Stronger Marriage Connection

The Art of New Parenthood: Protecting Your Relationship While Welcoming Baby | Joni Parthemer | #123

• KSL Podcasts • Season 3 • Episode 123

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Dr. Liz and Dr. Dave welcome Joni Parthimer, education director for the Gottman Institute's Bringing Baby Home program, to discuss how couples can maintain a strong relationship while navigating the challenges of new parenthood.

About Joni:

Joni Parthemer, M.Ed., is a Master Trainer and Education Director for the Bringing Baby Home Program. She is a certified Childbirth Educator and faculty member at Bastyr University’s Simkin Center, specializing in birth and family education at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.

An award-winning speaker and consultant, Joni brings decades of experience, authenticity, and wit to her work with families and educators. She has developed and published training materials to support family and community growth. Married with two children, she is passionate about helping families thrive.

Key Points:

• Research shows 67% of couples experience a significant drop in relationship satisfaction after becoming parents
• Three key ingredients for relationship success: maintaining friendship, respectful conflict regulation, and creating shared family meaning
• The NURSE framework helps new parents prioritize self-care: Nutrition, Understanding support needs, Rest/Resources, Soul-feeding activities, and Exercise
• CPR parenting (Consistent, Predictable, Responsive) builds emotional security for infants
• Babies communicate through non-verbal cues and states of consciousness from birth
• Understanding infant development helps parents respond appropriately to their needs
• Grandparents play an evolving role and should ask what support looks like for each family
• Creating a postpartum plan before baby arrives helps the transition for everyone involved
• The greatest gift parents can give children is a healthy relationship between themselves
• The "family fish tank" metaphor reminds us children are only as healthy as their family ecosystem

Insights:

Joni: “A child's well-being is deeply influenced by the health of their family environment. The best gift parents can give their children is a strong, healthy relationship—whether married, divorced, or co-parenting. Parents serve as role models for future relationships, shaping how their children connect with others. By maintaining friendship, managing conflict with respect, and creating shared meaning through family rituals, couples can build a supportive and nurturing "family fish tank" that fosters lasting emotional security.” 

Liz: “The CPR approach—Consistency, Predictability, and Responsiveness—is not just valuable for parenting but also strengthens all relationships, including marriage and friendship. By being reliable, steady, and attentive, we create trust and connection in our most important relationships.”

Dave: “Education is key to growth. With so many resources available today, we have endless opportunities to learn and improve as partners, parents, and individuals.”


Links:

jptrainsandspeaks.com 

Email: joni.parthemer@gmail.com


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Dr. Dave Schramm:

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http://drdavespeaks.com

Dr. Liz Hale:

http://www.drlizhale.com

Dave Schramm:

On today's episode, dr Liz and I have a wonderful discussion with Joni Parthimer about all things related to the stress and struggles of new parents and specifically how it affects the couple relationship. Using NERS as an acronym, joni shares some helpful tips on what mothers should focus on after bringing the baby home. Some helpful tips on what mothers should focus on after bringing the baby home. She also shares some helpful educational resources, not only for new parents but for grandparents as well. Joni Parthomer is an internationally certified childbirth educator and approved trainer. She is lead instructor for the Simpkins Center Childbirth Educator Training at Bastyr University. Joni serves as the education director and master trainer for the Bringing Baby Home program at the Gottman Institute and is an educational consultant to a number of organizations worldwide. She has worked as a birth and family education specialist at Swedish Medical Center and has developed, published and implemented a variety of training materials for educators interested in providing support and growth programs for families. She is married with two grown children and two grandchildren. We hope you enjoy the show.

Liz Hale:

Welcome to Stronger Marriage Connection. I'm psychologist, dr Liz Hale, along with my friend, the beloved professor Dr Dave Schramm. Together we have dedicated our life's work to bringing you the best we have in valid marital research, along with a few tips and tools to help you create the marriage of your dreams. Well, today, listeners especially parents you are in for a real treat. Our guest educator, joni Parthimer, has spent several decades working with thousands of parents and professionals worldwide through Dr John Gottman's Bringing Baby Home program. We love that program here on Stronger Marriage Connection. You've done that, and then some, joni. Welcome to Stronger Marriage Connection, my friend. Thank you.

