Art Creativity & Wellbeing

Your Child Explained: where we talk about what is going on inside your kid's head! YCE episodes drop every other Thursday, always the same week as selected as last a guest interview episode. Sometimes a YCE episode will also be a Q&A, so if you're child is doing something that is driving you nuts, please ask me about it – just go to weturnedoutokay.com/contact – but most often the YCE will be on the same topic the previous Tuesday's guest episode.Let's dive into your kid's head together!Tuesday's guest, Wesley Chapman of A HUMAN Project, gave you and I lots of ways to help our young children feel loved, appreciated, and an integral part of our families. If you didn't get a chance to listen to our interview, I think you'll love it – it's Weturnedoutokay.com/024… The obstacles that Wes has overcome and the positive difference he's making and the lives of thousands of families will blow you away.For today's Your Child Explained episode, we highlight the letter you in HUMAN: to Wes, U means Understanding. Today's show, as we look into our young kids' minds, we see a desperate need on their parts to be understood by the people they love most.How do you communicate that you honor their ideas, that you "get" your child, no matter how young? Maybe it's as simple as saying "I understand" sometimes; maybe it's slightly tweaking your routine to honor your toddler's preferences.The best thing is that putting the letter u in Understanding can have great consequences! They can help you know your child better, it can help you laugh together… It can help you have more fun.Do you Understand your child? If so, please share! Go to the contact page at Weturnedoutokay.com, or comment right here in this post – it took me years to be able to Understand each of my boys, I'd love to know how you do it. And, thanks for listening! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

Today's guest has had a lifetime of unplanned adventures… Abused and abandoned during his young childhood, simultaneously a troublemaker and a bullied kid all through school… Wesley Chapman developed an entrepreneurial spirit at age 8, when his grandmother became disabled and he started going door to door selling flowers from her garden.The entrepreneurial spirit stuck with Wes, who found that his strength lay in being an entrepreneur, and then helping other entrepreneurs… And in more recent years helping thousands of children and teens through their own private battles.We talk about all that in today's episode:how Wes's growing up helped him become the man he is todayhow his philosophy went from "I'll prove them all wrong" to "I'll prove myself right"… And how this philosophical shift affects Wes and the people around him every daywhat the acronym HUMAN means, in Wes's A HUMAN Project click updatehow you can help your young child thriveIf you take just one thing from this episode, I hope it is this: our children deserve our time and our positive thinking. These two elements are what will cause them to thrive! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

Today's episode is probably almost exactly the opposite of what you think of when you think of school rules. In fact, it feels a little subversive… The truth is, I think that schools are getting some important things wrong. These rules for you to follow can right some of these wrongs.Let's jump in!1) Get into the mindset that school exists to help your child. We often feel like, especially if our kid does not fit the mold, that we are somehow in trouble – that our son or daughter is to blame for holding up the class, or poor test scores. It's important to remember that, like the police who protect and serve, school teachers are there to nurture our children, to help our children achieve their dreams. It's not the other way around!2) Formulate a goal for what you want your child to get out of his or her school year. I know that this sounds like a weird one – aren't goals for executive boardrooms, or job reviews, or at the very least high school? – but going into your child's preschool, kindergarten, or first grade with an idea of what you hope she'll learn will help her have a better year. It gives you a parameter, and if you don't feel like this goal is being met it gives you a way to speak up about it.3) Don't worry about testing. Tests should be the absolute last thing on a parent of a young child's mind; when they are young, our job is to nurture their creativity, help them get along better with other kids, help them spend time doing the things they love… The best way to have kids (of this age) (eventually) do well on tests is to not worry about them yet! Leave the test prep to the teachers.4) Subject matter matters! It is much easier to help a young child on the path to, say, learning to read if what they are reading about is really important to them. The best teachers help their students learn by having them learn about what they love. If, unfortunately, your child doesn't have one of these best teachers, it becomes even more crucial for you to help them learn about what they love. Luckily, this is fun for everybody; the best learning with kids this age result in a lot of laughter.5) If