Author: robert

I was emailed this question on Facebook… This is a good question… and a hard one!
When one parent, usually the primary residential parent, is trying to structure lifestyle patterns and then your child goes to your ex’s for the weekend where , seemingly, anything goes…

How do you
Create consistency in discipline and boundaries
Not become the police parent and your ex become the fun parent
My approach has been three-fold
1. Keep my focus exclusively on my approach and know that loving structure always wins. communicate to my child why I have the boundaries and rules.
2. Humbly request that my ex and I get on the same page, but don’t expect [...] Read More »

breathe out…
…you must if you want to breathe in

As much as it is important to really be present in the ‘now’… in the ‘moment’… in due time we must let go and move on.
This is double edged because as much as I want to be rid of the unpleasant or painful experiences I must also let go of the wonderful moments.
Letting go of
the pain
the disappointment
the pleasure
the wonder
the control
Knowing that it impossible to move forward holding on too tight to any of it.

If I am really honest, the reason I hold on to things or moments is to assure myself I am in control. But, as [...] Read More »

If you are anything like me one of the things that I get most concerned about in raising kids is them drifting away…
Drifting away from our relationship, and into the influence of others who might not always have their best interest in mind.
With my oldest now being 14, truly a new era has been born. A passing of the ‘trust torch’ from parent to peers.
Recently I found myself kind of panicked at losing the connection I believe I had with my eldest. No matter how much I pry, ask, snoop – you name it – if she doesn’t want to [...] Read More »

A dear friend of mine past away this year.
She was feeling sick and couldn’t make it to my Superbowl Sunday party in February and by April she was home with her father. Surreal.
She was a women of Grace and wisdom.

I would go and see her as often as I could. Close to her passing on a Sunday afternoon it was just her and I in her room at hospice and we were talking about the path she was currently on and I was reciting a saying she would say all the time, to me as an overwhelmed single parent…“Robert, Trust the path.” I always thought that [...] Read More »

One of the hardest things for me to admit is this, I need.
I am a proud person. A person who often believes or tries to believe I can do it on my own, a person who wants to help others, but has a real hard time accepting help from others. This is a critical weakness of mine that I REALLY need to work on.
What I am learning, actually from one of my mom’s talks she gave before passing, is this.
Dependency is a gift.

I have been brought up and listened to many wise people talk about the dangers of co-dependency, but [...] Read More »

It seems to me what we so often are looking for is validation of something that we may suspect or hope about ourselves is actually true. A way to make us feel whole.
One of the biggest traps I think we fall for is that we look for that from people or status (both past and present). That status may come from being a successful business person, a famous artists, a good wife… or in my case a good dad. (Or, in contrast, the opposite may exist - we may tell ourselves we are a failed, divorced husband, a lonely single person, a [...] Read More »

Sometimes we spend so much time debating with ourselves that we end up being ineffective at life or worse, not having a life.
I’m not saying throw all caution to the wind. But time is ticking…

Sometimes for me as a single parent, (juggling so many things), if there is a call I am not looking forward to making, a decision that I really don’t want to face, or an email I keep putting off because I’m afraid I wont have precisely the right words to say. I procrastinate so I don’t have the discomfort in the immediate. I think for us single parents – [...] Read More »

I am really excited about my new video blog that I will be launching in the next couple of weeks.

It’s called SoloParent.TV

It will be a video blog covering the challenges, perspectives and hopefully insights for the single parent. Also, video versions of some of the blogs I have written here that lean toward the single life… especially parents.  I hope to have it launched by mid August.
In the meantime I am on the set filming our 3rd season of iShine KNECT so I will be less active on this blog for the next couple weeks. I will be back and [...] Read More »

I ran across this great quote today from Chuck Swindoll - Such wisdom here… I will just get out of the way…

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company… a church… a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change [...] Read More »

Enforcing vs Encouraging.

I get so frustrated sometimes as a parent trying to get my daughters to do things they are suppose to do. Don’t get me wrong, I have AMAZING daughters, for those of you that have met them I’m sure you will agree they are sweet, kind and respectful…most of the time. But, as in any household there are those times where it’s like fitting a camel through the eye of a needle to get them to do what I want them to do.
One of the things I am trying to find balance in is a distinction that occurred to [...] Read More »