Joni Parthemer:

I'm glad to be here with you both and with your listeners.

Liz Hale:

We are honored as well. Joni, please remind us of the story behind bringing baby home that workshop, and where did it all begin?

Joni Parthemer:

Oh, yes. So Dr Gottman, as you well may know, and his team have been researching relationships for well over 50 years and looking at what helps and fosters healthy, satisfying relationships and what damages and hurts them. And he noticed a pivotal point in many folks lives, especially for those who became parents, and what the research was showing that approximately two-thirds 67%-ish in change of folks who became parents have a significant drop in relationship satisfaction in the first one to three years after they became parents. And there was a lot to be learned from that because we could look at their interactions, their family interactions, and look at what wasn't going well. And we learned about the to don'ts to do in relationships and that can be helpful. But then we thought you know what? Let's also look at the to do's and three key themes came out of all of that.

Joni Parthemer:

We looked at what Dr Gottman calls masters of relationships, those that maintained or strengthened their relationships, and three key attributes came out, or I like to think of them when I teach workshops I talk about. They're the three ingredients, if you will, to the secret sauce of healthy, sustaining relationships. And the first was that these masters can focus on maintaining and strengthening their friendship partners to partner. They stay attuned to their partner's life, what was going on in their world. They expressed appreciation for the things that their partner did. So they maintained and strengthened that friendship in a lot of very small, micro moment type interactions.

Joni Parthemer:

And the second thing was or the second ingredient, if you will, is that they respectfully regulated the conflict issues that they had. And the reality is, any time you live with another human being or other human beings, there is inevitable conflict and it's just how we do the conflict dance. So we really looked at how did that one third do conflict compared to two thirds that were struggling after having children? And a lot had to do with just respectful communication. And when they made mistakes let's say a hurtful comment or a contemptuous remark they recognized their oops and they repaired it or said they were sorry. They monitored and adjusted, they pivoted.

Joni Parthemer:

And then the third thing was they intentionally created a shared family legacy. It was intentional family. They kept in touch with each other's dreams, collective goals as a family, what does it mean to be a family? And they created ways of staying connected. So all of this research motivated Dr Gottman to further investigate that the two thirds and the one third and create an evidence based and research tested transition to parenthood workshop for expectant and new parents. So that's the background.

Liz Hale:

Very cool. What year was that? Roughly Joni, basically the late 90s.

Joni Parthemer:

Okay, the actual Bringing Baby Home study started 1999 and went through 2003-4 and we can talk more about that as we go on. I jokingly refer to Bringing baby home as my third child because I bet you do. I had two young children between the research, so you know, as we were gestating with it through, the study and then developing the program, and implementing and evaluating and how did you happen to get involved, please?

Joni Parthemer:

Well, yeah, that was circa late 90s and I was a birth and family education specialist at a major medical center in the Seattle area and Dr Gottman came to our hospital and our department, our obstetrics, midwifery department, and said hey, you know, I've been doing this research and I really want to do a study to delve more into this relationship satisfaction when people become parents.

Joni Parthemer:

And so he proposed a study.

Joni Parthemer:

He pitched a study to our department and several of our staff, including myself, helped with the pregnant, the expecting parents that were going getting care at our facility and taking classes there, and enrolled some of them in the study.

Joni Parthemer:

And, based on this research and we put together a program. We collaborated across disciplines, so we had medicine, we had psychology, neuroscience, we had development specialists, social workers, nurses, educators everybody bringing their skill sets so we could collaborate and say well, here's what these folks are like, here's what they're struggling with and here's what the research says. And so we were trying to really make it applicable to folks' lives and kind of put theory into practice, not just build theory upon theory, which is great if you're a researcher, but when you're wanting it to really impact the everyday lives of new families. We wanted to collaborate with the folks that were working with them day in and day out, and so the goal was to develop this workshop to help participants discuss what enhances and shields and grows relationships between both partners partner to partner and parents to child and so, yeah, that's how I became involved.

Liz Hale:

Nice. And were all those helpful people? Were all from Swedish Medical Center.

