Safety, Belonging, Power, Achievement, Purpose, and Adventure for Kids-Introduction to the Cal Farely's Model of Leadership and Service

Curious about what it takes to foster a sense of safety, belonging, and purpose in children? Ever wanted to understand the fundamental needs of children and the role of curiosity in maintaining restorative relationships? Welcome to a brand new episode where we, along with our esteemed guests Michelle, Suzanne, and Mike, explore Cal Farley’s model of leadership and service. We dive into the six basic needs - safety, belonging, achievement, power, purpose, and adventure, and discuss how to create safe spaces, nurture belonging, and empower kids to manage their emotions. We also reveal how this impactful model has been beautifully brought to life on the silver screen.

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Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to BrainBase Parenting, the Boys Ranch podcast for families. We all know how hard being a parent is, and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling. Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions, utilizing the knowledge, experience and professional training Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, cal Farley's staff development coordinator, joshua Sprock.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Welcome back everyone and thank you for joining us today as we continue our journey talking about brain-based parenting. Today, we're going to introduce Cal Farley's model of leadership and service. To do that, I'm joined by Michelle Mike-Hetter. Hello, suzanne Wright, good morning, and Mike Wilhelm Howdy Alright, so each week we start out our discussion by asking the panel our question of the day. And today, since we're talking about our model of leadership and service, and that led me to models, my question for you is if Hollywood was to make a movie about your life, what actor or actress would play you?

Speaker 3: 1:09

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4: 1:10

Suzanne. Suzanne want to start.

Speaker 5: 1:12

Well, I think that I would choose Dame Maggie Smith, who played the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, was also Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter, but I like her wit. She's a little snarky, she's quick-witted, and I think she would be the perfect person to play me, I think I'd have to say Jada Pinkett Smith.

Speaker 3: 1:36

I appreciate her powerfulness, her wit also, and her grace and style.

Speaker 5: 1:42

You know, we're just imagining who would play us Michelle, but Chaplain Wilhelm has actually already been portrayed in a movie.

Speaker 4: 1:51

That's true. I was going to say I think I would choose Richard T Jones. He was known as the captain of the helicopter that crashed in Godzilla and he was in. Let's see what else was he in Life's Journey here no Evil, atlas Shrugged II I think he's just my favorite actor and I think he would be the one. Wait a minute. I think he already has.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Yes, yes, he did.

Speaker 4: 2:23

Okay, yeah, I forgot about that, Okay so Richard T Jones?

Speaker 5: 2:27

What was the name of that movie?

Speaker 4: 2:29

Edge of the World About Cal Farlies Boys Ranch.

Speaker 5: 2:33

I do remember that when he was chosen to play you, we all agreed that he was a much younger, better looking version of you, Chaplain Wilhelm.

Speaker 4: 2:46

Ouch, you're probably right.

Speaker 5: 2:48

Josh, he's going to play you. Yeah, he's going to play you.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Well, of course it'd be Jason Statham, because I have the muscles and everything.

Speaker 5: 2:57

They're such physical similarities.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Yes, it is, and the British accent.

Speaker 3: 3:02

And the bald head, the bald head, the bald head right, All right.

Speaker 2: 3:08

So today we're going to go to an overview of the model of leadership of service. So give me an overview of what the model of leadership and service is and why it is so important.

Speaker 3: 3:17

So our model of leadership and service is named that because it applies to everyone the families we work with ourselves, our team members. We believe that there are six basic needs that everyone has safety, belonging, achievement, power, purpose and adventure. And we believe that when these needs are met, everyone can meet their fullest potential.

Speaker 2: 3:37

All right, so you guys give me a quick overview of, maybe, how each of those impact working with kids.

Speaker 3: 3:43

I think what we always start with, or try to start with, is instilling a sense of safety, and that's for everybody. It is for the kids, but for our staff and our families as well in belonging. And then is another big piece of feeling welcome and invited, and in achievement. We have a lot of opportunities for kids to try on new things out here. So we were just talking about this morning that even if kids have never had the chance to participate in adventure and adventure activities like we just did a Spartan race or radio activities that they have new things they can try out here as part of their achievement. And then we'll talk a little bit about power being able to have self control and respond the way you want to, instead of continually emotionally reacting to things. Purpose is something we talk about, looking at something larger than yourself. And then adventure is another piece of achievement and adventure go together is all the different things that we offer as way of learning about yourself and trying to learn new skills.

Speaker 2: 4:36

One thing we often talk about in regards to our model of leadership is that relationships are unconditional and restorative are key to meeting these needs. Can you talk to our audience about what that means?

