Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Do you know a family looking to adopt?

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

Many couples today are looking into adopting a child, and most of us know some one who has considered adopting, either domestically or internationally. Often would-be adoptive parents are faced with challenges they had no way of knowing about ahead of time, and few appreciate the financial commitment, which can cost well over $10,000, with travel expenses, fees, and more, and cause undue stress at what should be a happy time. Likewise, friends and relatives often have no idea how to help.  

My guest this week on Family First net talk radio is Kelly Ellison, who as a result of her own experience adopting her daughter from China, founded YourAdoptionFinanceCoach.com and GotchaGiftRegistry.com, two eCommerce companies to fill this information gap. Her organization is dedicated to giving potential parents the coaching they need to make the process as smooth as possible and to educating friends and family about how they can best help, so that, as Kelly says, they can “bring their family home together forever.” 

Click on the above link to hear Kelly ellison live, at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, and 4 PM ET, to listen in or catch it later on archive. 

Kelly Ellison is an executive coach and trainer with over 25 years experience working in development and management in the nonprofit sector.  She has been president and CEO of two nonprofit organizations as well as Vice President of Marketing and Development for a national nonprofit organization based in Kansas City, Missouri.  Kelly has a passion for helping people raise money, and now she specifically helps adoptive families reach their financial goals. 

 Kelly earned her Master’s Degree in Business Administration in 2005 from the Rockhurst Executive Fellows Program in Kansas City. She is certified in mediation and diversity and is an experienced presenter.  She is co-author of The Youth Action Agenda, A Cooperative Model for Environmental Leadership, a curriculum for high school. She is a member of the scholarship committee for the Rosalyn Carter Institute’s Intergenerational Caregivers Scholarship Award and a member of the board of governors of the We Are Family Foundation.

To hear Kelly Ellison’s insights on adoption, click on the above link at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, and 4 PM ET, to listen in or catch it later on archive.

Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tips:  Adapting to the new family when the child is adopted takes a lot of focus and attention by the new parents, particularly because the parents don't have the same natural hormones which follow a birth to create a bit of extra confidence, closeness, and security feelings within the family. So stay focused and steady and know that you are meant to be this child's baby and it will all work out okay!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Discover a great female role model!

Family First VoiceAmerica™

We often hear how our young people lack role models to inspire them not only to be ambitious but also to follow ethical and spiritual principles in their careers and lives. Especially for young women and also their mothers, such role models are rare. My guest this week on Family First, net talk radio on VoiceAmerica.com is Patricia Ortlieb, who has immersed herself in the research and documentation of the life of Eliza Tibbets, who as a pioneer in the 1870s introduced the Navel Orange to Riverside and founded the California citrus industry. Tibbets was also an abolitionist, suffragette, horticulturalist, spiritualist, and mother. Patricia Ortlieb is an artist, psychotherapist, educator, world traveler, management consultant, and also Tibbets’ great-great-granddaughter. Ortlieb has authored the definitive work on Tibbets, with coauthor Peter Economy: “Creating an Orange Utopia: Eliza Lovell Tibbets & the Birth of California’s Citrus Industry”. Ortlieb is passionate about introducing children to their heritage and to great role models.

Click on the link above and go to the program for March 29. Listen live at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, or 4 PM ET, or any time later on archive or downloadable.

Patricia Ortlieb is an artist, author, and educator, and a docent at the San Diego Museum of Art, where she has volunteered for the past ten years. She served for more than two decades as a trainer, counselor, and teacher, specializing in training skills and therapeutic behavior modification, including assertive and humanistic psychology. She is a licensed family therapist. She earned her BA in education and art history at California State University and her MA in social science at Azusa Pacific University. She also received art training at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, UCLA, and at Pepperdine University. She has traveled extensively, including world cruises and adventures in Antarctica and has lived in Spain and Germany. Her travels also took her to Bahia, Brazil, home of the famous Navel Orange. She has done paintings of the “Giant Orange” and has donated her voluminous Tibbets documents to UC Riverside. She wants her son, grandsons, and granddaughter to know their history.

To hear about Eilza Tibbets amazing life, Click on the link above and go to the program for March 29. Listen live at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, or 4 PM ET, or any time later on archive or downloadable.

Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tips: Tell your daughters stories of women who have success in al different walks of life. And remember them yourself. Focus on the qualities that gave them the focus, dedication, energy, and persistance that it took them to accomplish their mission with integrity and joy.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Bring creative arts home

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

Creative art programs are being cut in schools to save money, and kids are being sucked into digital worlds designed by someone else for their recreation. What happened to crayons and colored pencils, clay, finger paints, and yarn? How does the artistic process help young minds to develop and how can we bring it back into our homes?  My guest this week on Family First is Helen Webber, a celebrated artist whose artistic works have graced huge public buildings as well as homes, always with fanciful, uplifting images, in diverse materials and a variety of themes.  Webber seeks to “inspire the creative spirit in our personal and public environments, and especially in our souls.” Webber believes that art can touch the spirit of many more people than those whose art experiences are limited to the halls and walls of museums and galleries. She is passionate about the rights of children to explore their imagination. Listen in for creative ideas for making your home an inspiring place to hang out.

Listen in Friday March 16, 4 PM ET or 1 PM PT, 2 PM NT, or 3 PM CT or any time on archive, to hear Helen Webber. Go to: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60346/the-value-of-creative-arts-in-the-home.

Helen Webber has created art for over one hundred public sites across the US and abroad. Best known for her fabric collage tapestries, she has also worked in metal, clay, wood, and stained glass, creating pieces from three to seventy-four feet. Her dramatic art adorns medical facilities, cruise ships, corporate and community centers, universities, and religious environments, as well as homes. Webber has written and illustrated children’s books, as well as designed book and record covers. Working with major US manufacturers, she has created an array of products for the home, as well as designs for children’s creative crafts. Webber has a Masters degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and has taught at colleges and lectured across the country. The book Catch a Dreamer was the inspiration for the film of the same name, which she wrote and directed. The film examines the rights of children today through the use of tapestry images, photography, art, poetry, and music..