Joni Parthemer:

They were. We had several different campuses. So it was across the seattle metropolitan area and yet that's where the original bringing baby home research was done through the swedish medical center organization network. Very, very cool thank you and jody.

Dave Schramm:

I'm a big fan. I'm personally a big fan of the this bringing baby home program, so, uh, needed. As couples as they transition to parents, it can be one of the most stressful times for them. I have a nephew who just gave birth. This past week we saw that little newborn baby. I have a daughter who's going to give her first baby, we're going to be grandparents in July, and so all this is very relevant, urgent for me personally. So I love the program and you've been serving as the working with it, as an education director, as a training specialist and part of the evaluation you mentioned a little bit earlier. Do you mind maybe not diving into the deep aspect of it, but it's a research, it's evidence based, it's research based program. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the results that they've found? Yeah, well, hey, welcome to the club. I'm a grandma now too. Based program. Can you tell us?

Joni Parthemer:

a little bit about some of the results that they've found. Yeah Well, hey, welcome to the club. I have a grandma now too. I have a rising three-year-old and a rising one-year-old, so yes, congratulations to both.

Liz Hale:

of you Love it.

Joni Parthemer:

The results. There were a lot of results no-transcript and there were some pretty amazing results, and keep in mind we're talking a 12-hour workshop, so it's pretty amazing that we could have some of the effects I'm about to share with you in that finite amount of time. So we followed these families until their children were two or three, so it was a pretty long-term study. So we were able not just to see how they were doing after taking the workshop, but how their children were developing as well. And folks who took the Brain and Baby Home Workshop consistently reported highly stable relationship quality compared to the folks that didn't. The control group. They reported less hostility and increased affection during conflict. So remember that's a secret ingredient of that second secret ingredient of that secret sauce. One result that really stood out for us that we were not necessarily expecting was that mothers in particular showed less signs of postpartum mood anxiety.

Joni Parthemer:

Yeah, adjustment disorders and there's a whole spectrum of perinatal mood disorders. But remember we were doing this research after they have the babies. That's why we say postpartum or after Significant differences between mothers who were identified as having postpartum depression after taking the workshop versus those that didn't. Fathers also showed fewer signs of depression and anxiety and parents showed a greater understanding of the social and emotional development of their babies. So there was more with that. There was increased co-parenting and cooperation, so kind of the who does what and how and how we work together as a team.

Joni Parthemer:

And that's a huge adjustment in new parenting because there's this whole role adjustment. You know, what we did before may not be the calculus of what we need to do now. And babies whose parents took the workshop because the babies didn't take the workshop, we found that at one year they had fewer language delays and they were rated as showing less distress, responses to limitations or frustrations and they responded I thought this was really fun more positively to their parents' soothing efforts when they were distressed. So there was a lot that was learned communication-wise and also learning about babies.

Dave Schramm:

Yeah, yeah.

Joni Parthemer:

So so big picture it works right I even say with the families when, because I don't dive deep into the research but I want them to know the basis of the workshop and I show them some, just a list of what we found. I said are y'all in?

Dave Schramm:

I mean yeah, really yeah, right, yeah yeah, seriously now, and of course we don't have time to dive into everything that the program has. But, as I mentioned earlier, we have a daughter who's going to give birth here in july and, um, are there tips? You know, atop a few tips or suggestions, counsel, advice that you would give my daughter and others when they're expecting. You know that time is coming for them, so they're either preparing to be parents or they're in that first, you know, first few months of being parents. What are some your best tips?

Joni Parthemer:

Well and honestly, I think the workshop taking the workshop just because it covers so many bases. In fact, this is always my baby shower gift to friends or family members. I give them a registration to be at an in-person or an online virtual webinar BBH workshop. I did for my son, I did for my niece, I do it for close friends Because it gives people the opportunity to have these crucial conversations that they may not be thinking about, about parenting and partnering post baby. They're so focused on the birth, understandably so. But aside from the workshop, I think one of my main pieces of information, because people are so focused on the birth day, is to come up with a postpartum plan, and we have. There's several out there. We have one.

