Hello and welcome to the very first episode of The Village Voice, parenting beyond discipline,

the place to learn about all things parenting and get your questions answered.

I'm your host, Erin Royer-Azrelant.

In this introductory episode, I'm going to tell you a little bit about

myself, my experiences, and how I came to start your village, and in particular, this podcast.

I will then cover what you can expect in terms of the format, topics covered, and how you can

submit your own parenting questions to get them answered

on future episodes. I'm really excited to be here, and I'm so happy that you are joining us.

First, I'll share a little bit about myself and my background. I live in sunny Southern California

with my awesome and supportive husband Corey and our three

amazing kids. Carter is seven and our twins Chandler and Taylor are five. I have lived many other

places throughout the country, but I am definitely a California girl all the way. When our oldest son was

born, I wanted to have more freedom with my schedule

than a nine to six job. And after some thought, I decided to go get my master's degree and become a

marriage and family therapist. After I graduated and was working with children and families on my

internship hours, I was finding so many areas where I could really help

families improve relationships by teaching better ways of communicating, along with educating

parents about child development. I also had just started teaching parenting classes at that

time. So many parents were coming to me and telling me they wanted to take my other

classes, but it was hard to squeeze into their busy schedules at the particular days and times

they were offered, or they just lived too far away. They kept saying, if you put your classes online,

please, please let me know. So the idea for the website, Your Village Online.com, was born from the desire to be able to help more families. I took all of the classes and created videos so any parent could watch any class any time they wanted. As I continued teaching classes, working with families one-on-one, and then launching the website,

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