How can I make Kids of Catan less luck based?
In this thread on BoardGameGeek there's a house rule that the players can choose which direction to rotate the board.  In order to choose the direction, players should consider the resources they gain, as well as the resources their opponents gain (or lose).

Further down in the thread are several other suggestions for introducing more choice into how to rotate the board (e.g. roll two dice and pick one).

I also saw a suggestion that trading could be introduced to reduce the amount of luck, but I haven't seen any reports of whether that was successful or not.