Joni Parthemer:

But I try to keep things pretty pragmatic for my parents and I say remember the acronym NURSE, nurse yourself, and the N stands for nutrition. Okay, just think what can we do proactively, be it a meal train or cooking and freezing meals ahead of time, or going to a big box store and getting some healthy snacks that can be just set aside. But we all know how important it is to nourish ourselves right, and that gets harder and harder because when you have a baby, there's more to do with seemingly less time. So to cover that nurse, that N in nurse, the U is for understanding and that really gets to. What does support mean for us? And I joke with my families. I said, on your way home, pick up a deck of index cards and every time you find yourself doing what I call a grunt task just like you know, like emptying the dishwasher, changing the oil fill in the blank right, write it on an index card and then afterwards, after the baby is born and when you're ready to have folks come over and they ask you the inevitable and they will is there anything I can do for you? Stand in front of your bolted front door, splay your deck of index cards and say pick a card. But just to really we guide them to have conversations about what does support look like for you and what doesn't, because what I may have felt was supportive to my son and daughter-in-law may not be what was supportive for their family, and I think that's a good launching point for new parents to start setting their boundaries as well. So nutrition and understanding, and understanding the R stands for rest and resources, so finding some way to get some semblance of rest in there because there is a loss of sleep, because babies are not on the sleep patterns we are, because developmentally and we talk about this they're not capable of that. They're still growing, growing and so we delve into that. But, again, a big part of the Bringing Baby Home Workshop is we give them this research-based information, but it's not about what we think is really important for them to learn. It's that nugget that they take and together as a team, they personalize and individualize it to their lives and develop that. And I can't tell you how many times years later we have couples coming back to us saying I can't tell you how that one tip was my lifeline. So nutrition, understanding, rest and resources.

Joni Parthemer:

The S in the acronym, nurse, stands for tending to your soul, your spirit.

Joni Parthemer:

That could be just whatever makes you remember that you've been a me longer than you've been a we, a partner, and longer than you've been this new family, and you've got to still nurture that individual part of yourself. So what is that? It could be faith-based, it could be gardening, it could be yoga, it could be reading, it could be what's that one thing we are going to make sure that Joni gets to do each week? Or what's that one thing that the partner gets to do, or just making sure that that's a priority, just like nutrition and understanding and rest? Is so nutrition, understanding, rest and resources. What are the resources in your area? And feeding your soul? And then the E in the acronym nurse is for exercise, and I mean literally strapping that baby in a you know a carrier, carrier going out for a walk and getting that light in your eye which we know, that vitamin D and all that gets in, just realizing there's a world outside of your abode where you're taking care of a new baby all day, beautiful.

Liz Hale:

I love that Nurse Ekern.

Dave Schramm:

Yeah, I was chatting that down too. That's awesome. We'll be right back after this brief message and we're back, let's dive right in.

Liz Hale:

You also mentioned you have a childbirth preparation webinar. Sounds like another great gift for an expected couple, dave, maybe. Huh, yeah, what are the things you cover for both parents when it comes to preparing for childbirth both parents to be?

Joni Parthemer:

yeah, well, um, there's a lot of um childbirth classes offered out there, um, and they parents come to a childbirth class expecting um and we deliver it.

Joni Parthemer:

They're definitely it's no pun intended um, they want to know about the birth process, they want to know about comfort measures.

Joni Parthemer:

Uh, they want to know about medications, they want to know about interventions and basically the purpose of a childbirth education program is to give them realistic expectations about the birth process and what they can expect, their choices around pain management.

Joni Parthemer:

I feel it's really important to find out when I teach, or when I taught child representation classes, to find out the why, the why of why each partner is there.

Joni Parthemer:

Because I have my curriculum to teach and I'm definitely going to do that. But that helps me personalize and individualize it, lets me know where to lay more emphasis in the class and where maybe something that I was going to spend more time on may not be as important to my class. So I can monitor and adjust that. Because, in my experience, if I were to tease out what's most important to each partner, first of all I want to try to find out what that is, but I really want to provide them the opportunity to discuss their options in childbirth and new parenting and start having again those crucial conversations with one another so that they feel like they're a team going into birth and new parenting, and I really want them to leave class with an increased level of informed decision making so they can, as situations arrive in birth and in new parenting, they can take information and know they'll have freedom of choice based on knowledge of alternatives.

