Discover the power of "lending" your developed frontal lobe to your teen in need, setting the stage for better choices without extinguishing their fiery independence. Stories from the trenches of adolescence remind us that we're not alone when words sting, and we explore strategies that help keep the family ship afloat.
Finally, ready your sails for the journey toward young adulthood as we chart a course for teaching life skills that ensure your fledgling adults won't just survive, but thrive. Witness the strength gleaned from vulnerability and the ripple effect of self-care practices that serve as lessons for our kin.
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https://secure.calfarley.org/site/Donation2?3358.donation=form1&df_id=3358&mfc_pref=T
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https://apply.workable.com/cal-farleys-boys-ranch/j/25E1226091/
For More Information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch:
https://www.calfarley.org/
Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
CCS License No. 9402
Discover the power of "lending" your developed frontal lobe to your teen in need, setting the stage for better choices without extinguishing their fiery independence. Stories from the trenches of adolescence remind us that we're not alone when words sting, and we explore strategies that help keep the family ship afloat.
Finally, ready your sails for the journey toward young adulthood as we chart a course for teaching life skills that ensure your fledgling adults won't just survive, but thrive. Witness the strength gleaned from vulnerability and the ripple effect of self-care practices that serve as lessons for our kin.
To Donate:
https://secure.calfarley.org/site/Donation2?3358.donation=form1&df_id=3358&mfc_pref=T
To Apply:
https://apply.workable.com/cal-farleys-boys-ranch/j/25E1226091/
For More Information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch:
https://www.calfarley.org/
Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
CCS License No. 9402
Welcome to Brain-Based 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 Farlies Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, cal Farlies staff development coordinator, joshua Sprock.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us today as we wrap up our series on brain development. Specifically, we're gonna discuss the most sophisticated part of brain, the cortex. To do that today, I'm joined by Katherine Clay.
Speaker 3:Erica.
Speaker 2:Hawke as Barrel and.
Speaker 3:Chloe.
Speaker 2:Hewitt Hi, alright, as we do each week, let's start off by jumping into our question of the day. So since we're talking about the cortex and cortex ends with Tex, and since we're based out of the Panhandle of Texas, I thought I'd ask you to give our listeners a recommendation of what they should see or do if they come to visit the Panhandle of Texas.
Speaker 3:Well, I've only lived here for about three years now, but the first thing that I fell in love with in the Panhandle was Polo Doro Canyon. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's the second largest canyon in the US and it's just super breathtaking and like can kind of take you away from the city and just in nature and it's wonderful and they have the musical there.
Speaker 2:Have you ever been to that?
Speaker 3:That is on my list. Every year it gets pushed back, but I really want to go. What is it called again?
Speaker 2:Texas.
Speaker 3:Texas.
Speaker 2:It's pretty awesome. We go almost every year.
Speaker 4:Okay. So for me, I've lived here about 12 years and I am from Knoxville, tennessee, and so what was really appealing about this part of Texas is the sense of community that I've developed. It feels very familiar to me because people here feel like people from where I'm from, so people are helpful and loving and kind, and that's kind of my favorite part about being here.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean I was born and raised here, so I mean I went off to Houston for college. But I very much enjoy every aspect of people and welcoming us. So that's the first thing I feel when I come here Just that everybody wants to hold the door open for you. They want to ask you how your day is, and there's just small talk, as my husband would say. But you know, if we are gonna go about restaurants, I will talk about 575s, like our pizza place. That's like wood burning, that's super good and I love it. That's what my sister, my mom crave when they still come. Or there's our famous taco villa, which is, you know, a bean burrito with french fries and then hot sauce.
Speaker 5:And my sister just ruined a sweater last week over it because it's her favorite, so those are all another big one. When it's Christmas time, my sister swears by and she lives in Austin and she swears by that our nutcracker is the best that she's ever seen and so that is her tradition. When she comes for Christmas she wants to get the nutcracker.
