CODE 3 FAMILIES

In this episode Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police Spouse) are talking about what it's like to be the spouse of a first responder. Specifically, all the challenges that come along with being placed in a position to be on your own, responsible for managing it ALL, for a large portion of the time. 

Our first responder kids live in a totally different world than many of their friends. One where their weekly family schedule is in a constant state of change and things can rarely be guaranteed. Holidays might look different each year. Their first responder parent often misses out on some of the big moments and goes off to work every day to potential life threatening situations. In this episode, Dr. Rachelle (Fire Wife) and Dr. Alma (Police Wife) discuss how to build resiliency in your first responder kids from the beginning and how that may take shape over time. 

The first responder career can make finding and building trust in your marriage a challenge. In this episode, Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police Spouse) discuss the many aspects of the career that can get in the way of building trust if it has been lost or managing it when there is a lack of it in general. They also discuss ways you can build trust as a couple overtime. 

The first responder career can add additional stressors to your life that can really get in the way of and decrease the romance and intimacy within your relationship. In this episode, Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police Spouse) discuss the many daily challenges that can get in the way of intimacy within first responder marriages and discuss ways to try and overcome them. 

So many aspects of the career put first responder marriages to the test. In this episode, Dr. Alma (Police Spouse) and Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) discuss some of the great challenges experienced within first responder marriages and how to manage them. This episode specifically focuses on a couple of those challenges that might bring out trust and security issues.

In this episode you get an insider view of the harsh realities of being a first responder spouse and what a first responder can do to better understand and support their spouse. As a first responder family, you have that unique experience of odd hours, forced overtime, and unexpected call outs and deployments... Though these are assigned to the first responder, each one of them significantly increases the load of home responsibilities that the first responder spouse has to manage, often times without warning. Listen in as Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police Spouse) discuss Rachelle's exhausting week as her husband returns to work after paternity leave and immediately gets deployed leaving her to manage it ALL. 

Anxiety is the most common mental health diagnosis in the U.S and pretty prevalent in first responder families. Not only do first responders walk into risky situations every shift, but first responder families are exposed to more concerning events than the average person. In this episode, Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police Spouse) discuss how to identify anxiety, how it shows up in first responder families, and what you can start doing today to better manage your worries so they don't turn into anxiety. 

The most common questions spouses ask all revolve around how they can successfully talk to their first responder spouse about getting help or going to therapy. Often the spouse feels it could be very beneficial based on what changes they see, but they feel lost with how to talk with or convince their first responder spouse of that knowing they are not very open or trusting of mental health. Dr. Rachelle (fire spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police spouse) speak from their professional roles as therapists in how to best address this question. Also in this episode, Dr. Rachelle's baby girl has arrived! She makes her first debut on this podcast at just 3 weeks old. Dr. Rachelle also talks about the challenges that her husband's captain promotion brought to pre and postpartum life. 

Disagreements and arguments are going to happen within every marriage. We don't want to avoid them, we want to resolve them effectively. Sometimes we get stuck in our own negative patterns of communication. Listen in as Dr. Rachelle (Fire Wife) and Dr. Alma (Police Wife) discuss the what communication patterns are proven to lead to divorce by the famous relationship expert, Dr. Gottman. They also discuss how a first responder's job can impact some of the communication patterns you may observe at home.  

There are so many ways to address behavior problems in kids. As child and family psychologists Dr. Rachelle (Fire Spouse) and Dr. Alma (Police spouse) work with hundreds of parents to do just that. Listen in as they discuss their psychological perspective on working with families to address behaviors in kids. In addition, they reflect on how having a first responder parent in the home can at times complicate addressing these behaviors.