Dave Schramm:

Yeah, love that. Now, the Gottmans. They have so many wonderful resources that they have created over the years. One of my favorites actually is this and I've just heard of it several years ago, I guess now but emotional attunement, this emotional attunement and your emotion coach. You remind us that children need to feel a strong connection with their caregivers. It's this attachment, right? And you add that infants thrive when their needs are met and when they feel loved and understood. Yet how do you connect with babies on an emotional level when they are so young?

Joni Parthemer:

Okay. So we affectionately refer to this as CPR parenting and by that we spend a lot of time in the workshop talking about the importance of being consistent as a team from the very beginning with our infants and our children, predictable and responsive. So CPR consistent, predictable and responsive Because when infants consistently receive responsive attention to their needs, they develop a sense of security. Okay, that's how they learn about the world right and they know that their needs will be met. You can't spoil an infant. Okay, if they don't have manipulative skills, if they're in stress, it's because they have a need that we need to meet. So we talk a lot about how CPR consistent, predictable and responsive parenting really helps. That's basically the building blocks of parent-child connection and helping child development.

Joni Parthemer:

So in the Brainy Baby Home Workshop we talk about because they are I mean, they're verbal, but they're not speaking words yet, right? So how do they communicate? We talk about infant states of consciousness. They have different alert states and they have different sleep states, so that parents start understanding what's going on with their babies and know the best times to interact with them. We talk about how infants and cues they're communicating with us the minute they're born, even if they're not verbalizing words. We talk about how they signal their cues and how that develops stage to stage. We talk about the importance of physical touch, stage to stage. We talk about the importance of physical touch. Okay, and it's a great way to communicate love and security. And if you think of all the ways that we're touching our infants we're seeking them, we're holding them, we're changing diapers, we're raising rich, it's a wonderful medium of communication, the power of touch to build that emotional bond. So, yeah, I mean, they're communicating with us from the beginning and we just need to learn about how they communicate when they're non-verbal.

Dave Schramm:

Yeah, love it.

Liz Hale:

Wow, that just sounds like something right. I can't even imagine. We love that you are offering support to grandparents like our dear Dave and Jamie, because, like expected parents, grandparents are also going through an exciting transformation. How do you think, joni, this role of grandparenting has shifted over time? Now it can vary from culture to culture.

Joni Parthemer:

Parenting has shifted over time. Now it can vary from culture to culture and, having said that, the role of grandparents has undergone some pretty significant changes over time, In many cultures, being seen primarily as a source of wisdom and a source of family history, which certainly they are more and more over the past few decades, grandparents are increasingly taking on a real active, interactive role with their grandchildren, Be they far away or close. Technology has helped accelerate that. They're more involved in the day-to-day lives of their grandchildren, sometimes even stepping in as primary caregivers. So there's this increasing recognition of the value of this multi-generational village for children, and they're much more likely to participate in educational activities and provide emotional support to both parents and grandchildren and to really be a social support network for the family. And, yeah, so primarily just going from not just, but from being an elder in the family to being an integral part of the whole family system.

Liz Hale:

That is so beautiful, so you have so bringing baby home. We have that bringing baby home. The next one is childbirth. Tell me the whole title of that. Childbirth it's just a childbirth preparation Great Offer online, and then just a childbirth preparation version Great. And then there's one for online and then the one for grandparents yeah, and they're all well.

Joni Parthemer:

Childbirth is childbirth. However, we do slip in some bringing baby home research in there and the grandparent program is based around the research in the bringing baby home program research in the Bringing Baby Home program because a lot of people take the Bringing Baby Home workshop either in person, if it's available in their area, or online with us, and then they want their parents to take the grandparent class because they want to make sure there's talk about that CPR parenting consistent, predictable, responsive and want their parents to see what they've been learning that they're going to integrate into their parenting so that there can be some consistency and understanding that it's amazing to cover all those bases.

