015: Top 11 Ways to Tire Out Your Kids For This Summer Camp episode of We Turned Out Okay, I asked you about your favorite ways to tire out your kids… And you sure responded! Special thanks to Doug Gray, Aisha Newton, Nancy Marsh, Miriam Ortiz y Pino, De Osborne, Shannon Criscola, Amy Blake, Erica Chick, John Winchenbach, my own Jason Kolp, and Deb Petrella for coming up with our most popular ways to tire out your kids. Here they are! Number 11: Go take a hike Number 10: Dance Party! Number 9: H...
Jul 21, 2015•45 min
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! Great news! During our interview today iPhoneography teacher Andr...
Jul 14, 2015•50 min
Welcome to the first episode of Summer Camp at We Turned Out Okay! For the summer months of July and August, we are setting aside our usual four themes (Risky Business, 3R's, Kids Through the Ages, and Unplanned Adventures) and kicking back. We are recognizing that in summer, time moves somewhat differently, and we can set aside our usual schedules at least a little bit – so pour yourself a frosty drink and stick your toes in the virtual sand as you press play. In this episode I share about four...
Jul 07, 2015•41 min
Today's guest is an early intervention therapist by trade, and has such an interesting perspective on life that I just know you are going to love our conversation! Mariana Sanford Maynard has a background in equine massage, is bilingual, raised for part of her life in Brazil (even though she has no accent), and the divorced mom of two kids. Her gentle, loving demeanor permeates our whole conversation, and I felt like I had the knowledge to be a better parent after we were done talking. Listen fo...
Jun 30, 2015•49 min
We are headed into summer as I record today, a classic time for parents to worry about kids' academic work slipping. Is this a thing that you worry about? If so, you are going to love today's's show – all about six steps to creating young, happy readers! No matter when you listen, whether in the middle of an extended summer vacation or in deepest winter, you will love it, because here is where I share my six steps to having happy readers. Listen for: How to bond with your kids over books, no mat...
Jun 23, 2015•39 min
Today I share a great conversation that I had recently with my Dad. After climbing his way out of a working class neighborhood in Montréal, Canada, Dad became a very well-educated, high-powered executive at a large insurance company. But as his daughter, I knew about that part of his life only peripherally. To me, Dad was and still is a great example of how to achieve your dreams, and especially how to live your life: Dad has an unshakable moral compass and an amazing capacity to reduce the most...
Jun 21, 2015•27 min
Do you have a young child, especially a daughter, who desperately wants to dance – but is totally uncoordinated, or whose body doesn't look like a dancer's? If so, then you probably know already how cutthroat the world of dance studios can be. Today's guest teaches dance in a unique studio, one where the focus is on dance as a fun way of expressing yourself, and where it doesn't matter what you look like for if you're a good dancer or not. In addition to spending her days with tutu-clad young gi...
Jun 16, 2015•47 min
Do you ever find yourself so stuck in the daily grind that you forget what's really important in this life? Then you are going to love today's show, all about the three most important lessons my kids have taught me. Usually, we think of this in the other direction – we are the teachers, they are the learners. But here are three key lessons my boys have taught me: 1) Humility – how my then eight-year-old taught me to look at a homeless guy, and see a real person 2) Adaptability – how my then five...
Jun 09, 2015•36 min
Do you think of yourself as a leader? Maybe not, but as parents, the decisions we make every day – resolving conflicts, allocating money, making decisions that involve our kids – call us out as leaders whether we think of it that way or not. I used to think of leaders only in a public or corporate sense; the president's a leader. Heads of corporations are leaders, but certainly not me! Dr. Bob Nolley's Labrador Leadership Podcast completely changed my views on leadership when I first heard him i...
Jun 02, 2015•39 min
Can you think back on your own childhood and come up with some crazy sibling-fight stories? I've heard some doozies, people being hung out windows or tied to trees by their siblings, the time a brother put green dye in a sister's hair – so the sister retaliated by pouring glitter into the brother's bed! Today, we talk about the ups and downs of brothers and sisters, both in our families growing up and in our homes as parents. Siblings can hurt each other in lots of big and small ways; sometimes ...
May 26, 2015•37 min
Today's guest Daniel Wolff has, among many other things, produced a documentary about Hurricane Katrina, been nominated for a Grammy in 2003, and written 10 books on all different subjects including the one that we spend most of our time discussing today, How Lincoln Learned To Read. Written in 2009, this book is a go-to for me whenever I need to make big decisions about about the boys' upbringing; because Mr. Wolff tells the stories of the childhoods of many prominent Americans throughout histo...
May 19, 2015•52 min
Sometimes as parents, we think we are limiting the risks to our kids by taking an action – or backing away from an action – when instead, their well-being and happiness would be better insured by doing something completely different. In this episode, I highlight four common things parents do (I know this, because I did them too!) where it would be better to go in the exact opposite direction. Listen for: the dangers of sticking close by your child's side at all times; when we do this, we take aw...
May 12, 2015•48 min
Imagine parenting before the era of Google and social media, before there was 24/7 support – or at least entertainment in the form of middle-of-the-night lurking. Books are great, but difficult to hold while comforting a colicky baby at 3 AM. Now, imagine leaving your beloved home city of Montréal, Canada and relocating to a quiet suburb with nothing but houses in every direction. During the day, your husband takes the family car into work, so now you have a three-year-old and a three-month-old,...
May 10, 2015•23 min
When Michael O'Neal was growing up, his teachers repeatedly said that he: a) didn't live up to his potential, and b) talked too much. In our lively conversation today, these two ideas come up again and again, because Michael is doing much more than merely "living up to his potential," using his propensity to talk too much by helping people like me every day and making a great living at it too. Listen for: great stories all throughout the episode, including the one about Michael hitchhiking at ni...
May 05, 2015•1 hr 2 min
Have you ever taken a look at your young child and wondered, how is this kid going to get along in the real world? The expectations we place on our kids, starting from when they are born, influence them all through their lives. In this episode, I take you into the future, linking what you do right now with your future child. Listen for: tips on figuring out what motivates a child to work hard at something – or give up how to tell if the motivation is intrinsic, coming from within your child, or ...
May 02, 2015•33 min
If you (like me) have never had to worry about where your child's next diaper, of all things, is going to come from, I think you will be surprised to know how many people face this problem every day. Michelle Sharpe, a music and early childhood intervention therapist with a background in opera, is doing something about this need, through her charity diapercircle.org . Our conversation ranges from how Michelle got into the charity biz in the first place to practical stuff every parent needs to kn...
May 02, 2015•42 min
What curveballs has life thrown you? In this episode, the traditional Episode 000: All About The Podcaster gets turned sideways, as I sit down with the four people outside my birth family who have known me the longest and best. We share a lot of wine and Sortilege (delicious Canadian maple whiskey) many laughs, and our unplanned adventures. Debbie tells about being in a house fire, how the random conversation she had a week previously with a firefighter – and the good catch her now-husband made ...
Apr 29, 2015•1 hr 26 min