Speaker 2:The french fries at taco villa are surprisingly amazing, like almost so good.
Speaker 5:Why? And you dip it in the hot sauce.
Speaker 2:But they are good. I'm intrigued. Yes, you'll have to try it.
Speaker 5:I don't know what combo it is. It's the bean burrito with french fries, and that is the combo. That's a combo.
Speaker 2:That's a combo. It makes no sense.
Speaker 4:It's so good you chose your sister would choose to put those two things together.
Speaker 5:No, no, it's a combo, oh yeah. And then when I was a kid, I got the taco burger. Okay, which is also a thing. Okay, super good.
Speaker 2:So for me, I love taking people to the Big Texan. It's the most corny, but it's just so fun and awesome. And they have a thing where, if you like eat a 72 ounce steak, you get it for free and I actually tried it once and I came really, really, really close. So you have to eat the 72 ounce steak, a roll, a baked potato, a salad and a shrimp cocktail and I did everything except for 15 ounces short on the steak.
Speaker 4:How sick were you?
Speaker 2:I was so sick for, like Suzanne told me, I could have the rest of the day off. I don't remember the ride from the Big Texan to my house. Oh my gosh it was awful, but someday I'm gonna beat it. All. Right, let's move to the final area of the brain we're going to go over, and that's the cortex. So when does the cortex fully develop and what functions does it monitor?
Speaker 3:So the cortex makes up the bulk of the brain. It has a lot of different components. It's fully developed in your late 20s. The brain is so there's so much research coming out about the brain. The research for the brain is pretty new and so they're even thinking it might be later. It's very complex region of our brain so it modulates affiliation, reward, concrete thought, abstract thought, time, like our understanding of time passing.
Speaker 2:I've heard it described as the boss of the brain.
Speaker 3:Yeah, does that sound right, yeah.
Speaker 2:That it can kind of tell the other parts of the brain what to do. Hopefully it's the boss.
Speaker 4:I wouldn't want, like, I mean, that's the deal. It's like if your emotions are the boss of your brain that you end up in quite a bit of trouble. Yeah, if your brain is constantly the boss of your brain, then you're like fight, flight or freeze all the time, right, you want your cortex to be able to tell your lower parts of the brain what to do and, like we spoke about earlier, if there are insults to development of the brain, then that process is not going to go that way.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I think about my daughters and car trips like we're driving places and 45 minutes till we're going to get to where we're going to be at, and they're always like are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Speaker 4:Never end, never end. We're the next 20 years.
Speaker 2:And I think what's going on is to them, they're in their limbic system and which doesn't have a great sense of time, so to them they don't logically, there is no logic in there. To them, they're never going to get there. So I have to share my brain with them and say, okay, it's 10 more minutes, 15 more minutes and it's going to be okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's funny you say that. Yesterday I was driving my daughter back to Boiser Ange and she asked me how long is it going to take, which we you know we do it so much. It's an odd question, but I put my timer on my iPhone. I put the like a 35 minute timer and she got to watch it the whole time and she, she loved it.
Speaker 4:We didn't make it in 35 minutes, but she was so stressed out about it because I can't watch it because we had like probably five minutes left with only two on the timer, but it was neat for her to kind of like put those two together. It was neat.
Speaker 2:It is our pastor of our church. He always has a timer on his, on the back wall, and for the longest time. My youngest daughter I don't think she ever listened to the sermon and she would just watch the timer that would make sense of everything. Yes, and she would get so antsy when it would get down to like two or three minutes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:All right. So at the end of every episode of this podcast, I end by saying you might have to loan out your frontal lobes today, and the reason is the cortex doesn't fully develop until we're in our late twenties, to maybe even thirties. So what does it look like to loan out our frontal lobes to children, like, let's start from zero to four? What does it look like to loan out your brain to a toddler?