Dave Schramm:

Joni, that's very cool yeah, joni, as I think about our own daughter who's going to be delivering um here later this summer. I think you know what is what's the best support that we can give um, her, uh, daughter, as well as you know, a new granddaughter. Are there boundaries? You know, I get excited and I have all the background, you know, a PhD in family studies and so I'm going to be so anxious, oh, don't do this. Is there a kind of a boundaries that some of our listeners that have? You know, parents and grandparents who are just really you just really overeager and wanting to jump in there. What's kind of the balance of that role? Yeah, wow.

Joni Parthemer:

You're making me kind of laugh because I'm you. I needed to edit myself as a grandparent, you know. I think the number one piece of advice, if the core question there is really how can we be the best support to our children as they become parents and now us as grandparents is to ask them what support looks like for that and this kind of brings me back to that nurse acronym. If they've done that or done some type of a postpartum plan, we can communicate with each other about where they see us as grandparents fitting in on the spectrum of that nutrition, understanding, rest and resources, filling their soul, exercise, et cetera. And I think that's a great place to start. Be positive. I mean, you know, amateur baby, amateur parents, amateur grandparents right.

Joni Parthemer:

When a baby is one day old, we're one day old parents. When we're pregnant or adopting parents, that's what we are. When our children are waddlers or toddlers, we're waddler and toddler parents. When they're twins and teens, when they're adults, we're adult parents. You know, for those of us who become parents, we're going to be spending the majority of our life course parenting, and that it's going to be parenting through different transitional seasons. Right, and, and that's what parenting is, because once you've got this season down, you've figured it out, guess what? They become a wobbler or toddler and now we're relearning things all again.

Joni Parthemer:

So, just being really being positive, um, because there is such a thing as emotional contagion, uh and um, I just, I just really, more than anything, I think it's being a support, whatever they see as support, um for their family mobile.

Joni Parthemer:

Because when um I use this metaphor, a lot, metaphor, analogy when we partner with a person and we decide we're going to have committed relationship with them, we bring our piece of the mobile, they bring theirs, and there's some calibration that has to happen, right, the who does what? The finances the. This is how I do conflict, do conflict. You know there's ups and downs, balances, but we kind of figure it out. Then we decide to bring a baby home and kerplunk, there goes another part of the mobile that we've never had to calibrate before. So there's this adjustment that is continually going on through the different seasons of infant, toddler, toddler, teen, and no matter you know what the season is. We have to keep calibrating that mobile. So ultimately, I guess, as far as support, it's kind of what your podcast goal is. You know, to contribute commitment, compassion and connection to your daughter as she begins parenting.

Dave Schramm:

I love it. That's great, great counsel, great advice. Thank you, joni. Joni, it's that time in our interview where we'd like to ask the one particular question in honor of the name of our podcast Stronger Marriage Connection.

Joni Parthemer:

In your mind, your experience and your research, what is the key to a stronger marriage connection? Key to the stronger marriage connection? The word equanimity comes to mind, and I don't mean things being necessarily equal, but equanimity or balanced, a feeling of working together as a team to celebrate the wins as new parents and to work with the challenges, the inevitable challenges of becoming parents. Remember kind of that mobile that we're going to try to help balance things out. And when one person is way down here, we're going to have to see what we can do in the relationship and what roles we may need to adjust in the family so that we can balance that out. And that gets to this attunement of the micro moments. Back is to this attunement of the micro moments.

Joni Parthemer:

The everyday small interactions that add up get stressful and they will. To take a beat, to take a breath and consider is what I'm about to say or ruminate about, or what I'm about to do going to affect or harm my relationship? Will it enhance it or will it detract? So just take a beat, you know, and a breath and just think about am I reacting or am I respectfully being a teammate with my partner? And I think very importantly and Dr Gottman emphasized, when there's a oops, when there's a mistake, when there's a rupture, make a repair, and there will be lots of those.

Dave Schramm:

There will be, yeah.

Liz Hale:

Great, wow, that's amazing. I love all these reminders. Where can our listeners and viewers go to find out more about you? These three great workshops Excuse me, I'm bringing baby home Childbirth and the workshop for grandparents, and all the other great resources you offer, please.

