Randy Rolfe

FAMILY FIRST: Why Powerful Men Risk It All With Terri Orbuch PHD

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 health.

FAMILY FIRST: Parenting Resolutions for 2013! By Host Randy Rolfe

FAMILY FIRST: Ending the Special Ed Stigma With Laura Reiff

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.

FAMILY FIRST: Drug Free Help for ADHD With Craig B. Wiener, EDD

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

FAMILY FIRST: Dealing with Parental Anger With Jude Bijou

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.

FAMILY FIRST: Recovering from Emotional Neglect With Dr. Jonice Webb

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

FAMILY FIRST: Radical Unschooling With Dayna Martin

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

FAMILY FIRST: Why Homeschool? With Peter Bergson

Our news is filled with the challenges in today’s schools, including peer pressure, precocious sex and drinking, drugs, drop-outs, learning differences, burned out teachers, bullying, poor test scores, too much about fashion and cliques, budget cutbacks, violence, smart phone distractions, and more. Many parents are looking for alternatives. For some, charter schools or online schools seem the answer. Others push for school reforms at the district, state and federal levels. More and more families are considering homeschooling. My guest this week is Peter Bergson, one of the pioneers in the homeschooling movement. He founded Open Connections with his wife Susan Shilcock in 1978 and has been a leader in the theory and practice of what he calls “open education.” He will share his own path to homeschooling as well as the many reasons parents are considering homeschooling and the many options parents have in structuring a truly nurturing environment for their kids of any age

FAMILY FIRST: Helping Kids with School Struggles With Richard Selznick PHD

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 teacher show to address the problems felt by struggling students and how to help them learn to their full ability

FAMILY FIRST: Energizing Your Family’s Fall Season With Sherry Torkos

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. Butt hen 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