Speaker 5:Hard. Oh no, no, I, you know, we were talking about it a little bit a minute ago, I think hitting was a big one. So, when they hit, setting that boundary, saying hey, I'm going to step away because you're hitting me and you're not going to hit me, and so verbalizing, hey, I'm going to step away and make myself safe, so setting that boundary for them, I think so. So many things Like I just think of even, like hey, we're going to sit at the table, we're going to have, you know, just thinking of we're going to eat here, this is your spot, this is your water, like just so many things of educating them throughout their whole course.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, because, like it's, they're just chronically dysregulated. Yes, like all the time and we all know why that is. But in in real life it's a lot, yes, and so for me, I feel like I'm narrating a lot and I'm identifying emotions. So we'll say, like the hitting example, I'll say the same thing. I'll say wow, I see you're really mad, I see that you're really mad. Your hands want to hit, your hands want to hit. I'm going to move away so I don't get hurt. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm still here.
Speaker 4:I love you. How can I help? Yep, I'm just narrating constantly and making sure that I'm like helping bring the narration like the word, that side of the brain and the emotional side of the brain and trying to integrate Right. And sometimes I do it so well and sometimes I fail. Yeah, but nobody prepares you for that age.
Speaker 5:It's so much, yeah, and I think even like, cause you still? I mean they go way down in the brain too, right? And then my toddler will then just be crying and cannot say anything, and so then we are sitting there rocking and doing the hold. So, and we are just holding and rocking and that is it. So that's another way I would say with toddlers is just realizing that they are also going to go in there even lower in the brain and you're going to have to regulate.
Speaker 2:So what about loaning your frontal lobe out to five to 10 year olds?
Speaker 4:I feel like I do a little bit of the same. But one thing that I've noticed and this is probably two for the other, the zero to four. But you know, I probably am going to validate the emotion, validate the emotion, validate the emotion, validate the emotion. And then, when we are in a space of regulation, relation, then we might be able to have a conversation. I very, I too often try to do both of those at the same time where I'll say to my daughter or my son, whichever I'll say you're really mad, let's work it out Like they're just not in a space to be able to problem solve. And that's one thing I don't know. If we talked about, yeah, like the, the cortex is the part where we problem solve, right, the cortex, the top of the brain, is the problem solving space. And, like we said, kids are at this point. If we're upset, we're stuck somewhere else, right?
Speaker 4:We're not able to get up there, and so it's just like for me it comes with. The motivation is I just want this to pass, I want this to be over, I want us to move on to the next fun activity, and so I rushed their process and it never works, but I try to do it and then I catch myself thinking I need to address, we need to speak about this at a later time. Yeah, the goal right now is regulation and relation connection and the the conversation can come at a point where we're not battling you know midbrained stuff.
Speaker 5:I also think it's difficult because in this age specifically so my five-year-old can say I'm angry. So then I think in my mind, hey, he's ready to talk about it, but he's not.
Speaker 5:He's not because that's all he can get is I am angry or I am sad. But he cannot process beyond that a lot of the times, and so that's the hard part for me is realizing oh, you still need me to work through it and we need to dissect it, but we need to regulate and calm down. So because he gives me some words, then I think he's completely ready.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I also think just incorporating play. Kids learn so much, they explore their whole world through play. And I think, similar to what you were saying, like it's so much trial and error of like what's going to work in this situation. My 10-year-old is afraid of thunderstorms and so the same thing, like we would come and we would sit with her and lay with her and try to be there and have proximity, and you know she'd say I'm scared, and so you like, you're like, okay, cool, we can talk about this, what are you?
Speaker 3:scared of? What is it that scares you? Or then, like my rational brain, wants to be like okay, but it's your fine, yeah, you'll be fine. And the second you know I'm like searching out there for all the resources and the second, we started incorporating play. You know that, like just even just her laughing, regulate, turn your system a little bit.
Speaker 3:And then you know, we made like a funny story of like the thunder is the flash running around and subbing his toe and that like allowed her to just kind of like that's really funny. And then we get to talk about oh, that's like when you're scared, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, so the next one for me, I think, is the hardest.
