"Wait a minute" – I hear you thinking – "aren't Your Child Explained episodes a Thursday thing?" You are absolutely right, ordinarily the Your Child Explained airs on the Thursday after a guest episode. But this is an unusual week because I'm interviewing the guest tomorrow, Wednesday, May 4, so that you can get your questions to her and she can answer them for Thursday's show… Which you'll want to do, because returning champion Robin Abrahams, whose weekly "Miss Conduct" column in the Boston Gl...
May 03, 2016•26 min
Back in episode 68, we started this conversation about helping your child take one hundred percent responsibility for his actions. In that episode we talked largely about mindset, and how our mindset influences our kids' behavior; I also shared my first parent ninja tactic in raising an honest, responsible child: Consistency. Today I return to this first tactic, sharing about the brick foundation each of us carries around in our heads, the result of the many interactions we had going back to the...
Apr 26, 2016•34 min
Last night I was a featured storyteller at a live storytelling event (thanks to massmouth and Fugitive Productions – what a great night at the Villageworks Gallery in West Acton!) I told about last June, when my family and I adopted the two cutest dogs in the whole world, and what happened after that. Because a version of this story is included in Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics – the book that launched just yesterday in Amazon, and was written for you if you're trying to keep your sanity inta...
Apr 25, 2016•14 min
In today's Your Child Explained episode, where we always try to see what's going on in our kids' minds, I share about a huge lie that my son Jason perpetrated last spring. Like all kids, Jay loves his screen time, so much so that for several weeks in the spring of 2015 Jay snuck extra screen time – and lied about it to Ben and I. For full show notes, click here or go to weturnedoutokay.com/070 . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...
Apr 21, 2016•17 min
As I get ready to publish Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics: Key Tools to Handle Every Temper Tantrum, Keep Your Cool, and Enjoy Life With Your Young Child , I'm bringing you a favorite conversation with the woman behind The Broad Experience Podcast, Ashley Milne-Tyte. In this episode, which first aired last summer during We Turned Out Okay Summer Camp, Ashley shares how she spent her childhood in London, England – except her summers, which she spent in rural Pennsylvania. In both places Ashley ...
Apr 19, 2016•1 hr 4 min
Way back in episode two , my son Max's determination to learn snowboarding thrilled me. I bring it up because, in this most recent ski season, Max built on his true grit using Jack Canfield's book The Success Principles to take his snowboarding to the next level. This year, he rode in places that I'm sure he could never have envisioned – and he brought these possibilities about for himself by changing his mindset to one where he takes one hundred percent responsibility for his life. "Sure, Karen...
Apr 12, 2016•30 min
Before I answer today's listener Q&A, I'm reaching out to Ruth, whose question I answered in episode 61 (listen at weturnedoutokay.com/061 ) – Ruth, thank you so much for your question, and I'm glad my response resonated with you! Would you please check your spam and/or promotion folders in your inbox? Somewhere in there are two emails that I've sent you, in response to the two that you sent me. Also, a quick announcement – Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics , the book I'm writing for you if ...
Apr 07, 2016•28 min
A quick announcement – Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics , the book I'm writing for you if you would like to keep your sanity while raising young children, is coming out on Sunday, April 24, 2016. For health reasons and to make it the best book it can possibly be, I chose to move the publication date from Sunday, April 3, to Sunday, April 24. To get notified the moment it launches – FREE in Amazon for its first three days! – go to positivedisciplineninjatactics.com Sometimes you meet someone, an...
Apr 05, 2016•1 hr 30 min
Hey friends – this week I made the difficult decision to postpone publication of Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics by a few weeks. New pub date: Sunday, April 24, 2016. A resurgence of my chronic illness, combined with my desire to make this book be the best it can possibly be for for you, if you're a mom or dad of young children, contributed to this decision. I hope y'all can be patient while I finish it up! To find out the moment it goes live on April 24 – it will be FREE for its first three d...
Apr 03, 2016•8 min
Today, we wrap up our month of food here at We Turned Out Okay with a show on the mindset of getting our kids to eat! If you have been loving the food/family focus this past month here at We Turned Out Okay, but didn't have a chance to take notes, I have great news – I made you a FREE, two-page Food and Family infographic! It combines key takeaways from this month, favorite recipes, and grab-and-go snack ideas so that you can have all that information in one place. Best of all, when you print it...
