Happy parent

367: Not creativity but…

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Feeling happy inside, Happy parent, Values Series

So, as I’m doing this series on the values that I hold most dear, I’m playing a little game with myself. I’m imagining you, asking yourself “can I guess today’s value?”
All I can say is, if you guess creativity, you are wrong…
But not completely wrong.

Thank you so much for listening! I am glad you’re here <3
Karen

PS I have an invitation for you: if you haven’t already, get to know me a little better by signing up for my weekly newsletter.
It’s free, and I promise to hold your email address – and thus your heart – safely, in both my hands…
Go to https://weturnedoutokay.com/weekly to sign up : )

This episode’s home-on-the-web: https://weturnedoutokay.com/367

The link to the first episode in this series (this is the second)… https://weturnedoutokay.com/366

Click here for the link to the TED talk that I reference today, called The Birth of a Word.
It is awesome and you’ve got to listen to it!

Listen to We Turned Out Okay in your favorite podcatcher!

Here are a few choice spots:

Apple Podcasts… http://bit.ly/WTOOApple

Spotify… http://bit.ly/WTOOSpotify

Stitcher Podcasts… Http://bit.ly/WTOOStitcher

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What I’m really doing while I am knitting

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Blog Post, Feeling happy inside, Happy parent, Uncategorized

For months I have been knitting a pair of socks. Last fall I wrote about my current sock dilemma (which you can read about here.)

In a nutshell the sock dilemma is this:
I can no longer get my favorite merino wool socks. Not only were they affordable, they were warm, they fit right, and they came in all sorts of lovely and fun colors and patterns.

So this winter I tried hard to conserve them. Instead of wearing them on a chilly day I found myself putting on my summertime ankle-high socks. And then I’d be cold and crotchety.

Here’s what I wrote about the sock situation last fall:

“I’m finding that I don’t want to wear the socks that I have, because I don’t want to wear them out.
So even on the coldest days I am putting on those summertime ankle-high socks, depriving myself of the warmth that the 80% merino wool, wonderful wintertime socks give.
Out of fear.” Continue reading “What I’m really doing while I am knitting” →

360: “This is all a massive unplanned adventure”… Handling life’s challenges, with Julie Lythcott-Haims

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Coronavirus, Guest Interview, Happy parent

Greetings! I’ve got an awesome conversation for you to listen to, with my guest Julie Lythcott-Haims! Just one thing before we get started, it’s for grown-ups and we do swear – please be sure to listen away from sensitive ears.
At the end of this episode I share: the message I take from our talk, and Julie, is one of hope. Enjoy!!

Listen to this conversation as well as the 350+ episode back catalog of We Turned Out Okay in your favorite podcatcher!
Here are a few choice spots:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Stitcher Podcasts

 

This is Julie! Pick up her new book here, and see what she’s all about at her website by clicking here.

Watch our conversation just below (and watch for, toward the end, where we make it look like Julie is handing her new book from where she is in California to me over in Massachusetts via zoom! I don’t know why I find this extremely silly game so much fun but I’m endlessly grateful that Julie would play along with my frivolity : )

For this episode my guest, Julie Lythcott-Haims, wanted to be sure to let you all know: “this is not a show about parenting!”
This one’s about us, the grown-ups.
Our lives, our choices, our challenges.
Julie was Dean of Freshman at Stanford University for a decade, and in that time she helped the young adults who arrived at college become true grown-ups. She also learned a lot!
In truth, Julie has learned a lot over her whole life. She is the New York Times best-selling author of How to Raise an Adult and one of my all-time favorite books ever, Real American (which chronicles her experience growing up Black and biracial in affluent circumstances – and a white community – in the United States.)
Julie’s latest book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult shares lots of her own stories as well as the stories of many other people, their challenges, and how they handled them. It’s storytelling plus self-help with a beautiful result!
Put it this way: I’ve been an adult for a lot of years and I learned so much from this beautiful book.
I am OVER the MOON to bring you this awesome woman’s ideas on how to handle the challenges that life sends your way.
Join us for a fast-moving, fun, and educational conversation [with swears! Be sure to listen away from littles, or other sensitive ears.]
There are all kinds of links just below, including to Julie’s books, the two upcoming free virtual summits I’m speaking in… and info on how you can be invited to my birthday party, coming up on April 19th! Continue reading “360: “This is all a massive unplanned adventure”… Handling life’s challenges, with Julie Lythcott-Haims” →

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The pandemic impact on kids’ physical health

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Child development, Coronavirus, Good parenting skills, Happy parent
Kids are still kids, even in a pandemic. That is both wonderful, and terrifying. Let me help you get your child’s behavior under control so it can be wonderful and not terrifying 🙂

I am excited to share this fourth letter in my series on “repercussions the pandemic is having on children.”

