How to be a great parenting team

Learn about: How to be a great parenting team from Elisabeth Rohm,...
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How to be a great parenting team

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I think the success of a family has a lot to do with successful co-parenting because the children become such a focal point in the marriage that the marriage could really almost fall apart over it. You know, that's how much they become the focal point of everybody's life, everybody's minute, moment, "Where are you going? What are you doing?" and you're delegating, "I'll pick this child up, you pick this child up," and so there's a lot of separateness in the marriage because of the children just by having them, you know. Then you have to overcome that and find your togetherness again and prioritize your marriage and your love relationship again and I think that's a big one for a lot of people just regardless. But if you're fighting over parenting and how to parent, you don't have a chance and that's a really important thing to sort of consciously or unconsciously decide together. I think it's like a woman of industry building a business and doing it successfully. She know that the way to success, the way to the top, is to empower other people who do things better than her. And so she recognizes when other people have skills that maybe she's got them too but that person's got them even stronger than she does. And so, that recognition, that empowerment of your spouse, of your partner, in the things that they do really well and not needing to micromanage that and letting that be the thing that they do that's special, you know, I think that is a way you can congruently move together in your co-parenting where, you know, like I said, consciously or unconsciously, you're accepting this is what I do and this is what you do; you do this really well, I do this really well. Because if you don't recognize each other's skill and gifts in parenting, the divide that's already there naturally can get bigger and bigger and bigger, so you have to support each other. It's like you have to be the bigger person and say, you know, if there's conflict between your child and your spouse, now is your moment to defend your spouse to help your child learn that speaking like that is not appropriate but it's also about your loving relationship. You're moving your loving relationship forward through your parenting, how you respect them as a parent. And I think over all these years of being in a relationship and being a parent and really being a friend and a daughter, you know, I think respect, to me, is the most important element of a long-term relationship. Mostly, I feel like you're teaching that to your child as well because they're watching every move you make. So how you treat your spouse, like for instance in my relationship Ron is really good in taking Easton out for tennis or a bike ride and I'm really good at like getting things done, you know, what's the summer plans going to be, what the school program going to be? I do drop-off, I do pick-up. I'm really good at, you know, the program and the cooking dinner, you know, sort of keeping everything on point. No, dinner is at 6:00, it's not really at 7:30, it's at 6:00 and creating that, you know, that program for her and he's really good at, you know, sort of the spontaneous bike ride. So if those moments occur, you know, I celebrate them as oppose to create conflict because it bangs up against my program and that's how I think you can honor and co-parent in a really loving way because they're watching you. These little people are watching you so it's important. It's important to have respect for your partner.

Learn about: How to be a great parenting team from Elisabeth Rohm,...

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Elisabeth Rohm

Mom, Actress, Author

Seen to many as a supermom, actress Elisabeth Röhm has been successfully juggling a full time job as a mother and actress over the past few years. Not only is she a successful film and T.V star, she also has a published book, and a weekly celebrity mom blog on People.com that reaches over a million readers—it is amazing that she stays beautiful, healthy and positive while managing to be consistently by her daughter’s side. Currently, Elisabeth plays "Amanda" on the new CBS TV series Stalker.
 
These past couple years were eventful as Röhm was seen in several feature films. She starred in Warner Bros.’ thriller Transit across James Caviezel, produced by Joel Silver. She teamed up with Kyra Sedgwick and Vincent Donofrio in Chlorine. Elisabeth shot the Lionsgate feature by Brian A. Miller, title Officer Down, as well as Darkroom, an independent feature directed by Britt Napier and produced by Michael A. Liberty and Ron Stein (The Kids Are Alright). Last year, Elisabeth also starred in David O. Russell’s critically acclaimed film, American Hustle, co-starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence. Röhm, along with her cast won the SAG Outstanding Performance by a cast in a Motion Picture Award. 
 
Elisabeth was also seen on the Lifetime TV Show, The Client List, as “Taylor Berkhalter”. Her character is a mother who is in continuous competition with Riley (Jennifer Love Hewitt). She also has written a book, Baby Steps: Having the Child I Always Wanted (Just Not as I Expected), that came out just last year. Elisabeth has always been very open about her struggles getting pregnant and going through the challenges of IVF. The book tells the often hidden truth behind infertility. As she struggled with infertility, she kept it to herself, but now for the first time she reveals the whole story, learning about and accepting her infertility, the disappointment, the stress and the shame. 
 
Born in Europe, yet a U.S. citizen, Röhm was raised in New York City. Her first childhood interest was riding horses, for which she trained intensively. By the time she entered Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, her goals shifted to writing in the form of fiction and history. It was during college when Röhm fell in love with acting. After receiving her degree, she quickly found work on the soap opera One Life to Live and followed it up with a long line of recurring appearances on the WB television show, Angel. However, most know Röhm best as the “A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn” on the NBC staple series, Law & Order where Dick Wolf, creator/producer of Law & Order praised her as “one of the finest young actresses working in television.” She went on to star as “Alex Mason,” a love interst to Michael Vartan’s character, in the ABC drama Big Shots and later returned to NBC as a new addition to the cast of the cult-favorite Heroes.
 
Röhm has also starred in numerous films including Abduction alongside Taylor Lautner and Sigourney Weaver, Miss Congeniality 2, starring Sandra Bullock, and Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry.  She starred in Kreutzer Sonata, an independent project co-starring Danny Huston and starred opposite James Caan in the film Barry Minkow. You can expect great things from her entering the next couple years. 
 
The desire to seek new challenges is not unusual for someone so multi-talented. Röhm is writing a cookbook (brilliantly titled “The Wooing of the gay Man and the Actress”) as she loves to cook, sings, and continues to ride horses; she also includes hiking, biking, skiing, yoga, traveling and studying architecture among her hobbies. Being that she believes in health and being active, she is developing a gym franchise and has already invested in Circuit Works located in Brentwood, CA and is a co-owner for a juice bar called REJUICE located in Santa Monica. She supports The Red Cross, The Go Red Foundation, Healthy Child Healthy World and as a whole does what she can to support children and women in need globally.
 
Röhm welcomed her first child, a girl named Easton, on April 10, 2008. She retains residences in New York, Venice, CA, and in Holland.
 
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