Month: July 2016

093: We Visit a Wonder-Filled Podcast on Today’s Podcast Field Trip!

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

IMG_2434Have you ever found a podcast that resonates with you really deeply? If so, maybe it’s Good Life Project by Jonathan Fields! (If not, get in touch with me at weturnedoutokay.com/contact, and share – I’d love to hear what yours is, and why.)

And now, it’s time to board the big yellow field trip bus that has pulled into our summer camp parking lot, heading out to one of my very favorite podcasts. Go to weturnedoutokay.com/093 to grab the links and come on the field trip!

Two favorite episodes of Good Life Project with Jonathan Fields:

Jonathan has a great conversation with parenting expert Dr. Shefali Tsabary, who has an amazing take on why we parents do the things we do. This really introspective and thoughtful discussion about what motivates us as parents got me thinking about why I parent the way I do. Go to goodlifeproject.com/doctor-shefali tsabary/?t=radio to listen, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

Jonathan’s wonderful interview about how to see what really matters, with perception expert Amy Herman, has changed my life. I went around thinking I was awesomely perceptive, and (as you hear in today’s episode) I am kind of not. But I’m learning!
Listen at goodlifeproject.com/amy-herman/?t=radio

Other Key Links:

In today’s episode, three previous We Turned Out Okay episodes come up:

weturnedoutokay.com/081 is where I share about a surprisingly light moment while helping my parents as my dad underwent brain surgery this past May;

weturnedoutokay.com/058, about how to know if something is really wrong; in this episode I share about being sexually abused as a child and the fallout from that.

Also, I bring up an earlier episode called 4 Ways to Help Your Child Cope with Challenging Situations, from summer 2015; listen by going to weturnedoutokay.com/017.

Are you fretting about some aspect of raising your kids?
Trouble with daycare, or worries about that looming first day of school?
Do you need help balancing work, family, and taking care of you?
Are you in need of more support than We Turned Out Okay alone can give?

Then you should check out the Ninja Parenting Community! – go to weturnedoutokay.com/ninja-parenting-community-login to learn more and see how I can help you worry less and enjoy more in your parenting.

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092: How NOT to Teach Your Young Child to Ride A Bike

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

Today, summer camp is all about the joys of bike riding!cyclists-885609_1920

Have you tried to teach your child how to ride a bike, only to abandon the effort after she expresses fear and has many falls? Are you unable to get him off the training wheels?

We screwed up in trying to teach our first born how to ride a bike; by the second kid, we had figured it out.

Learn from our family experience – go to weturnedoutokay.com/092 to read about the two things you absolutely should never do when teaching your child how to ride a bike!

Here’s how NOT to teach the fine art of biking:
1) use training wheels; if I can go back and make one change, I would remove the training wheels from Max’s bike when he was learning to ride. Next, I would remove the pedals because bike riding initially is all about balance. The pedals just get in the way!

Instead of using training wheels, take the pedals completely off the bike, or consider getting a balance bike which has no pedals at all. This is how our Jay learned to ride: guess which child can ride bikes and loves them?

2) make learning bike-riding fraught and full of worry about falling; when we tried teaching Max to ride he really caught our worried vibe.

Instead, be sure that biking is low-key, and fun!
Remember that it’s expected there will be falls (in our home we called them “yard sales,” a reference to skiing where, when you have a really epic fall, you lose skis poles gloves etc.) If you make a big deal about the falls and the falling, as we did with our first, you might end up with a kid who is afraid to lose his or her balance when learning to ride a bike.
Keep it fun, light, stop when your child needs to stop.

If you can NOT make the same mistakes we made, before long you’ll find yourself biking around alongside your child. It is an awesome feeling!

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091: We Consider Family-Life-Work Balance on Today’s Podcast Field Trip

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

Today we get kinda serious on our podcast field trip, but in the best way, as we visit The Broad Experience! It’s “the show about women and the workplace,” as host Ashley Milne-Tyte often says, and is relevant not just to every woman, but to every man who has a IMG_0332mother, a significant other, a female coworker, or a daughter in his life.