First, we looked at social development (click here to read that one.)
Then we talked about emotional development (click here to read that one).
Last week we considered mental health – click here for that newsletter –
and finally today will discuss physical health, the challenges the pandemic has brought in this area, and some ideas for how you can get good physical health into your child’s life!

(BTW these free newsletters will continue, with lots of ideas on other relevant topics if you are a parent, so stay tuned!)

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Today we’re talking about physical health.

When I think of physical health I inevitably think of the old adage “use it or lose it.”

Years ago when I first developed the tendon problems that have been with me for nearly a decade now, I began to truly understand the relationship between tendons, bones, and muscles.

One of the first things my physical therapist did was to get the inflammation out of the tendons. (For me that meant massaging out scar tissue, which was super painful, but ultimately so worth it. After eight months of being unable to walk more than a few steps due to tremendous pain, suddenly my muscles and tendons were healing. Within a very few months they were bearing the weight of my body, for the first time in nearly a year.)

I had spent all that time not using my leg muscles and as a result they atrophied.
Like, a lot.
As in, muscles on your leg – for example, shin muscles – that have a convex appearance (they round outward)… In me those muscles were concave.
I needed to push my leg to go backwards, when we began doing “water physical therapy.” My hamstring literally couldn’t pull my leg backwards!

Use it or lose it.

In the pandemic, this phrase is meaningful because it’s helped me remember a hierarchy of physical needs, for myself and my kids:
Continue reading “The pandemic impact on kids’ physical health” →

357: What does your heart long for?

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Coaching conversation, Guest Interview, Happy parent

Greetings! In today’s episode we examine the process of getting what our heart longs for, in a coaching conversation with one of my 1-to-1 coaching clients!
As you’ll hear, Regan is a mom and an attorney, currently (along with her husband) working from home while their children are home as well, in in virtual/hybrid school.
Regan gets courageous and vulnerable with us today. She shares the dream of her heart for her kids… and what she’s doing each and every day to help make that dream come true.
In our conversation you’ll learn:
– How to get your heart’s desire
– The importance of big dreams and tiny action steps
– Making both your superpower AND the dark side of that superpower work for you in achieving your dreams

Lately I’ve been asking coaching clients “what makes my coaching magical?” (You’ll hear Regan and I talk about this in this episode.)
The answers I’m getting back are fascinating – it turns out that something I’m really good at is helping parents stop treading the conventional path and do what works for THEM, and their family.
We all have dreams. What are you doing to make yours reality?
If you’re ready to go on the adventure of your life with me as your guide, write me, and let’s talk!

Plus… This is a digest episode, so in addition to our conversation I’m bringing you a story that I recently sent to the folks in my free email newsgroup! Click this link to get weekly letters like this delivered right to your inbox: weturnedoutokay.com/weekly

I share about the “Parents Working from Home” free virtual summit that I’m honored to be included in (happening this coming Saturday 2/27, 10 AM to 1 PM EST).

And, I give you an update on a new segment of this podcast: it’s called Triumphs and Misdemeanors, and I hope you will be a part of it!
Join us!
Continue reading “357: What does your heart long for?” →

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What my Italian relatives know about the off-season

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Happy parent
This is me in Venice, Italy, circa April 1992 : )

Go ahead and settle in for a story…

I’ve been sharing these letters with you based on what is in my heart. I try to make them helpful, give you an idea to help you keep going, and I hope this one will accomplish that.

Today’s is something of a story, a different way for me to share an idea to help you keep going.

It’s also the chance for me to bring you into my life back before I had kids.
Before I even knew my husband Ben.
Back when I was a daughter, but not yet a mother.

Way, way back then, I had the opportunity to go and spend a semester in Florence, Italy.
I knew not one single word of Italian, but still I was looking forward to this new adventure!

The Italian relatives in my family are on my mother’s side. They include my grandfather, my mom’s dad, who was born and grew up as a child in a tiny little town in Italy, right along the Adriatic Sea.

Just before I left my grandfather said to me “If you can, go to Rodi and meet your relatives.”

I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t even speak Italian yet! What would it be like to manage the trains, and get all the way out to the countryside, to this tiny fishing village?

But I held onto my hope that I would be able to do it.

A friend of mine spoke outstanding Italian, and agreed to come with me a few months later (when I got more comfortable with the ways of the country, figured out the trains, and had some idea of how to converse with people.)

