Art Creativity & Wellbeing

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...

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...

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 he...

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 you...

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...

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 p...

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 hug...

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 m...

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...

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...

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...

If you're listening to this the day this episode drops, it's three days before Christmas… in many parents' lives one of the busiest, most harried and frustrating days of the whole year. The laundry list of gifts for teachers, snacks for parties, plans for travel or hosting, endless shopping and wrapping certainly has me reaching for the chocolate vodka more often than is strictly necessary! If tha...

In today's Just You and Me episode, we jump into the second of the three best gifts you can give your kids In the previous Stop the Holiday Insanity episode, 41 (click here to listen), we talked about Time. Today in this second installment of Stop The Holiday Insanity we discuss the second of these three best gifts: Ritual. Growing up, every year around December 1 my Mom got out wrapping paper, sc...

Today's Your Child Explained episode – where we always try to get into the heads of our kids – is a little different. Usually, the Thursday YCE pertains to the previous Tuesday guest episode. This week, though, I wanted to share something a little different. Last night my husband and I got to attend a live presentation with interest-led learning expert Blake Boles. His most recent book, The Art of...

It can be tough to find time to read the paper on a Sunday morning. In fact, I generally don't finish it until much later in the week! But Sundays, I always find time for a favorite column, Miss Conduct, because author Robin Abrahams – stand-up comedian, doctor of research psychology, researcher at Harvard business school and professor of psychology and writing – shares great relationship advice i...

Today, the first of the three-part series about stopping the Holiday Insanity by using the three best gifts you can ever give your children, we dive into: Time. In each of the Just You and Me December episodes – today's, December 15, and December 29 – we talk about one of these three gifts. Today's is time! For the show notes to this episode, go to the We Turned Out Okay website by clicking this l...

Tuesday's guest – cartoonist and author Emily Flake – and I had a great conversation  ( although, full of swears and subject matter totally inappropriate for work or children – please take note :-) about modern parenting, but even with nearly an hour to talk we didn't cover everything I wanted to cover. Which leads to today's Your Child Explained, episodes in which we are always looking right into...

WARNING : Today's show is full of expletives and stuff you do not want your child to know about yet… please make sure to use headphones or listen away from the kiddos! It's an awesome show, just there are pieces of it that are totally not suitable for children :-) Today's guest is the wonderful and talented author and cartoonist/illustrator Emily Flake . She writes a weekly comic strip for grown-u...

Today's episode dives into the four best, most practical ninja tactics that I know and use every day to teach my boys right from wrong. Because, that's really what discipline is, isn't it? Teaching right from wrong – in my experience as a teacher and parent, positive discipline is not only the most user-friendly way to do this, but the most effective, too. Listen to the episode for details, but he...

In episode 36 – which aired this past Tuesday in real time – nursery school owner and director Tanya Trainor shared about the changes she, her staff, and the children they serve made to their playground. The traditional slides, climbers, and other big (pricey) equipment typically seen on the playground are gone, and in their place are what Tanya calls "loose parts." Tanya shares that loose parts o...

Today's episode was super fun to record because I got out of my usual studio and hung out at what's easily the most amazing playground I've ever seen. All of the equipment we see on a typical playground – huge climber, big slide, jungle gym – was gone, and in its place were loose pieces. Bricks, cement pavers, wooden siding, bales of hay, an 8 foot long rowboat, tree stumps suitable for sitting on...

Today is the first of a two parter, because the subject of positive discipline – how we teach our kids right from wrong – is such a biggie. In this first part, we talk about the mindset of positive discipline… Three things are required for us parents to get into this mindset: 1) a calm, quiet demeanor; yelling and screaming produces negativity, not to mention unhappy family members 2) making the p...

Podcast Episode 034: Why Do Kids Need to Play? A Your Child Explained Episode This past Tuesday, I had a great conversation with mom and licensed mental health counselor Janine Halloran of encourageplay.com . Janine specializes in facilitating play, and our conversation ranged from the benefits of play and how little is really required to encourage it, to how endangered open-ended play is in our s...

From the moment I first read her article on The Many Perks Of Play in the October 2015 issue of baystateparent, I knew I was going to have to talk to Janine Halloran. She explains everything there is to know about play and how it can benefit kids, in a really well-written and entertaining way. Janine graciously agreed to come on to the show, and our interview is really one of my favorites so far!...

As a kid, I loved Halloween.… But as the mom of young children, it used to scare the heck out of me! There is so much to worry about: pressures to spend money on costumes and decorations, what to do about all the candy coming into the house, helping our kids deal with their emotional fears. I decided to do an episode that's actually an audio kit to help you stop being scared by Halloween – because...