Mar 29, 2016•35 min
Today, in this Your Child Explained episode, where we always get into the mind of our kids' heads, we're looking at exposure to new foods from the perspective of our kids. March has been – and continues to be – all about food here at We Turned Out Okay, and today's episode pertains to two interviews from this month: my conversation with mom and author of The Lost Art of Feeding Kids Jeannie Marshall in episode 60 (click here or go to weturnedoutokay.com/060 to listen) and my conversation with mo...
Mar 24, 2016•19 min
Continuing in our month-long series about feeding kids, today I have the privilege of talking with award-winning author and blogger Rachel Roddy. Before visiting Italy a decade ago, Rachel enjoyed a great career as an actress. At 32, however, she found herself in Sicily – with no desire whatsoever to go home to England. Rachel wandered around Sicily and then Rome, learning the language, loving the culture, and recognizing that her approach to food and eating needed to change. She'd never thought...
Mar 22, 2016•1 hr 7 min
Today's episode wasn't supposed to happen; normally, this past Tuesday would've been a Just You and Me, but I recorded a great interview which had so much to do with food that I knew I needed a third Guest Interview episode in March. (That was How to Stop The Weeknight Chaos with Brandie Weikle of The New Family Podcast – listen here or go to weturnedoutokay.com/062 .) And I still wasn't going to do a Your Child Explained – but then the Boston Globe Magazine forced me into it with their outstand...
Mar 17, 2016•18 min
Today I talk work/family balance – and how to keep a divorce amicable – with Brandie Weikle, host of The New Family podcast. Brandie, who before jumping into her 1000 Families Project blog and The New Family was the editor of Canadian Family magazine and the relationships editor for the great Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Star , experienced firsthand the pain of being a kid whose parents are divorcing un-amicably. She and her former husband – who also experienced that pain growing up – worked ...
Mar 15, 2016•53 min
Today we are taking a break from our month of food – and how to get your young child to eat it – and answering a listener Q&A. When Ruth asked her question, I knew that I wanted to bring it up on the show ASAP because, if you have more than one kid, you have sibling rivalry and that didn't seem like it could wait until April! Ruth asks: "Hi, I would love some advice as to how to reduce the amount of sibling fights in our home. It seems to be constant! My boys are nearly 3 in nearly 5. It see...
Mar 10, 2016•18 min
Today, guest Jeannie Marshall and I talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: food. Italian food, no less – Jeannie, Canadian by birth, and her husband chose to make their home in Rome, Italy a little more than a decade ago. When Jeannie became pregnant with their son Nico, she developed a fascination for how Italians introduce their babies to food, and the part that food plays in Italian children's lives now that factory foods and agribusiness have made inroads into Italy. She details her...
Mar 08, 2016•58 min
What's your experience with your young kids and food? Do they eat what seems like a balanced meal sometimes – and then other times reject anything and everything you put in front of them? Have you ever felt judged about your kid's eating, either by friends or relatives – or maybe by the pediatrician? This month on We Turned Out Okay, we'll dig into food and kids, and hopefully by the end of March you'll have some more clarity on what can seem like a super-cloudy subject! We've got three great in...
Mar 01, 2016•38 min
This past Tuesday, dad and teacher Bret Turner and I had a fantastic conversation which ranged across many topics including science fiction, Donald Trump, incorporating music into the classroom – and the fact that, as a young child myself, I was molested. Bret and I spoke about confronting fears as a parent, and I just know you're going to love that conversation; listen here or by going to weturnedoutokay.com/057 (but that episode is by no means a prerequisite to today's.) Today I'm exploring in...
Feb 25, 2016•47 min
Last fall, I posted a picture (that picture, right over there) on instagram, a quote from the movie After Earth: "Fear is not real. It is a product of the thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice." Today's guest, Bret Turner, and I ended up having a fantastic, lengthy and deep conversation that started with this quote. I absolutely love instagram, and this kind of thing is why – without it, I would never have met this thoughtful first grade teacher ...
Feb 23, 2016•1 hr 19 min
Today's episode is a little different: I read a key chapter from my forthcoming book! The chapter, called Handling Tantrums With HEART, is going to help you keep your cool even while your toddler or preschooler is melting down. Here I share my method for dealing with tantrums, which I came up with to help you retain your sanity even when the tantrums are flying fast and furious in your home. Today, I read it aloud because I want to know how you feel about it. What did I miss? What would help you...