First, a quick note about the Ninja Parenting Community: I’ve had a technical glitch hold up the opening for a few weeks, which is a bummer. However, it can work out really well for you because, as compensation, I’m offering more one-to-one support to those who become part of my email group and join the community in its very first week! (Hopefully in late July.) Becoming part of the email group now means:
– a weekly email about what’s happening on We Turned Out Okay
– the chance to join the Ninja Parenting Community at the best pricing that there will ever be, period.
– a one-to-one parent coaching call every three months for all the time you’re continuously in the community!
– I’m offering this as compensation for the time we are all stuck waiting as I figure out the technical glitch,
so you definitely want to jump into my email group!
Become part of the email group by clicking this link or going to weturnedoutokay.com/ninja-parenting-community-login and signing up to get notified about when the Ninja Parenting Community opens.

Last summer I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley, and I loved our conversation so much that I featured it again this spring! To hear our conversation, go to weturnedoutokay.com/069.
For links to the specific Broad Experience episodes I talk about in today’s We Turned Out Okay – and also for the link to my friend Geoff Woods’s podcast, called The Mentee (and whom I speak about today because he and his wife gave me a lovely endorsement for my book, Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics) – go to weturnedoutokay.com/091.

Key Links:

Get on the bus and come to this week’s Podcast Field Trip!
– For Ashley’s conversation about work and intimacy with guest Evelyn Resh, click:
here – thebroadexperience.com/listen/2016/6/17/episode-86-work-and-intimacy-part-1 – for part one;
here – thebroadexperience.com/listen/2016/6/24/episode-87-work-and-intimacy-part-2 – for part two;
and here – thebroadexperience.com/listen/2013/5/24/episode-19-women-work-and-sex.html – for Ashley and Evelyn’s first conversation back in 2013

Find out more about Geoff and his journey from employee to entrepreneur by going to menteepodcast.com.

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090: Two Key Steps to Helping Your Child Learn To Swim – Summer Camp Continues!

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

Do you, like me, worry about your son or daughter drowning during a day at the pool or the beach?

When my two boys were small, I was given some great advice about keeping them safe while swimming, and that’s what today’s Summer Camp Episode is all about.20160703-406

First, a quick note about the Ninja Parenting Community: I’ve had a technical glitch hold up the opening for a few weeks, which is a bummer. However, it can work out really well for you because, as compensation, I’m offering more one-to-one support to those who become part of my email group and join the community in its very first week! (Hopefully in late July.) Becoming part of the email group now means:
– a weekly email about what’s happening on We Turned Out Okay
– the chance to join the Ninja Parenting Community at the best pricing that there will ever be, period.
– a one-to-one parent coaching call every three months for all the time you’re continuously in the community!
– I’m offering this as compensation for the time we are all stuck waiting as I figure out the technical glitch,
so you definitely want to jump into my email group!
Become part of the email group by clicking this link or going to weturnedoutokay.com/ninja-parenting-community-login and signing up to get notified about when the Ninja Parenting Community opens.

Go to weturnedoutokay.com/090 to read all about the key steps to helping your kid learn to swim, and to listen to the episode!

To really help your child learn to swim, here are the two recommendations we talk about in today’s’s episode:

1) years ago, a swim instructor who had worked with children for decades gave me this great advice: when you’re in the water with your young child, act as if getting splashed in the face is perfectly normal and to be expected. Smile as you’re getting splashed in the face, when it happens to your child don’t make a big deal about it – swimming means getting water in your face.
I recently saw a great example of this with my second cousin once removed, who is just sixteen months old and absolutely in love with the end of the slip and slide where you’re constantly getting water in your face.

2) be sure that it is the child’s intrinsic motivation – not yours or somebody else’s – that guides your child to move away from you in the water, or try new things such as going underwater. Until such time as her curiosity or desire for independence takes over, please use a flotation device such as a back-style floaty, worn on the back and with removable panels for different levels of buoyancy.
There will come a day when your child swims away under his or her own power and that is an awesome day – make it possible by allowing your child to determine when it happens!

Key Links:

Listen to our first Q&A ever, which happened to be about kids and swimming, by going to weturnedoutokay.com/017.