you see something missing, ASK for it. Meaning, if you want something for your child that you don't see happening in the classroom, you must respectfully ask for it… And then expect results. Fortunately we have the four C's's – remaining calm, being confident and courageous, and following up with consistency – to aid in asking, because it can be pretty scary to ask for stuff!I hope these five School Rules help you help your child have a great school year. I'll leave you with a fifth C – community – to add to the other four… Because if schools exist to serve our children, if we think of them and ourselves as existing in a community, then as part of that community we have the right to respectfully ask for change.What kind of change would you like to see in your child's school? Please share! Either in the comments here, or you can fill in the contact form at Weturnedoutokay.com… I can't wait to hear from you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

Your Child Explained: where we talk about what is going on inside your kid's head! YCE episodes drop every other Thursday, always the same week as selected as last a guest interview episode. Sometimes a YCE episode will also be a Q&A, so if you're child is doing something that is driving you nuts, please ask me about it – just go to weturnedoutokay.com/contact – but most often the YCE will be on the same topic the previous Tuesday's guest episode.Let's dive into your kid's head together!Simplicity expert and professional declutterer Miriam Ortiz Y Pino of morethanorganized.net really got into our heads this past Tuesday in Episode 21 (weturnedoutokay.com/021).But what happens in your child's mind when it's time to give something away? If yours are anything like mine, giving things away does not come naturally. Here are three ways to de-clutter and simplify, even while living with young children:1) Go into stealth mode. Clean out while they're not around, or while they're asleep… As you do this, be sure to bring out toys, clothes, or art supplies that they haven't seen in a while and then put the emphasis on those, while stealthily handing off the stuff you want to say goodbye to.2) Overtly discuss. Talking about the good that somebody else will get from our stuff can be revelatory, even for young children. They do have generous hearts, and knowing that, when they say goodbye to these things they've outgrown, they are helping somebody else can make the transition that much easier.3) Go gently. It can be super hard to give away things you still love! We know and understand that as adults, and communicating to your son or daughter that you know how he or she feels can make a huge difference.There is kindness and generosity in your child's head. Appealing to that can help get past the instinctive "mine!" grab… plus, showing that you understand how tough it can be when something has to go is so supportive for your child.How have you helped your child through the process of giving up stuff? Please share! Go to weturnedoutokay.com/contact, I can't wait to hear from you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

Did you ever think about the relationship you have with your stuff? Today, my guest and I talk about all the different ways that our stuff is a barrier to our enjoyment of our time, possessions, and especially our relationships.Miriam Ortiz y Pino of morethanorganized.net has built a great business to help break down these barriers. When she was 11 years old and was given her first job, alphabetizing the merchandise in the business of a family friend in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she started the very beginnings of a life of helping others organize. In more recent years she not only helps us regular people clean out our dressers and closets, she also helps organize bigger things, like political campaigns or restaurants.Today, she talks to me about organization and decluttering, not just of stuff, but of emotions.Listen for:- how to better utilize an area of your home by thinking NOT about the bins and containers you'll use to store stuff, but instead of what that space will be used for- decluttering by choosing mostly gadgets that do more than one thing- figuring out the emotional ties to an object in order to decide what to do with it/about it – during this part of our conversation, Miriam helps me understand a decades-old argument with my husband!If you take just one thing away from our conversation today, I hope it is this: we can be ruled by our stuff, and is up to us to master our (emotional and physical) clutter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

