Art Creativity & Wellbeing

Hi Friends! Today I'm talking about some successes we've seen both with a coaching client, and here at home : ) Aaaaand... the WTOO Book Club starts up September 16, this coming Wednesday (if you're seeing this in real time)! I'm sharing the book we will be discussing, and how to join! (Which is: Go to weturnedoutokay.com/joinNPC to get our Book Club meetings for free - as part of your first 30 days Free - in the Ninja Parenting Community, which is where the WTOO Book Club now lives : ) I am SUPER excited to spend some quality time together, talk about what's really on your mind right now as a parent, and learn along with you. Cheers! Karen Karen Lock Kolp M.Ed. Child Development Expert, Parent Coach Host of the We Turned Out Okay Podcast, helping parents of young children change kids' behavior from bad to good; feel happy inside; and truly enjoy family time weturnedoutokay.com/ Publisher of the monthly We Turned Out Okay Playbook, teaching simple, powerful tools to help parents feel in control of family life, and happy inside weturnedoutokay.com/playbook/ Author of 3 parenting books including Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics, written to help parents "keep calm and handle every temper tantrum" weturnedoutokay.com/books/ The quote I live by: "The opposite of play is not work. It is depression." – Brian Sutton-Smith 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 to bring you today's guest, Phyllis Fagell, LCPC, mom, school counselor, and author of the wonderful book Middle School Matters. Phyllis helps us (yes – I include myself in here : ) – Pick our battles – Talk with teachers and caregivers – Figure out what we CAN do In short Phyllis helps us feel in control of our family's direction right now. That's SO important, given this extremely shaky start to the school year and our worries about the pandemic, downright silly politics, and the need for racial and social justice. Not to mention our own need to pour from a full cup and not an empty one. Given all that, I know you are going to LOVE our conversation! You can find Phyllis, and all the wonderful work she does, by going to PhyllisFagell.com Links that come up in today's episode: Because we've gone to and every-other-week schedule, in each episode I offer a back episode of We Turned Out Okay, something you can listen to in our off week! Today, I bring you my first conversation with Raeshal Solomon, from episode 215. Raeshal single-handedly got herself out from under a mountain of debt, while living with a serious chronic illness. She's a money expert, but more than that she is an expert in keeping going! I know you are going to love this conversation. (Raeshal was also a part of OkayCon 2020, my Free Virtual Summit from this past March, right at the beginning of the pandemic. Click weturnedoutokay.com/328 for Raeshal's wonderful contribution to OkayCon 2020.) I'm excited to share, I will be part of the Reignite Toddler Play global virtual summit coming up at the end of this month! I don't have the link yet, but as soon as I do I will drop it in here. Holly Peretz, the creator of the Virtual Summit interviewed me this past week and I just know you're going to love this conference! I'm spending September offering you HOPE… – Click here to watch the first module of my premium "How to Keep Going" course, absolutely free, right there on the page. – On that page you can also sign up to get the ENTIRE "How to Keep Going course, completely free! (You can also do that by clicking here.) – "A life raft for families who are struggling to stay afloat." That's what Janine Halloran, LMHC, author of Coping Skills for Kids and Coping Skills for Teens recently said about my We Turned Out Okay Playbook. That is high praise indeed! Check out the Playbook for yourself by going to weturnedoutokay.com/playbook. You can subscribe for the October issue on that page, too! – In this post, called "A case study about handling epic tantrums," I share the tools and strategies that a mom in our Ninja Parenting Community successfully employed to stop her four-year-old's extremely epic tantrums. If she can do it, so can you! Click here to learn how you can work with me, for free, for a whole month. - Bruce Feiler's wonderful book, Life is in the Transitions, comes up in our conversation today. – Click here to say hi in Instagram!… In Twitter… On the WTOO Facebook page… Or in the WTOO Facebook Group! 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 this second installation of Basics Bootcamp! I tell some truths today that we need to hear and recognize, if we are going to raise a happy family and feel good inside ourselves. Just like the title says, I do dive into my biggest and deepest fears about the pressures put on you, as you raise your kids. I say things today that scare the bejabbers out of me! But I know they need to be said. As a child development expert, I'm the one who has to say them. I also share something positive: my biggest hope. It's a buckwild episode for buckwild times… Let's dive in! PS lots of links today! Get your whole first month in the Ninja Parenting Community, my online private coaching practice, for FREE by going to: weturnedoutokay.com/joinNPC We've moved to an every-other-week format, and each episode I am highlighting a great episode from the past! Today, I offer my conversation with Jonathan Fields, founder of The Good Life Project from December 2016. It's maybe even more relevant today than when we originally recorded. weturnedoutokay.com/125 Today I share two pieces of recent parenting news that had me with my jaw on the floor: "Parents accused of neglect over virtual truancy; Charges, as families struggle with remote classes" "No pajamas allowed for online learning, Illinois district says" In the very first episode of the show, I invited my four best friends from life on, and we all talk about our unplanned adventures: weturnedoutokay.com/000 Here is the first in my Basics Bootcamp series, all about why boundaries are so important when raising kids: weturnedoutokay.com/343 I share about how my kids have gone from reading Dave Barry essay collections to watching calculus lectures on YouTube… for fun… and getting way more out of books like 1984 and Brave New World than I ever did. I also talk about how the movie Super Size Me helped establish some trust in digital offerings in one of my sons, who'd been feeling as if you just can't trust anything, from any source, that you had not experienced your actual self. (It turns out that, when I share in this episode that Morgan Spurlock gained "like 50 pounds," I was wrong – it was 24 pounds. But still, he gained 24 pounds in 30 days of eating only McDonald's food. That's a lot of pounds!) I share about how Pat Flynn of SPI.com, and Rich Litvin of RichLitvin.com, have helped me on my journey to creating, producing, and keeping going with this show and everything at weturnedoutokay.com. Cheers! Karen 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! In this episode I share a recent case study from my online private coaching practice, the Ninja Parenting Community (NPC), where the mom of a four-year-old was dealing with extreme temper tantrums, and fearful that her son would never learn to obey the rules. Even the ones for safety. She struggled to see how good boundaries could improve that situation – until they did. Here's something I have learned during the coronavirus pandemic: Basics matter. Understanding how to do the most basic things, like getting a child to obey you, is even more important now than ever. And yet the basics are elusive during the pandemic. Today we dive into using a super basic thing, good boundaries, to get your child to obey you. Also I share about what's happening with the We Turned Out Okay Podcast… changes are coming, ones that will make the creation of the show sustainable for your host : ) It's interesting, because good boundaries also come into play in talking about the changes to the show. Join us! Key Links and Notes: Click here for my conversation with coach Mariela Ortiz, which is where she brings up a great metaphor: how much more helpful it is for us to help our friend OUT of a hole, rather than jump into the hole along with them… Mariela relates that back to how crucial it is for us to take care of ourselves, get privacy and breaks when necessary, so that we can keep going. Click here for the fantastic article about returning to school in the pandemic that educator and best-selling author Jessica Lahey wrote, along with her husband Tim Lahey, who was an infectious diseases doctor. They contribute their expertise to give us a great set of guidelines for whether we should be returning to physical school, or virtual school. It's awesome. Click here for my video and checklist on "Successful potty training even under pressure" Click here for my video and checklist on "How to handle every temper tantrum" Check out my new publication, the We Turned Out Okay Playbook, and get your digital copy of the inaugural issue for free! Click here to get my weekly Parenting Newsletters; I write multiple times per week, with tools, ideas, and (usually) at least one thing I learned how to do better, and how it pertains to helping your family thrive! Today's back episode reference: weturnedoutokay.com/036 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

Our choices right now seem extremely limited, don't they? We don't have a choice in how the coronavirus spreads, we don't have a lot of choices in how our children's childcare and schooling works right now. For many of us even our own ability to be private, to have alone time, doesn't feel like it's under our control. Today's guest, Mariela Ortiz, helps us to a different mindset: she talks about "a daily practice of choice." Some things are in our control; we can make meaningful choices. Listen to today's conversation to figure out how to do that! Notes and Links Mariela invited me to be one of the experts in her Mommy Matters Summit, such an honor! And we have a GREAT conversation, which you can watch by signing up for the Summit at the link below. It started Monday, August 3 and will go through August 27, 2020, with a new guest expert each day! Sign up to get 25 days' worth of guests – including me – in your inbox by going to: mommymatterssummit.com Get your FREE August 2020 inaugural issue of the We Turned Out Okay Playbook I'm excited to share the start of something fun and helpful, the We Turned Out Okay Playbook! It's a monthly publication I'm creating to help you feel like you have some power, and some good choices to make, even in the midst of all the insanity. You can download the August 2020 PDF completely free! Go to: weturnedoutokay.com/playbook Weekly "How is Karen overcoming burnout and exhaustion" Newsletter Series Continues For the last seven weeks I have shared a newsletter each week about how I'm overcoming burnout and exhaustion, in this time where being a parent is so tough. Last week I wrote about the part that music plays in my self-care (click here to read about that.) Get the next newsletters in this series by going to: weturnedoutokay.com/weekly Visit weturnedoutokay.com/342 for the video of my conversation today, and for these show notes. Hugs from me to you! We will get through this time together! Click here for a favorite book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Click here for another favorite book, Skulduggery Pleasant. 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

