President Calls on Americans to Support Troops
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2 Experts Answer Call with FREE HELP
(Baltimore, MD) December 13, 2004 – Thanking U.S. Troops at Camp Pendleton in San Diego Tuesday, President Bush called on Americans to actively support our troops—and two well-known authors and experts on marriage and parenting are answering that call.
When it comes to active military service, absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder. In fact, separated war families face more stress during the holidays. Erin Brown Conroy, author of 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child, and Mort Fertel, author of Marriage Fitness, are doing something about that. Their bestselling books are FREE for the asking for all active military families separated during the holidays.
"This is the time for giving," says Fertel, "And military families need what
Erin and I have to offer now more than any other time of the year. They come
through for us everyday. How could we not answer the President's call and
come through for them now?"
"We're calling it a care package for the heart," says Fertel, whose breakthrough book, Marriage Fitness, has been profiled on NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox News Network and in Family Circle, Glamour Magazine, and Fitness Magazine.
The other half of the author team is parenting expert and mother of 12, Erin Brown Conroy, M.A.
"The holidays are a stressful and lonely time for military families separated because of duty," says the author of 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child,
"It's particularly tough on kids. I know Mort and I can help their situation, and we feel compelled to do so because of everything they do for us." Conroy shares 30 years of practical experience working with children and families and is a parenting columnist, frequent guest on radio, in magazines, and through online publications. Her practical tips for effective parenting have been quoted in hundreds of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and the Miami Herald.
The President Tuesday referred to the United States Department of Defense program called
"America Supports You," designed to showcase support for the military from individuals, businesses, and groups (www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil). Fertel and Brown Conroy hope their gift inspires others to give too.
For Fertel and Brown Conroy, marriage and parenting isn't just a clinical practice; it's also a very personal topic. Fertel and his wife's marriage spiraled downward after three of their infant children died in less than two years. They saved their marriage and then developed a 20-exercise
"Marriage Fitness" plan to help other couples. Brown Conroy, once a single mother of five, is now remarried and the mother of 12 children—three as a birth-parent, two as a step-parent, and seven through adoption.
Active military families separated during the holidays can get both Marriage Fitness and 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child as FREE downloads from December 13, 2004, until January 1, 2005, by visiting
www.GiftForMilitaryFamilies.com.
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FACTS ABOUT MILITARY FAMILIES
- 55% are married
- 56% of those married are between the ages of 22 and 29
- There are 1 million military children under the age of 11
- There are 400,000 military children under the age of 5; 40% are 5 or younger
- 63% of military spouses work
Source: Department of Defense and National Military Family Association, 2001
A new book by Erin Brown Conroy, educator and parent of 12, clearly lays out 20 practical,
"core" truths that give immediate answers to the most common and pressing parenting issues.
Kalamazoo, MI (June 2003) – Parenting "experts" are around every corner these days. Everyone seems to have an answer to how to parent effectively. The latest
"quick fix" and "new idea" parenting gurus blend in the parenting bookshelves, bumping up against a few celebrity authors and rubbing shoulders with counselor-authors writing from clinical or academic backgrounds and parenting 2.5 children. If you wander long enough, you're likely to eventually find gems among those thousands of pages. But what parent has time to wade through authors' thick books to pull out meaningful, practical info that works? How does a parent sift out the chaff and find what really matters when it comes to parenting our children?
Look no further. There's a new kid in author town who not only has years of knowledge in educational background and professional work with children, but also has a badge of credibility that comes with hands-on experience and practice – with 12 of her own children. This author's blend of
"education meets experience" results in practical wisdom that just pops off the pages of her new book, 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child (Celtic Cross Publishing, 2003). Written in concise, easily-read chapters brimming with practical how-to's, parents are drawn to Erin Brown Conroy's straightforward, sensible nuggets of parenting wisdom woven among real and sometimes humorous narratives.
"I wish I'd had a book like this when I started out as a parent," she says. "There are some wonderful, effective truths that really work when it comes to connecting and interacting with our kids. If we can learn how to do these twenty simple – but extremely important –
"secrets" to effective parenting, then our lives with our kids become much more enjoyable. The day-to-day living with and loving our children become, in many ways, easier. Don't get me wrong - Parenting is the most challenging job we'll ever come up against, with the longest hours and most intricate dynamics! But learning how to parent through these 20 truths brings the joy back into parenting our kids!"
And parents who read Twenty Secrets to Success with Your Child agree. The author has many a story from readers whose child is suddenly responding well, or whose child's whining is diminishing – or whose relationship with their child is taking on a whole new dimension of peacefulness.
The "secrets" fall into four categories: Connecting with Your Child's Mind, Connecting while Teaching Your Child, Avoiding Common Mistakes, and Connecting Positively with Your Child. Underneath each category are four to six
"secrets" that are easy to understand. The secrets range from "Name, Eyes, and then Talk" to
"End before the Crash" and "Give Choices within a Desired Activity." "Sometimes the simplicity of each secret is striking," states the author.
"Consistency – doing the secret – and living the secrets each day – now that's what really makes a difference in our families' level of enjoyment of each other. Taking these truths – and living them – transforms us into better parents and gives us a better relationship with our kids."
The following is a sampling from "Secret #14: End Before the Crash":
"Picture a bomber from World War II spiraling out of control with a long cloud of smoke streaming from behind. Imagine a grand piano being pushed out the window of the 16th floor of a grand hotel in the middle of New York City. Imagine a South American diver leaping gracefully off of jagged, black cliff rocks and flying smoothly to the deep purple water below. It's coming, there's no doubt about it. You know that, sooner or later, they're all going to hit bottom.