Today's episode is special, not just because it's the last in our Summer Camp series but because it's more than just a single interview; it's an ode to summer, told in parts. On recent camping trip I took my fun little recorder, the Zoom H5, and today I'm bringing you some of my favorite stories and sounds from that trip. Amazing producer (and 18 time winner of the Husband of the Year award) Benjamin Kolp has woven together these, plus my two-part interview with mom and journalist Heather Kempskie, making for a Summer Camp wrap-up that you will love! So before we jump back into fall, grab yourself one final summertime adult beverage, curl up in your favorite camp chair, and enjoy! In addition to her day job as the Multimedia Editor of baystateparent.com, today's guest has always been a real adventurer in terms of her vacations – in 2014, her family swapped houses with a Danish family for a month! – but their plans for this summer were daring in a different way: she and her family spent two weeks traveling together in a motorhome RV. In this unusual episode, we spend the first part talking with Heather Kempskie about plans for the RV trip with her family… And then after the trip is over we have a postmortem right here on the show! Listen for: Heather's enthusiasm for the upcoming trip, in which the family travels from the Boston area and down along the East Coast, heading inland to the Appalachian Mountains before returning homewhat she is concerned about (for example, how do you have any alone time in an RV with three other people?), and how she handles those concernsher favorite vacation so far – it was that one to Denmark – and how this one stacks up against that onewhat the trip was actually like versus her expectations of the tripIf you take one thing away from this episode, I hope it is this: being open to seemingly crazy ideas can make your life much more fun! A doggie note about this episode: when we recorded part one, we had our beautiful little Shi-Tzu-poodle mixes for less than 48 hours; by the time we got together to record the second part of Heather's interview, care of the dogs had become too much for me. I had a relapse of the condition I've been living with for four years, called tendinosis, and we had given the dogs up and I was back to 30% use of my arms. You can hear the whole story in Episode 17, where I share four ways to help your young children cope with challenging situations. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another great Summer Camp episode! Today's is more of an evergreen topic, because we care about the successes of our children in all seasons. It's true that this interview is not solely about summer; but as we head back into the school year, it's also a good time to think about how to help our kids in life. And maybe, not even just our kids – but us! I'm looking forward to sharing this great show with you, you're going to love today's guest.Do you go through a daily struggle to balance your work time with your family time? Have you ever wondered if your gender plays a part in how successful you are at work, how much money you earn, whether you get a big promotion – or watch it go to someone else? Today's guest and I talk about all things women and workplace, the subject of her very successful podcast with a great name: The Broad Experience.Ashley Milne-Tyte grew up in London, riding public buses and then the London Tube, both by herself, to school. She spent her summers in rural Pennsylvania enjoying the kind of independence that kids used to take for granted, riding bikes or exploring the woods with friends and really only being required to "be back home for meals." Our conversation starts with differences between childhood then and now, and progresses to where her expertise helps you – and your kids – enjoy successes both in work and life.Listen for:how the myth that "having babies" is the only thing that holds women back in the workplace is completely wrong; women have difficulty climbing as high in the corporate world as men for lots of reasons, and knowing these reasons can help women be more successfulwhat can be learned from two of my favorite books – and two books on my Fabulous Five list of books that help us be better parents – Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy, and Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orensteina great piece of advice for anyone of any gender: develop the ability to advocate for yourself; to help with this Ashley recommends the book, Ask for it: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get what They Really Want, by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, which is winging its way to me from the library as I write :-)Ashley Milne-Tyte's expertise lies in storytelling, and in today's episode we really get a sense of that, as she shares stories from her own childhood, work experiences and setbacks. You'll finish the episode with a huge smile on your face, both because you'll have a better sense of how to be successful yourself and how to help your children be successful in the workplace when they are all grown up. You'll also have a huge smile on your face because you've got so many Broad Experience episodes to listen to in your future! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