SENSITIVE EARS ALERT… Part way through this episode I share about a traumatic event that happened to me in my childhood. I ask that you put on headphones, or listen away from sensitive ears. Thank you! Today I share three keys to success, when parenting in a pandemic or any crisis. They are not difficult keys. Because if they were, we wouldn't be able to do them as consistently as they need doing… Instead, the first key is relaxing, the second key is enjoyable, and the the third key takes something negative and frames it to be positive. Also: the day before I recorded this episode I had a total brainwave. I connected up my superpower – helping people feel seen and cared for – to the reason I have this gift, and have had ever since I can remember. It's not a pretty reason. When I was seven years old I was sexually abused, in my own home, with my mom right upstairs. (She was completely unaware, and I would be a senior in college before she discovered the extent of the trauma. In my first book, Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics, I share about what my folks did that was helpful, even though they had no idea what had happened to me.) After the incident, my whole personality changed. I felt lost, anxious every time we drove out of my ken in the car, and convinced that if I lost sight of my family, they had deserted me. The day before recording this episode I had the following brainwave: My superpower comes from the fact that no one gave me the care that I needed, no one came to my rescue on that day. No one had found me when I was lost. So, I had to learn to do that for myself. I had to take care of little Karen, because no one else was there to do that. And it's left me with a unique ability, that I've been practicing ever since: to make people feel seen, and cared for. It's become the defining value of my life. So if you're feeling lost, or as if no one cares about you, let me be that person for you. As a child development expert, I've never yet met a parent who didn't have some concerns for their children. If you're feeling like everything is impossible right now – lockdown, mask etiquette, school-at-at home, chaos in one corner and fire in another – I can help. I've got two ways: First, I am creating a publication called the We Turned Out Okay Playbook. It is going to be so helpful for you, as you navigate the craziness and help your family through it all. I wrote it to help you LIVE in challenging times, so you and your family can come through them and thrive. Check it out – and download the August 2020 PDF completely free – by going to: weturnedoutokay.com/playbook Second, I'm opening up some time in my schedule to talk. For conversations. Conversation that helps you feel seen, and heard, and cared for. Conversation that helps you handle parenting, in the age of coronavirus. If you want to think possibilities instead of fears… If you want the help of someone who knows her child-development stuff, who helps her clients get real success… If you want to have a conversation that's so helpful that you will literally remember it for the rest of your life… Email me! (I share my email address towards the end of this episode. I won't write it down for bot-fraud-prevention purposes, but suffice it to say that my email address is my name, combined with the name of this website. Or, you could just listen to this episode, where you'll hear me say it out loud : ) I've worked with people who came into a coaching session with me, believing that something was impossible. They came out of it looking forward to some new possibilities and within a very short amount of time (the story that I share in this episode, it was the same day) wrote to me and said "I thought this was impossible, and we are DOING it!" What is possible for you? Let's find out. Key Links The inaugural issue of the We Turned Out Okay Playbook is officially out! Click the link below to view and download your free PDF copy of Issue 1/August 2020: weturnedoutokay.com/playbook The wonderful coach, Mariela Ortiz, was kind enough to include me in her virtual summit, Mommy Matters! Click the link below to join the Free virtual Summit that Mariela is offering, which starts on August 3: https://bit.ly/2Ztu7pJ On August 4 (next week if you're listening in real time) Mariela is my guest on We Turned Out Okay! On that day or after you can click the following link to listen to our conversation: weturnedoutokay.com/342 I am loving the Parenting in Place Masterclass, and talk about this in here today because the second key to success for parenting in the pandemic is a game that I first heard of in this masterclass. Click the link below to find out more about it: parentinginplacemasterclass.com Click the link below for this post in your browser: weturnedoutokay.com/341 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

Navigating social situations has only gotten worse in the pandemic – but it sure wasn't always easy, even before! Today's guests, Evie Granville and Sarah Davis of the Modern Manners for Moms and Dads Podcast, have spent years helping parents navigate social minefields. With a book coming out in the fall and an awesome quiz that you can take right now (I did!), These two friends, educators, and parents have lots to contribute in helping us get along and raise our kids in these crazy times. Listen to this episode to learn: – how to navigate the toughest situations you might encounter – how to understand your own approach to parenting – how to shift that approach, if it's not working as well as it could for you and your family A few announcements 1. I share in this week's preshow segment how frustrating I'm feeling, as a child-development expert, hearing from so many parents whose children are not doing well in the current educational climate. I've got 3 ways to help if this is you! Join my FREE Pandemic Back-to-School Challenge – enroll at the link below by Wednesday, July 22, 2020: weturnedoutokay.com/pandemicchallenge Try the Ninja Parenting Community (NPC), our online virtual coaching practice, where parents are getting much needed help navigating the start to this crazy school year. Right now you can try the Community for just $1 for your whole first month! Click the following link for details