Like gravity, there are some things that we can count on as parents, and one of them is a phenomenon fondly referred to as
"The Crash." Parents, we all know it well. It has to do with our kids spiraling out of control, going in the direction of hitting bottom, or heading to the point where they're going to strike the deep water below. It's when our child has had all that his or her mind, body, or emotions can take. Then our child begins to fall apart with crying, screaming, or some other awful behavior.
. . . Sometimes you can't see "The Crash" coming; it sneaks up on you like a slithering snake sneaks up on an unassuming mouse that becomes its dinner. Other times, there's a slow-motion wind-up that you just can't quite grasp with your fingertips as it slips away
. . .
Have you ever built a house of cards? You have to be very, very careful, because when you place cards one on top of another and the card house gets taller, the more precarious it becomes. Similarly, the more activities we engage in, and the longer we stay there with the kids, the more precarious our children's emotions become. Invariably, one or more of our children
"crash" . . . If the crash doesn't happen before we leave, then nine-times-out-of-ten, it will happen during the car ride home.
End before "The Crash." Fun is great. Excitement is exciting. Wonderful times are hard to stop. But if we stop while we're IN the wonderful time, NOT as it deteriorates, then we have a wonderful memory of a wonderful time.
Children have limits, and often the child's limit to what can be handled comes much sooner than we think. Over-stimulation is an illness that plagues our children constantly in our 21st Century fill-up-all-our-time-with-activities world. We adults are often the culprits who plunge our children into over-stimulation more times than we care to admit. Even small babies experience
"The Crash" when their senses are pushed to the limit.
Keep the good time the good time. Stop while you're ahead! Stopping before "The Crash" takes time to learn. Sometimes it takes time to plan out your day or game plan with more detail. Stopping before
"The Crash" definitely takes awareness of and sensitivity to our children's limits. Most of the time, stopping before
"The Crash" takes a bit of self sacrifice. When the party is rolling or when the shopping sales are great, we adults don't want to stop either!
See the activity that we are involved in as having a beginning, middle, and end. Be aware of your child's limits. End before
"The Crash"!"
Simple but powerful tips like this one flow throughout Brown Conroy's book with an air of clarity. New parents can draw on Ms. Brown Conroy's wealth of knowledge. And even the most seasoned parents, educators, and counselors can draw on this book for a clear, understandable, and meaningful model to refresh and stir up foundational truths in a new way. In the author's words,
"Never be too proud to seek new skills, guidance, and support, especially when
it comes to your kids. Never stop taking care of becoming a more loving, giving,
and forgiving person. You'll be a better parent because of it."
Press Release – Taking Note of the Conroy Family, by Thea Rozetta Lapham;
Great Lakes Family Magazine December 2002-January 2003 Issue
Erin Brown Conroy, author of the just-released book Parenting with Success: 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child, doesn't claim to have all the answers.
But her experience as the birth parent of three children, adoptive parent of seven and step-parent of two — combined with 28 years of professional experience in the education field — has given her more than a few clues on how to help parents understand themselves and their children.
"Asking your child why they do anything is a waste of time," the Portage mother of 12 said.
"They have no idea! Children act on impulse. To ask them why they did something demeans them and makes them defensive. Instead, cut to the chase: don't ask them why they hit their sister, say,
'We don't hit in this family. It doesn't show care for each other.'"
The book — written in a style that resembles Erma Bombeck more than Dr. Spock — is being published by TBA Communications of Portage. It is the first in a Parenting with Success ... series that Erin intends to author.
Instead of abstract theories and concepts that work in the lab but not when your 2 year old is lobbing food across the room, the tips in this book are based on reality. Suggestions include looking a child in the eye and talking to him or her, not at them.
"You need to make sure you have their full attention," she said. "Otherwise, you're just talking to yourself!"
Erin holds an undergraduate degree in education and a master's degree in rehabilitation. She has launched a pilot program for a private school, worked extensively with physically and mentally handicapped children and spoken at the Southwest Michigan Early Childhood Conference seven times in eight years, presenting material from the book the last two years. She also teaches writing, leadership, management and organizational development at Cornerstone University's Kalamazoo and St. Joseph campuses.
No one is born knowing how to parent. Instead, Erin said the art of raising children is a learned skill: a process to which there is no end. That last fact alone makes it a truly scary proposition, even for a veteran mommy.
In her book's preface, Erin equates herself to a character in a James Bond movie that's left
"dangling from a cliff, wondering when the helicopter is going to make its dashing entrance to catch me when I fall."
Realizing early on that Agent 007 wasn't going to come to the rescue, Erin spent countless hours watching how other women handled the challenges of childhood in positive and healthy ways. From there, she created her own master plan of what works and what doesn't.
Both Erin and her husband, Shawn — an account representative for a company that manufacturers ink for the printing industry — come from large families: she is one of seven children and he is one of nine.
Prior to their marriage, the second for each, Erin gave birth to three daughters, now 21, 12, and 8. She had also adopted a son, now 18, and a daughter, 15, from Korea. Shawn brought into the marriage two sons,16 and 13. Together, the couple adopted a daughter (5) and son (4) from Russia; a son (2 ½) from Korea; and a son (8) and daughter (4) from Latvia.
The majority of the Conroy children are home-schooled — and quite successfully so. Their
oldest daughter, now in her first year of medical school at Michigan State University, graduated from Western Michigan University at the age of 19. She worked a year as a biochemist for Pharmacia before enrolling in medical school.
Learning is a two-way street, however. Asked what her children have taught her, Erin said
"Patience. They've also taught me the value of people and relationships over
'things.'"
Parenting with Success: 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child is available on Conroy's Web site
parentingwithsuccess.com.
"In addition to allowing me to provide information to parents, the Web site will provide a vehicle for parents to interact with each other, ask questions and get answers that work," she said.
