Eleven years ago, Potomac residents Sandra Burt and Linda Perlis set out to create a radio show about parenting. Former teachers and the mothers of seven collective boys, the two were collaborating on a parenting book and felt they had some useful knowledge they could bring to the table — and the airwaves.

Today, Burt's and Perlis's children are grown, but their show, known as "Parents' Perspective," continues to provide useful advice to hundreds of thousands of listeners. The show is picked up by stations across the country, including KXEL AM 1540 in Waterloo, Iowa, KWRO and KBBR in Coos Bar, Ore., WJTN AM 1240 in Jamestown, N.Y, and of course, WFED AM 1050 here in the Washington region.

The show is also carried to an international audience via the Defense Media Center, a radio station operated by the military, and is available online in the form of podcasts. The weekly program has aired more than 375 shows on topics as diverse as post-Sept. 11 parenting, military families, Metro safety, and teaching sign language to pre-verbal children. The program also delves into topics including education, nutrition, developmental disabilities, family tragedy and divorce.

"The demographics of our listenership cut across every line you can think of," Burt said. "[People in] small towns and big cities, professionals, immigrants, psychiatrists, military….[people] all over the world," Burt said.

The show's mission, according to Burt and Perlis, is to bring expert parenting advice to their diverse group of listeners. For each show, Burt and Perlis carefully choose an expert to interview on air who they feel will bring useful insight to the show's topic. "We provide access to people that most of our listeners wouldn't have access to otherwise," Perlis said.

Parents seeking advice in many forms — including radio, television, classes, and the internet — are increasing in number, according to Patti Cancellier, an education coordinator at the Kensington-based Parent Encouragement Program.

"Parents like parenting information in as many different forms as they can get, because they catch it on the fly," Cancellier said. Radio shows are popular among parents, Cancellier said, as well as podcasts — mainly because they can download the program to their iPod and listen to it whenever or wherever it's convenient. Some local parents also tune into a monthly show started by Kensington resident Jack Petrash, "On Parenting," which airs on 89.3 WPFW FM.

Burt and Perlis have had some unique responders to their radio programs, many of whom have been from far away listeners — including a deployed military parent who called in from an aircraft carrier off the coast of California and a Saudi Arabian citizen who called after catching a signal from the local military base.

For Burt, one of the most memorable shows centered around tolerance, and it involved two guests — a woman who was a retired Lt. Col. In the Israel Defense Forces and the daughter of the man who founded an Egyptian terrorist group. Her father had been killed by the IDF.

"These two women — both mothers — had come together to talk about how important it is to teach kids tolerance," Burt said. "It was a mind-blowing program."

The two women have always been "tuned in" to parenting issues, but in their new roles as grandmothers, the interest has been renewed. However, they do wish that some of the advice they uncovered had been around when they were raising their own children.

"Sometimes we'll look at each other and say, ‘My Gosh, we should have known that,'" Burt said.

One of the most important pieces of advice that the women hope listeners will take away from the program is that advice is available — on whatever issue — to parents who need it. "I've learned that there's always someone out there who can help," Perlis said.

In the Washington, D.C. area, Parents' Perspective airs at 8:30 a.m. Saturdays on WFED Federal News Radio, AM 1050. To learn more about the program, for more information on parenting books written by Burt and Perlis, or to download podcasts of the show, visit www.parentsperspective.org.