back to Grandparents, I think the biggest problem I have with them is that what worked 40 years ago, may not be so good anymore. Get with the times. See the changes. Grandparent Rules? There are no rules, because each day something new is discovered and that should what we all strive for.

I have been waiting for this: the one question that seemed to really spark our listeners. Maya Frost, author of The New Global Student, really hit it on the head when she said that all people want to live in a foreign country, but not everyone can do it. She doesn’t mean the ability, she means the “cohunes” to do it and it takes some. 

So I posed the question to my Facebook Friends, “Tell me why you couldn’t move abroad in 12 months? What are the reasons you could move your family to another country? If you could, which country would it be?” Here are some of the answers and fortunately some came from those that have made the move…

1- (Man)Money. Not easy to find a job abroad especially if you’re not fluent in language used. I would love to live with the family in Spain one day, but would settle for England.

2- (Man) We did move and are still surviving, though barely!! I think it’s more of a mind game if anything. Move somewhere where you know the kids will get spoiled by the locals and the locals appreciate you being there, otherwise could be difficult. Children can adapt to culture and language better than adults I believe, so the real stress is on the parents.

3-(Woman) I would love to move back to Germany for a year, but language is a problem (for hubby, not for me). Trying to find jobs in the same country for two working parents who care about their callings (teaching and architecture, respectively) would be a challenge. If we did pursue it, I would probably want to wait for out son Teo to be a little older, maybe kindergarten age at least, so he might remember the experience a little more vividly than he would now at just shy of 2. Of course, there’s always Canada – Dad is a Canuck and Teo’s a dualieJ  Seems like, realistically, on of us would have to take a sabbatical to make it work , assuming the other parent had a job offer.

4-(Woman) Family and friends. We’re entrenched in our community and it would be hard to leave, especially for the kids, even for just a short time. But if we were to move it would probably be France, England, or Australia because I don’t see myself learning a third language any time soon…

5-(Woman) Just hold your breath, hold hands and take the plunge! We did it – we love it. We are in the UK, so the kids have taken on a new culture and new accent, but not a new language. The age of the kids was a key factor. We moved when they were 5 and 2. Another plus is a career that can cross borders, such as technology or the arts. If we were really brave, we would have gone somewhere beyond Western Europe. I would like to live in Japan. To be continued.

6- (Woman) Being half-Brit (though for inane reasons not a dual citizen), I’d love to move to the UK. Ireland’s been calling for years. Even if my husband was willing, we couldn’t move yet though because of custody arrangements with my step-daughters’ birth mom. The earliest window would be in 8 more years, once both girls are in college. My husband and I have talked about dusting off our German for a potential move there, too.

Great points made by all. Why you couldn’t move abroad in 12 months? Don’t be shy? It’s not like I am asking you to move. Just tell me why you couldn’t? My reason? Our kids are too young, 5 and 2, but as you saw, one woman did it just fine, though the UK speaks English. I want to build our company and then when it starts to really run itself, Laura, the kids and I take off. Where? Who knows, we might just have to spin the globe and see.

Of all the interviews we have done, this could be the most enlightening for us parents. Personally, I am all for learning how to give my kids the best education possible, save thousands of dollars and travel the world all at the same time. Got your attention? Here you go.

Teenage parents you must pay attention today to the show. Maya Frost has penned , The New Global Student. It will put your mind at ease regarding college for your children.

If you are tired of the college-prep drama and really want to know the best education options available for your kids, listen up.

If you want save thousands of dollars on college expenses without sacrificing the quality of education or the opportunities for personal development, listen up.

It’s not about earning a college diploma abroad—

It’s not about online learning.

It’s not about homeschooling

It’s not about education reform.

It’s not about international high schools or language immersion elementary schools

It’s not about school choice or charter schools.

It’s not about using your connections to get into a top-tier college.

It’s not about paying for expensive coaching or consulting.

It’s not about gaming the system. 

It’s about getting the most for your child. And today at 10am, it’s on Parenting Unplugged Radio.

Send your questions now to info@parentingunpluggedradio.com or Instant Message us live during the show by visiting the website.