I'm so excited about this episode, part of our Summer Camp series in which we are setting aside our usual four themes (3R's, Unplanned Adventures, Kids through the Ages, and Risky Business), pouring a nice tall glass of iced tea – or Long Island Ice Tea, depending on your age and what time of day it is – and going on vacation! We will return to our regularly scheduled programming in September, but for now… Let's just enjoy summer!Today's guest spends her work days helping her clients love their outdoor spaces – and then along with her husband and their three young children, she spends her free time loving and improving their own outdoor space. Jill Brown of mylandscapecoach.com really practices what she preaches, cultivating not just plants but community in all areas of her life.And she has some great tips for us to do exactly the same! Listen for:the value of hanging out, not in your backyard, but in your front yard – this is where friendships are made, trust and community are built, and fun is hadthree fabulous ways to interact with your neighbors: putting a Little Library into your neighborhood, basically a small waterproof hut in which people leave books that they're done with, or take books they're interested in; putting in a Magazine Box similar to the Little Library; and using a utility pole as a Poetry Pole, a place for neighborhood poets of all ages to have their stuff exhibitedfun and inexpensive yard play equipment that you can build, like a simple disc swing or a fence made of electrical conduitJill's blog at mylandscapecoach.com has examples and ideas for customizing these concepts for your own yard, plus it's just a fun place to look for inspiration! I know you're going to love our conversation today because Jill has many great ideas that you can use immediately to enjoy life more outside with your young children.If you love something that we talked about in this episode, and went out and built something based on it, please let us know! Email me at Karen@weturnedoutokay.com, or just go to the contact page, weturnedoutokay.com/contact, and drop me a line. I'm going to be shouting about my favorites on the show, I hope yours is one of them :-) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we take a temporary break from We Turned Out Okay's Summer Camp series so that I can help you know how to talk with your children when a challenge arises.Sometimes, even in beautiful summer, bad things happen, and today I share about the tough situation my family and I have found ourselves in over the last several weeks. But rest assured – we've still got three lovely, golden August weeks left to enjoy summer and we will do so!One last thing before we get into the notes, this show has an epilogue, so after I have said "thanks for listening, see you next time" you still want to keep listening – I have something to share about both the Q&A, and about our dogs.… Not exactly a Hollywood ending, but a better one then I had ever thought could happen!A Breakdown of Today's ShowToday's show is split into two parts, but before I get to those there is a really neat thing I wanted to share – friend-of-the-podcast Muttaqi Ismael, an amazing whiteboard video artist, has turned a favorite part of We Turned Out Okay: episode 5 – Four Risks That We Take With Our Children's Well-Being Every Day into a fantastic whiteboard video! He's a very talented guy, and to see the video just go to weturnedoutokay.com/017, where it is embedded… My plan is to give the video its own blog post during this month of August. Meantime, enjoy! And thank you Muttaqi – you did a great job!Our First Q&A!And now on to the Q&A – Jill asks: "why are my three kids awesome at swim lessons when daycare brings them, but when mommy brings them I'm practically holding their hand in the water (and that's if they actually get in the water) – we've been doing swim lesson since March BTW"We've all noticed this at some point in our parenting lives, haven't we? Why do they behave incredibly well for somebody else, and freak out for us? Jill, I'm so glad you asked this question because it is such a common concern. My answer dives (pun totally intended) into my experiences with how my kids behaved when they were small at Grandma's versus how they behaved with me – and I recorded the epilogue because, almost as soon as I hit stop recording this episode, I realized that I had been in a very similar situation to yours!I hope you find my answer helpful, and that it helps you think of other questions to ask. I love Q&A's, I think they're so helpful and also they help us know we are not alone. To submit a question, you can email Karen@weturnedoutokay.com, go to weturnedoutokay.com/contact, friend me on Facebook, find me on twitter@StoneAgeTechie, on instagram@weturnedoutokay… Heck, you can even snail mail me! My address is PO Box 61, Bellingham, MA, 02019.4 Ways to Help Your Child Cope with Challenging SituationsThe main part of this show focuses on the four ways you can help your child cope with challenging situations. This came up because my family has been in a very challenging situation: about six weeks before this episode aired for the first time, we adopted two amazing, awesome dogs… And then the stress of caring for them caused a relapse in tendinosis, this condition that I live with that, at times, has left me unable to walk (which I've since relearned) and with extremely limited upper body and hand use.Long story short, these wonderful dogs entered our lives and within a very short time, we had to give them up. Truly, it was either them or my health and sanity.In this episode, I share about how heartbreaking and difficult this has been. But I also share about how