and to join NPC: weturnedoutokay.com/joinNPC A new publication I'm creating, the WTOO Playbook! The August 2020 issue is jampacked with help and hope as you navigate the beginning of this crazy school year. Join my newsletter group to find out more about the WTOO Playbook: weturnedoutokay.com/weekly 2. We're in the middle of a 10-week (free) newsletter series on how I'm overcoming my own burnout and overwhelm. The most recent newsletter was all about how much better I felt coming from a place of kindness, rather than judgment. Click here to read that newsletter and to sign up for future ones! 3. I've been invited to be part of the Mommy Matters Virtual Summit, the brainchild of next week's WTOO guest, parent Coach, mindfulness expert, and yoga instructor Mariela Ortiz! The Summit starts in early August, and you can sign up for it by going to: Mommymatterssummit.com Links Evie, Sarah, and I discuss are in the show notes, located at weturnedoutokay.com/340 Enjoy the show! 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

If the return to preschool/childcare/school is on your mind – and I know it is, because I've spoken with lots of you over the last few weeks – this FREE Pandemic Back-to-School Challenge will help you: – Take on your biggest concerns about the upcoming year – Manage your children's behavior, and your own emotions, so you're ready for the upcoming changes – Learn the 3 Keys to Success for starting this year off right, even amidst all the uncertainty You can do this, and I'm excited to help! The challenge runs for four days from Thursday, July 23-Sunday, July 26. Each day I'm sharing a video with participants as well as inviting questions and success stories… Also participants get to be present for the Live Challenge Wrap up on Sunday! And I'm doing something I've never done before in a challenge, handing out MVP awards! I know we can start this year off on a positive note, regardless of whatever else is happening. Prove to yourself that you can do it – join our challenge! Click the following link: weturnedoutokay.com/pandemicchallenge Challenge starts Thursday, July 23. See you then! 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 am excited to bring Shannon Connery, PhD, onto the show today, because she's got lots of great ideas to help you keep going! (Click here for Shannon's website, where you'll find her podcast, her blog, and a wonderful free guide that she offers to help people overcome the challenges that we all have in our lives : ) Shannon is a therapist living in Colorado, and in our conversation today you'll hear her story of losing nearly everything – and coming back stronger from that experience. Shannon is also a podcaster, and her Fix Yourself is one of my favorites – she helps us all know what to do when we encounter difficult events and struggles in our lives. Shannon shares so much about herself, and her feelings, and what she's tried that works to keep going and to help her family members and patients thrive. Today we talk about: – The role of empathy and positivity in helping you keep going – Steps we are taking (and that you can also take) to dismantle racism – What Shannon is doing to help those that she works with through the pandemic Join us! Video of our conversations – as well as lots of key links from this conversation – are available at weturnedoutokay.com/339 A couple notes from the preshow segment: – Registration is now open for the private coaching practice for parents that I run (the Ninja Parenting Community), so you can join now if you need the extra help from a child development expert, and the support of a wonderful online community! weturnedoutokay.com/joinNPC – All throughout July I'm offering free live trainings, and even a free challenge! Get notified of these at the following link: weturnedoutokay.com/weekly 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 we're answering your GREAT questions! – "[My young daughter] is going through a phase of not wanting clothes on. Do I just not battle it? What's appropriate at 4? How do I instill the importance of being careful without taking away her sweet innocence? Or am I totally overthinking this?" – "This week's hot topic is sharing and temper around that. The minute [my three-year-old's] little brother walks in the room (even if he hasn't messed with her stuff yet) she goes right to screaming at him and throwing stuff… I'm struggling with getting her to react in a bit calmer way. "Understandably, she is having a lot of trouble letting other kids play with any of her toys. I get it, we haven't had to share in a long time. I'm just wondering if there are some good strategies or advice for starting back at square one was sharing, and also talking nicely to others even when angry." – "My four-year-old was playing with her toys saying "this one is dead, it's in the dead place" (inside the toy garage) then when I needed a shower "Mummy you need to go to the shower and be dead"… How can I talk about death at an appropriate level for children?" – "They don't stop fighting with each other – they push each other's buttons just for "the fun of it." (I said they were great questions : ) If You're Struggling to Keep Going During this summer I'm using my newsletter to share about my own journey, trying to find peace and stop feeling so guilty while working, running our household, and keeping going sustainably. Last week I shared about my first step (stopping "obsessively checking" on the Internet, and (as I share in this episode) it's going well! But I know I've got a long way to go… If you want to come along on this journey with me, I'm sharing about it in my newsletters. Click the link below to get them automagically delivered to your inbox! Weturnedoutokay.com weekly Tons of links today! You'll find them - as well as a cheat sheet of answers to these questions - at weturnedoutokay.com/338 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