Hear Helen Webber's insights Friday live or any time on MP3, etc. later. Go to: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60346/the-value-of-creative-arts-in-the-home.    

Randy's Take Home Tips: Parents need to be creative too. Paint WITH your child. Build sand castles. Make decorative arts for bedroom walls. Go to a crafts exhibition and make bowls of clay. Create a little book together! You are modeling creativity, having fun, learning something, and being together sharing, all at the same time.



Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Can Parents Get in the Zone?

Family First VoiceAmerica™

Athletes have their zone, writers have their flow, children have their play – are these related? Is there a zone for parents? What if parents could parent from a place of self-less absorption and complete engagement in the moment? Could they tap into an intelligence much deeper than any book, expert, or training could provide? My guest this week on Family First is Michael Mendizza, author of Magical Parent-Magical Child, the Art of Joyful Parenting, with Joseph Chilton Pearce. Michael’s work helps adults rediscover the "playful" and "childlike" genius of their own innate intelligence, as they guide, learn from and mentor children, which results in a radically different learning environment for children, transforming both child and parent and creating what Michael calls the Optimum Learning Relationship. Michael will share valuable insights from his 25 years of personal relationships with scientists, authors, visionary educators and athletes and his more than 100 taped interviews with them, now online.

Family First is broadcast live on Fridays at 4 PM ET, 3 PM CT, 2 PM MT, and 1 PM PT, and then it is also archived for listening any time, or for download, podcast, RSS, MP3, apps, and embedding in any website or social network. Clikc on the link above, or go to the specific show page at: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60192/can-parents-get-in-the-zone.

Michael Mendizza is an author, educator, documentary filmmaker and founder of Touch the Future, a nonprofit learning design center. Michael is preparing two additional books; Kids Are Not The Problem, a series of essays on parenting the next critical generation, and Flowering, a collection of dramatic floral images and quotes by Krishnamurti. Inspiration for his work emerged from his own experience as a father and personal relationships with Pearce, physicist David Bohm, philosopher J. Krishnamurti, and many others. If being in an optimum state is important to professional athletes, imagine what this could mean to parents, childcare providers, educators, coaches and the children they love. Michael writes and speaks internationally on many topics, including the Next Frontier in Education, The Intelligence of Play, Media and the Brain, Corporate Exploitation of Children, The Brave New World of Un-Schooling, The Childlike Mind, Rational Imagination, and Raising Children in a Sport-Crazed Culture.

Listen in to hear Michael Mendizza's valluable insights on parenting. Listen in Friday, at 4 PM ET or 1 PM PT or any time afterwards, at http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60192/can-parents-get-in-the-zone.


Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tips: As Plato said, we all know what we need to know already, education is simply the process of bringing our inner intelligence into our consciousness so that we can act on it. it is the same with parenting. Don't let all the would be experts pull you away from your nurturing instincts about how to love and support your child. Parenting is fun and is meant to be rewarding every day. If your child knows you feel that way, he or she will respond accordingly and enjoy being a child and looking forward to growing up to be like you!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Never Too Soon to Learn Wellness

Family First VoiceAmerica™


With the epidemic of obesity in children, with studies showing that even our youngest kids are suffering from stress and emotional problems and the early onset of conditions once thought a product of aging like ardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, we need to find ways to help kids become familiar as early as possible with the principles of good health and wellness. My guest this week hon Family First as created a rare and valuable tool for making wellness fun for the little ones. Maryellen Murphy Ruggiero is the author and illustrator of The Little Lotus Learns About Wellness. She will share how parents and teachers can help get children off to a good start with good habits by educating them in a fun way about the essential elements and benefits of health and wellness. She is passionate about yoga, the arts, and the benefits of a holistic lifestyle and is committed to continue promoting wellness, literacy and creativity. She will also share what she calls The Five Petals of Wellness.

Listen in to Family First this Friday at 1 PM ET, 2 PM CT, 3 PM MT, or 4 PM PT, or any time afterwards on archive on your PC or downlaodable as MP3, or RSS, app or more. Just go to:
http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60000/never-too-early-to-learn-wellness.

Maryellen Murphy Ruggiero was raised in a small town in Massachusetts the youngest of five. Her mother Helen was forward thinking and a firm believer in whole foods, vitamins, and exercise for good health. Her father Dan, a teacher, believed strongly in the value of education and the opportunities that it offers. Maryellen graduated from the University of Southern Maine with an Associate’s degree in Therapeutic Recreation. She married her college sweetheart Dan and in 1989 their son Danny was born. Danny showed signs of sensitivity to certain processed foods and additives, so Maryellen immersed herself in books about wellness and made changes to her family’s lifestyle. In May 2011, she obtained her B.A. in Wellness and the Healing Arts from Lesley University. As her thesis/final project, she researched the essential elements of children's wellness and then wrote and illustrated The Little Lotus Learns About Wellness. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, son, and family dog.

Listen in by going to: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60000/never-too-early-to-learn-wellness Friday afternoon, 4 PM PT, 1 PM ET, or any time later on archive. Have you children listen in too!

Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tip: Humans learn primarily by imitation of those around them. So make sure you create a strong model for your child of living responsibly for your own health and well-being, treating others caringly, and staying in touch with the spiritual link and creative power among us all. And set a good example of curiosity, reading, and sharing! Find out more in my book, You Can Postpone Anything But Love, from Amazon, and in eBook for Kindle and Nook.