Speaker 4:What does? It look like I was gonna say why that age is hard for you. It is so hard Because you have girls that age.
Speaker 2:Well, they're just getting out of that age.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What does it look like to have blown out your frontal lobe to 11 to 14 year olds?
Speaker 5:I think that age is so hard, right Like because that's you're looking at the middle schoolish age, so like they're starting to get high in emotions but don't have the problem skills, don't have like, a lot of like, probably similar. They can give you maybe two sentences I'm angry, my friend did this, but then there's really we're not breaking down that there's a lot more to it or what that can't tell you the background of why that was such an emotional reaction and they don't understand themselves. They also still want to be around their peers, probably more than adults. So it's just a. I think that's a difficult age. But you know, you just got to. You're going to have to connect, you're going to have to talk through it, but you might have to give them more power than you would. The five and 10 year old in the conversation.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm thinking Josh you said that a minute ago talking about kind of you as the parent, looking at the resources you have and you had mentioned like a youth pastor and a coach and you collaborating with those people who are spending a lot of time with your kids and influencing your kids, and kind of you being the person that learns from the other experts that are interacting with your kids too, right?
Speaker 4:So, like I don't know that you're going to have all the answers on how to, because you have not taken a backseat, but your input is not as important as coaches or you know, like you had said, so I think looking out, looking at from that perspective, who is influencing your girls or your kids and can I be in relationship with that person? My kids are not grown by any means, but I think about the collaboration between me and my daughter's teacher is very important. Me and my son's daycare teacher is very important because we're both caregiving for my child, right? And my oldest daughter and my son are with a caregiver other than me a lot of the time. That's important to me.
Speaker 5:I.
Speaker 5:So when I first came into a campus life supervisor position, my main goal was, hey, I need to focus in on pre adolescence, because that wasn't my forte really.
Speaker 5:When I worked at the bridge. My specialty was kind of zero to three, and then here it was adolescence, and so I really followed all the pre adolescence CLSs and I would go on call with them and what I noticed was two of the supervisors which one isn't here anymore and one is still in the office they will sit and regulate with a kid for 30 minutes to an hour before they ever start a conversation. So that is truly the gift I use when I go with pre adolescence is I'm going to play basketball with them, bounce that ball, bounce a ball back and forth, go for a walk they would do more of that than they would drive, so they would try to get that going with that rhythm too, and so truly, that's really. What I noticed is that they take a lot longer to regulate, but they also need it to be co-regulation and they need it to be something in that capacity before you get to the root of a lot of theirs.
Speaker 4:And I think, their size. You know, I think this is the age where there's a growth spurt and we have a, you know, a seventh grader that looks like a 10th grader or whatever, and we get tricked right Like, oh, that kid should be behaving as if he would look how big he is, he's got to be older, or whatever, you know. And I think then we think this is, oh, I can just go talk to this kid, yeah, and I think we do that across the board, even like with adults, you know. So it's not necessarily how old they look, yeah, or even how old they really are, but I think kind of their state and where they are in their brain, where they're, how they're functioning.
Speaker 2:I will say one of the most, probably the most difficult but useful things to do is don't take it personally. Oh, yeah, yeah Because they are in their emotional brain and I think, especially 14 year olds, they have this like uncanny ability to find the thing you're most insecure about and say it to you in a very accurate way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It feels like personal but it's not no. And with my daughters. They would say some very hurtful, harmful things to me or my wife sometimes, and then 20 minutes later they come back and like I'm sorry, I didn't.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think if we would have got counter aggressive with them then I'm not sure it would have turned out as well in the end. So it's easier said than done, but I think it is. They're not. They're not thinking, they're just feeling, and reacting most of the time. So what about 15 to 18? What does it mean to loan out your frontal lobes with this age group?
Speaker 5:So I think a lot of this one you're going to look at some freedom and some choice in that, in their decision making.