To get into my email group for weekly updates about what’s happening on the podcast and take advantage of the extra benefits I’m offering only to people who join the Ninja Parenting Community in its first week of being open – hopefully starting in late July 2016 – go to weturnedoutokay.com/ninja-parenting-community-login.

To contact me with your thoughts and ideas about learning to swim go to weturnedoutokay.com/contact.

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089: We Visit Possibly My All-Time Favorite Podcast Today!

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

It’s completely silly, the expletives fly superfast, it’s raunchy, and it’s about an imaginary world: it’s The Adventure Zone, and if you haven’t heard this podcast yet, you need to IMG_0331listen!

Three comedian-brothers, Griffin, Travis, and Justin McElroy, along with their dad Clint have created an amazing world in these eighteen months or so that they’ve recorded as the four of them sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. I think I love it so much because the characters that the McElroys have created are awesome and lovable. Also because, as they play, the story unfolds; main characters Magnus, Taako, and Merle have no more idea of what’s coming than we do. The way the way these characters react to the world and circumstances that dungeon master Griffin is creating makes the show amazing and hilarious.

First, a quick note about the Ninja Parenting Community: I’ve had a technical glitch hold up the opening for a few weeks, which is a bummer. However, it can work out really well for you because, as compensation, I’m offering more one-to-one support to those who become part of my email group and join the community in its very first week! (Hopefully in late July.) Becoming part of the email group now means:
– a weekly email about what’s happening on We Turned Out Okay
– the chance to join the Ninja Parenting Community at the best pricing that there will ever be, period.
– a one-to-one parent coaching call every three months for all the time you’re continuously in the community!
– I’m offering this as compensation for the time we are all stuck waiting as I figure out the technical glitch,
so you definitely want to jump into my email group!
Become part of the email group by clicking this link or going to weturnedoutokay.com/ninja-parenting-community-login and signing up to get notified about when the Ninja Parenting Community opens.

Now, go to weturnedoutokay.com/089 for links to my three favorite episodes of The Adventure Zone!

Key Links:

Listen to episode 7, Moonlighting – Chapter 1, to get a sense of who these people are and what they are doing in this world – also, for more good information about the world they are in! Go to maximumfun.org/adventure-zone/ep-7-moonlighting-chapter-one to listen.

Next up is the episode that introduces my favorite Adventure Zone story arc so far: episode 29, The Crystal Kingdom – Chapter 1. Parts of this story arc had me biting my nails due to suspense, and other parts had me wetting my pants due to hilarity. Listen by going to maximumfun.org/adventure-zone/ep-29-crystal-kingdom-chapter-one!

Finally, the last episode I want to highlight contains possibly my favorite moment in all of podcasting, ever, because of the action, the humor, the suspense, and just the real-ness that these characters bring. I listened to this episode on my walk, and as the events towards the end unfolded I stopped walking and just stood in the street listening!
Listen at maximumfun.org/adventure-zone/ep-34-crystal-kingdom-chapter-six.

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088: An Unusual Arts & Crafts Summer Camp Project!

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

Did you love arts & crafts at camp, or hate it? I was a mixture of both – some projects I loved, and some I loathed, and as I think about those projects, I realize that I disliked the micromanaged, do-it-the-instructor’s-way-or-else projects the most.

I always loved the open-ended stuff best. Also, big projects were really fun, as were those that got you super-messy.

For today’s summer camp arts & crafts show, I’m sharing my all-time favorite project to do with little kids: painting a giant mural just as Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling!

First, a quick note about the Ninja Parenting Community: I’ve had a technical glitch hold up the opening for a few weeks, which is a bummer. However, it can work out really well for you because, as compensation, I’m offering more one-to-one support to those who become part of my email group and join the community in its very first week! (Hopefully in late July.) Becoming part of the email group now means:
– a weekly email about what’s happening on We Turned Out Okay
– the chance to join the Ninja Parenting Community at the best pricing that there will ever be, period.
– a one-to-one parent coaching call every three months for all the time you’re continuously in the community!
– I’m offering this as compensation for the time we are all stuck waiting as I figure out the technical glitch,
so you definitely want to jump into my email group!
Become part of the email group by clicking this link or going to weturnedoutokay.com/ninja-parenting-community-login and signing up to get notified about when the Ninja Parenting Community opens.