Speaker 3: 4:48

So a big part of feeling safe and belonging is the relationships that you're involved in, and when we talk about unconditional, it means that, regardless of your ability to follow the rules or to respond in a way that I want you to respond, that we realize that you have worth and we care about you. And then I think of restorative as being something that can be restored, regardless of mistakes that are made or missteps that are taken, that we will allow the opportunity to restore the relationship regardless of anything that ruptures that.

Speaker 4: 5:18

Josh. I'd add to that from a Christian Chaplain perspective, once again, this whole thing of being a model leadership and service and brain-informed child care, it's not a take it or leave it, but it's a take it or blow it. And those I know. Some of the listeners might be non-religious and I think what we're talking about obviously these are universal human principles.

Speaker 4: 5:45

There might be a lot of listeners that, like myself, that are Christian listeners and trying to help people from that perspective, and those that might be wondering is this really does this jive with my Christian faith? I'll tell you my journey with this and learning is it absolutely does and it honors the way God's made us. And if you were to consider what restorative relationships are like unconditional and restorative that's the whole story of our Old Testament. And if you make sure that you take a step back to see what the whole story is about, you know Hosea 11-1 says when Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called my son and then watch how God deals with Israel and it is not punitive but it is restorative and it's it's even that the discipline involved all leads to restoration and hope and life, and so that's the pattern of what we do.

Speaker 5: 6:47

In the first podcast, michelle mentioned being curious, and when we are curious about what motivates behavior, it it helps us not to take it personally right. So when when a child misbehaves or acts out or says something hateful or hurtful and we take it at face value, it's easy to want to put limits on our relationship or to even walk away from that relationship. But when we're curious about what motivated the child to speak or behave in that way, it's easier for us to provide an unconditional and restorative relationship when we understand what the goal of behavior is.

Speaker 3: 7:28

Yeah, and then that goes back to safety again, because we can't be curious if we don't feel safe, and so whenever we're not, you know, able to be in that open and curious space is when we're feeling unsafe ourselves, and so it ties right back to that. And actually when Chapman Wilhelm was talking about restoration actually made me think of it differently than I ever had before. Just about relationships are meant to be restorative in that, create wellness and joy, right, and sometimes we forget that that's a piece of it too. Is is actually enjoyment and wellness brought, you know, through the relationship.

Speaker 4: 7:59

So nice fruit of this is if to have a relationship that's restorative and not punitive, and the following principles of this model, leadership and service that Michelle outlined so well, what you end up with is you're dealing with a kid that you can trust with your car keys, rather than a kid that is going to be learned to be, to perform and to please, but actually be sneaky, and you really don't have real trust, and so what I appreciate about the model is it leads to a real trusting relationships and character formation.

Speaker 2: 8:36

So one of the things I really appreciate about the model of leadership and services is it acts as kind of a guide or a lens on how I make decisions and working with kids. So how, for you all, does the model of leadership and service influence your decision making when determining how to work with individual kids?

Speaker 5: 8:52

I think we use it as a guide to determine if a child's needs are met or not. So frequently when we look at behavior, that is an indication of an unmet need. So we start with safety. You know, is in this situation, does the child feel safe, or is their behavior an indicator that they feel unsafe in some way and that could be unsafe physically or mentally or socially?

Speaker 5: 9:20

or in any other way, and so if we meet that need frequently, the behavior goes away, and so we look at it as a template to determine if a child's needs are met.

Speaker 3: 9:33

Yeah, and then I think of it again. I think of it with staff too, whenever we look at issues that staff may be having kids and staff together. A lot of times, looking at those things on both sides of the staff was feeling safe, that the staff is feeling like they belong and have support, and then how that it's impacting their interactions with the kids, and so I think anytime we look at any kind of issues, this is what we're filtering it through for everybody.

Speaker 5: 9:59

I think too that as a parent, it's just as important that your needs are met and you don't have necessarily coworkers or a team who are looking at you making sure your needs are met. You know you are working and you're struggling to care for your children and you have all sorts of demands upon your time and obligations and some of your needs may not be met, and when that's the case, it will surely impact your ability to meet your kids' needs and to be calm and to be curious.

Speaker 4: 10:31

Yeah, josh, I give you a. Let me give you a story, a personal story of, I think, kind of shows this and it shows some of how God has worked on me with this and I think I've learned a few things and still learning. But I had a team of teenage kids on a retreat and they were a mixture of boys, ranch kids and kids from off-ranch and from non-boys ranch kids and this group of teens were meeting together for a purpose of prayer and then preparing to go and serve some pre-adolescent kids at another camp. So it was a ministry team that we put together and I had one of our boys ranch kids pulled me aside and said sir says I hate to be a snitch, but I'll just use the word Johnny, surname Johnny, but Johnny is smoking and and I did notice this peculiar behavior where this kid seemed awfully nervous and was gone in and out of the room a lot and our kid, our boys ranch kid, was really alarmed about that and I immediately I did feel the reaction come on.