grateful I am to have had them in our lives, and how amazed I am by the strength and gentleness of both my husband and our two boys.Most importantly for you, I share about how we got through this. Because when you are in a tough situation and you don't know how to help your kids get through it as well, it's really helpful to have a guide. I hope you will think of this podcast as your guide!Here are my four steps to coping with challenging situations, and helping your kids cope as well:1) communicate with your kids; they WILL know that something is wrong, and consequently you will notice, if you try to keep everything from them, an uptick in bad behavior, anxiety, and tears; sharing with them what you can on their level reassures your kids and helps them trust you2) help them understand that you are all in this together; be there for tears, questions, reassurances3) find a way for them to help; children need to be needed, and when you give them a job – a truly meaningful job that truly helps you, however small – they become part of the solution4) cherish the time we have with our loved ones; because challenging situations often include the absence of a person that they used to see a lot – whether through divorce, or death, or a cross-country move – it is really helpful to talk with our kids about how people come in and out of our lives; sometimes, people are not meant to be with us for long, or not without long intervals between seeing them, and the most important thing is to appreciate the time we have with our loved ones, and cherish the memory of them when we are not with themGiving up our dogs due to my illness is one of the hardest things we've faced as a family. I'm sharing this experience with you today because I really hope it will help you with the challenges that inevitably come up in your life. Kids are amazingly resilient, and cope well with life's challenges, especially when we grown-ups take the time to communicate with them, share in grief together, find meaningful ways for them to help, and above all teach them to enjoy the time we have with the people we love. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe

I'm so excited about this episode, part of our Summer Camp series in which we are setting aside our usual four themes (3R's, Unplanned Adventures, Kids through the Ages, and Risky Business), pouring a nice tall glass of iced tea – or Long Island Ice Tea, depending on your age and what time of day it is – and going on vacation! We will return to our regularly scheduled programming in September, but for now… Let's just enjoy summer!Though you may not know it, you have heard the voice of today's guest. Anna Vocino can be heard on networks like CBS and Fox Sports, in commercial campaigns for Canada dry, Disney Princess bikes, on The Young and The Restless and Jimmy Kimmel Live! and in many other places… but my favorite place to hear her voice is at the beginning and ending of my very own podcast!Also an accomplished comedic actor, Anna was a series regular on Free Radio on Comedy Central and performs sketch and improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and at FunnyorDie.com. In today's show, we learn that, along with a group that includes her now-husband, Anna started a theater company in Atlanta, Georgia which is still going strong 18 years later.In addition to all of the above, my guest today has celiac disease, and as a result has relearned how to feed herself and her family, created GlutenFreeAnna.com to share her learning, and has a cookbook coming out soon.Listen for:her inspiring perseverance through the many obstacles that have been tossed in her path; from the "surprise" pregnancy and birth of their daughter while starting the theater company all those years ago, to cultivating the super thick skin required to make it in Hollywood and right on up to how Anna dealt with the autoimmune disease known as celiac, she has cheerfully taken on every unplanned adventure – and wongreat summer memories (this show airs during We Turned Out Okay's visit to Summer Camp, when we set aside our usual themes and just enjoy summertime) that Anna has, from going to Methodist Camp as the daughter of a minister, to attending a really great arts summer camp in Michigan with a delicious mystery dessert that she remembers well, even if she can't recall exactly what it is now :-)the importance of a strong family bond, both in the family she was raised in and the one she is building with her husband and daughter, in Anna's life; while she never comes out and says "family is and always has been super important to me," this love comes through in every memory she shares, every situation she describesIf you take one idea away from today's show, I hope it is this: autoimmune diseases come in many varieties, and if you or someone you love has peculiar symptoms that are painful and debilitating, yet no one can place, the problem might be autoimmune based, or possibly food -related. But as Anna Vocino shares with us, these problems do not have to be the end of your world; instead, they could be the beginning of a new and better existence! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kaylockkolp.substack.com/subscribe