Colleen Burcar has 20 years of radio broadcast experience, but she wasn’t quite prepared to play second fiddle to her 16-year-old daughter, Kim.

“It’s a lot different having to take directions from my daughter,” said Burcar, who sat in as a guest DJ on WBFH-FM, the Bloomfield Hills School District's 360-watt radio station.

Burcar, who provided news and information on the air at radio stations CKLW-AM and WKQI-FM, spent two hours in the school district’s radio booth as part of the recent Parent-Sibling Week.

“There is a real bonding that takes place—you put anybody in a 10-by-15-foot room for two hours with someone, and you have to bond,” said Burcar, whose daughter is a junior at Bloomfield Hills Adover High School.

“But I think it’s wonderful, getting to sit side-by-side with your child when they do something like this better than you.”

Kim Burcar’s reaction: “At first, I didn’t think I could handle it. My mom was driving me crazy with the music she was playing. But it turned out to be a lot of fun.”

Selections during the Burcar program ranged from Rock and Roll All Night by Kiss to Kermit the Frog’s Rainbow Connection.

WBFH General Manager Pete Bowers said the two-week program gives parents the opportunity to experience first-hand what it is like to be on “the hot seat,” playing music, reading the news and taking song requests.

“The parents get a better appreciation of what their children do at WBFH,” said Bowers.

“The whole idea originated as an attempt to involve parents a little more with the station. It’s blossomed to the point where the parents really look forward to doing a DJ show.”

WBFH Operations Manager Denise Fontana, a Bloomfield Hills Lahser High School senior, said parents get a first-hand look at the new technologies used in broadcasting.

“It’s not just putting a CD in the machine and pressing ‘play,’”, said Fontana. “They get to see how we run the board and they become part of what we do.”

Paul L. Gaba is a Metro Detroit free-lance writer.