Speaker 4: 11:48

We talked last episode about reaction versus responding and this particular boy I happened to know came from a very, very unfortunate background and my knee-trick reaction was this is a ministry team, a ministry setting. That is not okay, that is way not okay. And I thought I'm going to communicate that clearly to Johnny and then send him home. And I caught my breath and I thought about everything that we were all about there Belonging and safety and forgiveness, that and Jesus Christ, and that's what's being proclaimed in this group and I thought, okay, wait a minute. So the kids were all aware that this boy was smoking. It was the elephant in the living room. I'm the last guy to to get a demo right, which is just pretty much how it usually goes.

Speaker 4: 12:41

So we just had a family meeting in the room and we just talked about it and and then asked, and Johnny was so relieved because he felt so ashamed that he was sneaking out and he loved our group and we decided together, asked how we could help him, and so we decided to say, johnny, no, we can't have you smoking here on this trip, right, but we don't, we want you to stay.

Speaker 4: 13:12

And that was such a powerful moment of belonging for him and there was safety in the room and what we all decided, the kids were so loving and said Johnny, would you just do this every time you need a cigarette, would you just tell us and let us pray over you? And that's what he did, and that's how we rolled for the rest of the weekend and it was a. It was a beautiful trip and I I know that I learned a lot through that and Johnny was a gift to me. But that was the principles of this model, leadership and service that helped inform that decision and we were all the better for it. So I would not have made that, I would have reacted years before and not have handled it the same way.

Speaker 3: 13:59

I think too that just what you're talking about looking behind the behavior right and being curious about it, cause, as you were saying then I was thinking I bet that was you know it's an anxiety provoking situation, it's a stressful situation, even though the kids want to be a participant, and it's still stressful, you know, to them.

Speaker 3: 14:14

And I was thinking about how my own daughter, whenever she's very anxious, will take that out on me, so a lot of times she's rude to me or disrespectful to me when she's anxious. And so being able to take that pause, I think is what you mentioned on another episode, but to take that breath and that pause to realize what's behind the actual behavior that's bothering you, so that you can help address that, is what's going to be helpful for everybody, instead of kind of your knee jerk reaction was to go controlling, impugnative, which would have ended in a much uglier situation for everybody. And so I do think that's a big piece of this is looking at what needs are driving the behavior and what's underneath. You know what's the actual thing that you think is the problem is not the problem.

Speaker 4: 14:56

Sure, and for those listening, I wouldn't recommend that as a cookie cutter approach to smoking problems or this, this a law that we did everything right with what we did, or that will always work out that way, but it did change our how we viewed the situation, how we viewed Johnny and the fact that we intended to restore him and we're trying our best to to be restorative rather than punitive, and have belonging rather than banishment. Mm hmm, All right.

Speaker 2: 15:27

So the last thing I want to talk about today and you guys have kind of touched on this a bit, but how about the model leadership and service being useful and working with adults?

Speaker 3: 15:36

You know, yeah, one of the things I talk about is, whenever I'm behaving badly, I hope that someone cares enough about me to come ask me what's going on with me and and why are you behaving different than how you normally are? And so I think we ask that people do that with kids, but also with each other, so that, when we are being our best self, that there's something underneath that and we need someone to bring us in closer and to be curious about what's going on with us.

Speaker 5: 16:00

I think that can work in any type of relationship, Rod. It can work with your spouse.

Speaker 5: 16:04

Mm hmm, it can work with a co-worker, with a supervisor employee situation that you see somebody behave and you need to be curious about that, mm hmm, and be curious through the lens of are their needs being met, right? So so often we look at behavior and we think it is related to the context we're currently in, when it could have been triggered by something that happened before, right? So somebody's struggling at work, but it's because there are problems at home, or they bring problems from work home into their family, and so that curiosity will always be valuable to us in any relationship that we have.

Speaker 2: 16:49

All right. Thank you all for joining us today on this journey and I hope you'll come back next week when we really dive deep into the core of our model and we'll talk about safety. Until then, Remember you may have to loan out your frontal lobes today. Just remember to make sure and get them back.

Speaker 1: 17:03

Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Folly's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your child, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit CalFollyorg. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for Cal Folly's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.