To listen and to learn how to do today’s unusual and very fun arts & crafts project, go to weturnedoutokay.com/088.

How to make a giant wall or ceiling mural:

you’ll need:
1) a surface for your little to paint underneath – picnic table or bench, a folding camp table, or the underside of your kitchen table (line the floor with newspapers if you are doing this activity inside)

2) a lower bench or a few chairs for her to lie on as she paints under the table, if needed

3) paint – any kind will do; I recommend non-staining tempera paint (although the red will still stain, so protect clothing with a smock) in paint pots, to make it easy for your child to load up with pain and then reach above to his canvas

4) a surface on which to paint – newsprint or butcher paper (which comes in a really nice roll), poster board, even two or three poster boards in a row if you have the space

5) the ability to not worry about the clothes your child is in – they WILL get paint-covered, which is not a bad thing, it’s just that we need to be prepared for it

6) goggles or protective clear glasses for your child to wear, because paint in the eyes is no fun

what you do:
1) check out some pictures of the Vatican city’s Sistine Chapel ceiling; marvel at how long it took Michelangelo to create it. Marvel also at the scaffolding that held him way up close to the ceiling on his back for all the years he spent painting it

1a) be sure to marvel at the process as much as the result, and when your child goes to make her giant mural, please remember that it’s all about the process and not the product – whatever she does, whenever she pronounces it “finished,” it’s perfect just the way it is

2) securely tape up a large sheet of paper or poster board to the underside of a table

3) if it’s a table that, when your kid lies on his back and reaches up to paint the surface, he needs to be closer, place a few chairs or stools or a bench so that he can reach while still lying on his back

4) arm your child with goggles and a smock to protect eyes and clothing from paint drips

5) see what he comes up with; consider joining in yourself or inviting others to take a crack at under-table painting

If you get a chance, I’d love to see how your kids’ paintings turn out – send me a picture at weturnedoutokay.com/contact, or find me on twitter @StoneAgeTechie or on instagram @weturnedoutokay 🙂

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087: Our First Podcast Field Trip Takes Us To The Stars

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

Welcome to the first Thursday summer camp episode of We Turned Out Okay, where every Tuesday will be about fun stuff to do with our kids, and every Thursday will be about fun stuff to do for ourselves!

Today, the big yellow bus has pulled into the parking lot of our summer camp, and the doors are open, ready to take us to check out the stars with Neil DeGrasse Tyson of Star Talk Radio.

Click here  or go to weturnedoutokay.com/087 for the links to today’s field trip!

Neil DeGrasse Tyson hosted PBS’s Cosmos a few years ago, often shares why Pluto cannot be considered a planet anymore (much to the chagrin of children the world over), and in Star Talk Radio discusses all things science and with a variety of guests (and his super dreamy, amazing voice).

Here are two of my recent favorite episodes:
http://startalkradio.co/show/startalk-live-at-the-beacon-part-1-chasing-comets/, and

http://startalkradio.co/show/startalk-live-beacon-part-2-king-kuiper-belt/
Enjoy today’s field trip, learning about comets, meteorites, and Pluto’s status as a planet!

When you get back, be sure and check out the Ninja Parenting Community, the community I built for parents of young children in which is now open! Click this link to learn more.

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086: How to Help Your Child Stop Being Afraid of Bugs: First Day of Summer Camp at We Turned Out Okay!

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Podcast Episode, Summer Camp!

Happy summer!
Here at We Turned Out Okay, we’re changing the format up, making each Tuesday about something fun to do with your kids – and each Thursday something fun to do for yourself.

Today, for our very first Summer Camp episode, we are taking some bugs on a field trip!

If your child is frightened of creepy-crawlies, today’s summer camp activity could really help him or her get past that.

And for everybody else, it is just plain fun 🙂

Also, I’m excited to announce that the Ninja Parenting Community is open in beta!
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the many tough aspects of raising a young child, I hope you’ll check it out –
Click here to read more about it.

Enjoy the show!

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