Joni Parthemer:

Yeah, so my website is JP, so Joby Price b price, my jp trains and speakscom and they can read about all of our offerings and our bringing baby home workshop and we offer that online. It's it's really, um, I I miss doing the workshops in person. Um, we don't do as many of those now because of all things, but one of the really special things about offering it online has been the access it's given people. We have in a typical Bring in Baby Home workshop, which we run over three three-hour sessions. We have people from all over the world, and so these folks are from different cultures, different time zones, different everything, and what they have in common is they want to be the best parents they can be and the best partners they can be, have them join in community and be a network for each other. It's really special.

Joni Parthemer:

And then the Dottman Institute has a lot of different resources. They have a parenting program now that's relatively new. They have different apps and newsletters for parents and they have a podcast called Small Things. Often, and also anyone can contact me if they'd like. I'm Joni J-O-N-I, dot Parthamer at P-A-R-T-H-E-M-E-R at gmailcom.

Dave Schramm:

Thanks, joni. We will actually put all those resources and link. We'll put those in our show notes for our listeners. So yeah, listeners, be sure to check those out. Joan, before we let you go, we'd like to ask all of our guests another question, and that is your takeaway. Do you have a takeaway of the day? Is what we call it here a message you hope our listeners will remember from our discussion today?

Joni Parthemer:

Yeah, I think I would just say that the little fishies are only as healthy as the ecosystem of the family fish tank. So the greatest gift another way of saying that is the greatest gift we can give our children is a healthy relationship between the two of us, Whatever the status of our marriage or our connection we have, yeah, whether parents are still together or divorced or whatever, you're still their parents and you're still modeling a relationship to your children and that's going to be the basis for how they develop their relationships ongoing throughout their lives. So, really being attuned to that family fish tank and is it easy, breezy, or is it icky, sticky kind of type of thing and again I'll come back to that secret sauce of relationships Maintain and strengthen friendship, regulate conflict and create shared meaning and rituals of connection together. That is what sustains satisfying partner-to-partner and parent-child relationships.

Dave Schramm:

Fantastic, all kinds of great nuggets here. What about you? What's your takeaway?

Liz Hale:

Yeah, I took copious notes, dave, let's see. So I love the CPR of parenting and I wonder if that could be CPR in many relationships. Actually, joni and Dave, the consistency, the predictability and the responsiveness I think that's just beautiful, for even marriage or friendship. So I love the CPR. I really do, dave. What about you? What would you say is the golden nugget from our time today with educator Joni Parthomer?

Dave Schramm:

Yeah, you're kind of stepping back and taking the big picture, Liz and Joni. What's really stood out for me is the importance of education. We have so many great resources today, opportunities to learn if we want to be the very best that we can be as a partner, as a parent, as a person. There's so much that we can reach out, so I hope our listeners will take advantage of that. To go to it was JP Trains and Speaks. Is that right? Did I get that?

Liz Hale:

right.

Dave Schramm:

Yes, go to the website and here at the Utah Marriage Commission, go to strongermarriageorg or Healthy Relationships, utah. We're in right. The reach of this. Our podcast goes all 50 States and 80 countries and so, wherever you are, you can actually jump on one of Joni's trainings virtually, as she mentioned, all over the world. So I hope that you'll take advantage of so many opportunities to to improve through through education. Well, joni, it has been such a joy for us to have you, and Liz and I have taken all kinds of of of notes and I'm sure our listeners will as well. We just want to express our appreciation once again. Joni, thanks for coming on today.

Joni Parthemer:

Thank you, and thank you for what you do for families.

Dave Schramm:

Thank you. Well, that's it for us. Our friends, that does it for us. We will see you again next time. Another episode of Stronger Marriage Connection.

Liz Hale:

And remember it's the small and simple things that create a stronger marriage connection.

Dave Schramm:

Thanks for joining us today. Hey, do us a favor and take a second to subscribe to our podcast and the Utah Marriage Commission YouTube channel at Utah Marriage Commission, where you can watch this and every episode of the show. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram at Stronger Marriage Life, and Facebook at Stronger Marriage, so be sure to share with us which topics you loved or which guests we should have on the show. Next, if you want even more resources to improve your marriage or relationship connection, visit StrongerMarriageorg, where you'll find free workshops, e-courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys and more. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, rex Polanis, and the team at Utah State University and you, our audience. You make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.