And so we set off. We didn’t try to contact anyone beforehand, we had no idea how we were going to get in touch with my relatives. It was early March 1992, there was no cell phone service or social media yet to help us get a sense of the lay of the land, never mind the actual people who lived there!

It felt like a true adventure! Continue reading “What my Italian relatives know about the off-season” →

Nothing but flowers

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in complicated and difficult family stuff, Coronavirus, Feeling happy inside, Happy parent

I’ve had an old Talking Heads song in my head for the last little while.

It’s called (Nothing but) Flowers, and it is truly speaking to my pandemic experience right now.

It’s not a perfect correlation. But this song tells of a future in which everything’s changed.
“This was a Pizza Hut
Now it’s all covered with daisies…

I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens…”

The song doesn’t tell us why the Pizza Hut is all covered with daisies, or where the Dairy Queens and 7-Elevens went.
It seems as if the singer doesn’t really know himself:

“And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention…”

But he’s missing things that used to be so common and now are just gone:

Continue reading “Nothing but flowers” →

Setting an intention for the new year

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Good parenting skills, Happy parent

I think best when I do not feel cluttered.

(Not that I have a super clean house or anything! When children share the chores, I believe it’s best to set expectations a little lower. We make sure the house is tidy and sanitized, and that’s good enough for us.)

I simply notice that when there are fewer books on the shelf, clothes in the closet, or mustard types in the refrigerator, it’s easier for me to make choices about what I’ll read, wear, or eat.

In this is a time of year when we can look around, take stock, and decide to make some changes.

It’s also a time when we can feel overwhelmed, very easily.
By our own expectations or someone else’s judgment of something we care about.

Only recently have I realized: I’ve been judging myself on several different kinds of clutter. Continue reading “Setting an intention for the new year” →

354: Goals and Words and a “kind 2021”

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Coronavirus, Good parenting skills, Happy parent

Greetings and best wishes for 2021!! This is my annual goals and sharing of the Word of the Year. (Last year’s: ENOUGH. I apparently was really prescient in January 2020… This year’s: EXHILARATED. Should be fun!)
As with everything in the pandemic, it’s different from other New Year’s episodes that have come before. But I hope it’s helpful for you as you create a good life, and a good year, for your family and yourself.

Some of my goals last year I completely, epically failed at bringing about.
Some of them I did a little bit better with.

One of the most important things I learned was to make a goal be “a place to come from,” rather than something to work towards. Seriously, this has been a huge game-changer for me.

I share about that process and give you ideas for trying it out yourself today.

Finally I read you one of my most recent newsletters, “Hello 2021! Please be kind to us.”
You can get these newsletters delivered for free right into your inbox just by signing up for one of my free guides available at weturnedoutokay.com… Or go to weturnedoutokay.com/weekly

Key Links:
Click weturnedoutokay.com/312 for last year, January 2020’s Goals and One Word episode. Listening back I was such a pre-pandemic naïve little baby then! I’ve grown a lot in 2020. I bet you have too. Ultimately this is a good thing, I think. We are such badasses now!

Click here for a book I am loving, 100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late by Luca Dellanna

Click weturnedoutokay.com/books to see the parenting books I have written

Click here for my most recent newsletter, “Hello 2021! Please be kind to us.”

Click weturnedoutokay.com/354 to watch the video of today’s episode.

Cheers! I hope 2021 is REALLY kind to you <3

_______________________________

Get my best advice for handling the challenges that come up on your parenting journey, through the We Turned Out Okay podcast:

Listen in your favorite podcatcher!
Here are a few choice spots:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Stitcher Podcasts

 

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Changing bras

Posted by Karen Lock Kolp on in Good parenting skills, Happy parent

Hi Friends,

Before we get started I just want to apologize to any of you who might not care to know very much about the undergarments of your favorite child development expert : )
But this was the letter that was in my heart to write today. There’s a very good reason, one I hope you’ll find relevant to your life!
But I completely understand if you want to not read today’s letter.
Don’t feel that you must. I’ll be back next week with another newsletter. (And perhaps it will not contain such… intimate subject matter… If you’d like my next newsletter to be delivered right into your inbox, click here: weturnedoutokay.com/weekly.)
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Prior to becoming a mother I had always believed that wearing a bra meant strapping yourself into serious foundational support.
Going out into the world? Going to be seen by anyone but yourself, or your closest family?
Time to harness up!

Discovering that there were bras meant for comfort was a relation. As I say this happened only after I had children. Continue reading “Changing bras” →