Speaker 5:But what I think is also powerful to do is front load say, hey, I know you're going to go to the football game tonight. What's that going to look like? Or and then, you know, set the expectations ahead of time. But they still have some freedom in, like, hey, you can go sit where you want, you can do whatever. Or hey, if I'm not going, what time you expected to be home? But just giving them some of that. But also you're loaning them your brain by saying, oh, I wonder if that's a good choice.
Speaker 4:Or, you know, just talking through it, you just asking them hey, what do you think the football game will be like tonight? You know, they have not even thought about 20 minutes ahead, right, or an hour ahead, or two hours ahead. And so then that like nearly prompts them to start thinking about, well, I probably need to grab some money, there's going to be concessions, I probably should bring a sweater. It's good, it might be cool, like you're, kind of it's an opportunity for them to learn right To plan. And then I think, too, like you're, you're nearly asking them to like walk through the hiccups. Yes, what could go wrong here, what could go right? Where do you want to sit? And letting them kind of nearly walk through that when they actually go to do it, it's almost like it was the second time that they've done it, because they already did it, visually, you know, or in. So that's an interesting prompt. I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 5:That's really what, and I mean role play. So if it's a hard conversation, I you know my parents were good about like, hey, let's talk through that conversation, what will that look like? And I remember, like interviewing for my first job, my parents made me do like a mock interview with them, so just things like that, because you're not doing it in front of their peers, so they're not quite embarrassed, but you are trying to educate them and give them some of your skill that you have right? That's kind of what I was thinking. Yeah, that's neat.
Speaker 4:I think there's a lot of things that we can do with this age group.
Speaker 5:They're fun. I remember one of the times that we took a kid to town. I we talked through grocery shopping, so I was like teaching them about generic brand versus name brand because I was like see the price difference. They look at the ingredients that are the same. And so trying to educate them on budget costs, things like that, that they might so independent living skill also in there.
Speaker 4:but I also think that we again it kind of goes back to what I said a minute ago assume that this age group isn't interested in co-regulation, or assume that they don't need it or that they don't want to connect with me. I'm a 36 year old woman who has two kids. Why would they want to connect with me? But that's not true Never true in my experience and so I think some of us get a little bit shy to do those things with a kid and we go straight to all right, the football game's coming up, do you need money? Or whatever it may be when. Then I think that they are also relational beings, we all are right, and I think they kind of trick us because they act like they don't want to be with us.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do.
Speaker 4:So, anyways, I would say yes to all of it. However, I do think that there's not been a kid. I can't think of one kid that I've worked with, even when someone said he's pretty resistant to adults, or she's pretty resistant or weary of adults, that hasn't warmed up and wanted to connect with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when my sister-in-law once told me with her son, it's trust but verify.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2:You want to trust them, you want to let them have those experiences, but follow up and make sure those things are being covered.
Speaker 4:Well, and I do think, even speaking to that, like there are opportunity for them to build resilience right. So, like, if they want to go to the game this is a minor example, but they want to go to the football game and you know it's going to be cold and they're like I'm good, right. So the opportunity for them to kind of feel that natural consequence. Now, if they're talking through something that is going to end and be dangerous, right, or the options they're thinking of are dangerous, that's different. But I think, letting them try well, I'm going to go try this activity, or I'm going to go do this and let them kind of work through whether it was a good idea or a bad idea, and when they come back and say it all fell apart, okay, so what worked, what didn't work?
Speaker 4:And I think sometimes as parents and I'm sure that this will be work for me when I have older kids to let them fail and to let them fail in a way that they feel safe and have to come back to you and say, yeah, that didn't work out very well, and you not say, yeah, I know, yeah, of course not. You say, well, tell me more about that. What worked, what didn't work, when do you think it stopped working? Things like that, because you're teaching skill, right, and I think we sometimes scoop those opportunities up and just like get rid of them so they don't feel pain or they don't have distress or whatever.