Feb 16, 2016•26 min
In this Your Child Explained episode, where we always try to get into the heads of our young kids, we look more closely at how kids face challenges. Today's show digs more deeply into one aspect of episode 54 , which dropped Tuesday and features mom and New York Times best-selling author Jessica Lahey. While episode 54 is not a prerequisite to today's show, take a listen back if you get the chance because our conversation will really help you wrap your mind around the idea of what works – and wh...
Feb 11, 2016•17 min
Several years ago, today's guest wrote what was for me an earth-shattering piece in the Atlantic Monthly (read it here ). Jessica Lahey's article discusses an experience she had as a middle school teacher, where she realized a student had plagiarized, called the student's mom to discuss the failing grade the student would be getting – and the mom said "you can't fail her… I wrote that paper for her, she has too much on her plate and couldn't do it herself." My guest's article talks about how, wh...
Feb 09, 2016•59 min
Winter is, hands down, my favorite season – which makes sense, given that I'm Canadian by birth. And yet… when the kids were small it was such a killer! We would make plans and somebody would get sick; a simple excursion to the grocery store felt like preparing for a six week hike through Alaska; we'd all feel so cooped up all the time. So today I want to help you handle wintertime better with your little kids that I did with mine! This episode presents my five favorite ways to battle the winter...
Feb 02, 2016•42 min
Today, listener Lindsay channels the thoughts we all have on those days in which our kids refuse to listen. Lindsay writes "it's not like after a few asks we don't make him do it; we do and then we're all in a bad mood because we had to yell. It's stuff like getting dressed or coming to eat dinner. What is an old-school way to get him to just do what he has to do? Or is this just what parenting is all about?" In this Your Child Explained episode, where we always try to understand what's going on...
Jan 28, 2016•23 min
When today's guest was five years old, he fell off a railway bridge and landed on hard ground 30 feet down. He spent weeks in a coma, and years healing; at the time a doctor wrote into his chart "don't expect Joel to lead a normal life." Well, that statement certainly turned out to be true! Joel Boggess of The ReLaunch Show is living a downright extraordinary life, getting a degree in counseling psychology and then combining that with his background in radio to cohost – along with his wife, dent...
Jan 26, 2016•30 min
Today's episode is a real milestone: Episode 50! I can't believe we're already here, 50 episodes in. I really wanted to do something special today, to mark the big 5-0, and since it's so close to the first of the year I got to thinking about New Year's resolutions. Then an instagram follower, writtenandbound, got in touch to ask me how she could best help her three-year-old daughter overcome a huge fear and go in the ball pit at gymnastics, and I knew that goal-setting and New Year's resolutions...
Jan 19, 2016•58 min
Happy New Year! During the first two weeks of January, we are revisiting favorite, helpful conversations from the very beginning of We Turned Out Okay. These are episodes that listeners really responded to, right from the start, and as I'm planning the next several months of what the podcast will be, it seemed like a great time to go back, re-listen, and remember. Today I'm so happy to bring you my conversation with college professor and leadership expert Dr. Bob Nolley, who helped me be a bette...
Jan 12, 2016•41 min
Happy New Year! During the first two weeks of January, we are revisiting favorite, helpful conversations from the very beginning of We Turned Out Okay. These are episodes that listeners really responded to, right from the start, and as I'm planning the next several months of what the podcast will be, it seemed like a great time to go back, re-listen, and remember. Today, to start your new year off right, I know you're going to love listening to award-winning author Daniel Wolff , who wrote one o...
Jan 05, 2016•52 min
Today, we finish up our three-part series about the three best gifts you can give your children; we also finish out the year, so best wishes for 2016 to you and your family! In December's Just You and Me episodes, we've been Stopping the Holiday Insanity by focusing on gifts we can give our children, one episode per gift. The first two, Your Time and Ritual/Routine , help make family life run more smoothly and also bring lots of enjoyment – to both you and your kids. Today's gift, though, does m...
Dec 29, 2015•25 min
Carey Andersen, Tuesday's guest in episode 45 , had so many wonderful and inspiring things to say; we can learn a lot from her positive approach to balancing family and work – and the fact that she does it all with multiple sclerosis. Our chat this past Tuesday isn't a prerequisite to today's Your Child Explained episode, where we always get right into the minds of our children and see what makes them tick. But go back and give it a listen if you can; posted during one of the busiest weeks of th...
Dec 24, 2015•14 min