Speaker 2:So I think it's better to let them fail when mistakes aren't so high Suppose when they leave us, and then the stakes get a lot higher.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's not easy to do, cause we love our kids so much.
Speaker 2:All right now, 18 to 25, I mean you think they're not kids anymore, but they still need our help to loan out our frontal lobes then. So what does it look like to loan out your frontal lobes to this age group?
Speaker 5:For this one. I think multiple things, but I also think why I have always been a kid which my parents would say that always wanted to know the answer, why all the time? But specifically, I would say in 18 to 25, I really wanted to understand a lot of things and decisions, cause I was young in my career too, at 21. And so I really was like why are we making the decision we're making? And that frustrates people, right. But I think sometimes they're curious and they're trying to learn, and so just being an open door that somebody can ask why or how come that turned out that way, in explaining, instead of viewing as like you're just young and you should know, or I made a mistake in pulling me aside and saying, hey, this is how you could have done it better, would have been and still is super helpful, just somebody having an honest conversation, or hey, you reacted this way. That's not how I normally see you react. Just having open dialogue and feedback, I think is really what could benefit.
Speaker 4:Is, in this age, for me, well and like you said, they're still learning right, and I think what was helpful to me and what I would hope I'd be able to do for my kids is, as they're out in the world, journeying and college, whatever they're doing that they know they have a space to come back to to process something that's happened or that if they needed my help or need my help, that they would feel safe calling me and I could go help them. You know, and I think the work that we did from zero to now really starts to come out here and did we build a trusting relationship? Do you feel safe with me, or whatever it is? And I think that I would hope my kids will be able to come back to me when they've messed up and they've messed up horribly and we have to start dissecting and figuring out what to do next. That's what I would hope.
Speaker 2:So funny you said that. So when I turned 18, went to college for semester, I bounced my first check and yeah, I know it was so embarrassing, I was so scared and I didn't know what to do and the first thing I did is I just called my mom and I'm like what do I do?
Speaker 2:And I was like crying and like it was so pathetic. And then she came and she helped me get it all sorted out and figured out and then before that I thought it was you know, this big, bad 18 year old that I had it all figured out?
Speaker 4:Did you think you were, like, gonna go to jail?
Speaker 2:I did think I was going to jail. Oh my God.
Speaker 4:I'm like oh, this is so funny. It was so scary.
Speaker 3:It was so funny. I think similar to what everyone said too. So far is just like, at this age especially, I think giving kids the freedom to fail shows your trust in them, shows your belief in them, and so if you have that safe space to come back to, then you know it's like okay. So I learned this and I can go back, but my parents trust me enough to handle some of these things with limited guidance or on my own even, and I also know I can come back to them and process that all with them, and I think that's huge in terms of just like building self-confidence as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So to kind of wrap up, since we're the ones who have to loan out our frontal lobes, it seems to me that we need to make sure that our brains are also well regulated. So can you all talk about how important it is for us, as adults, to model proper regulation, and how does the concept of self-care play into all of that?
Speaker 5:So I feel like Catherine touched on this a minute ago when she talked about she verbalizes some of it, and so I will a lot of times verbalize when I am dysregulated. Hey, mommy is going to go take some deep breaths in the other room and I'll be right back. But I'm here, I'm not leaving the house, but I start verbalizing how I'm going to calm down so that they and so inherently, I have now watched my five year old talk, my two year old through it, and so that's been really cool is they were playing together and London got upset and he says okay, let's take some deep breaths and calm down.
Speaker 4:And here's the deal. Like I same I it would be confusing to my kids if something happened and it upset me and I did not have a response. I think they would not understand that there's dissonance there, right. So like, if something happens and I'm upset, I think saying mommy's really upset right now I do need a few minutes just to sit with myself makes more sense than my daughter knowing something bad happened. But I'm not having any emotion about it right.
Speaker 4:And so there are times when I I think it's that old, it's that old programming, where we're, like your kids, need to see you as strong and resilient and nearly like a robot, which I think that that maybe is an old way of thinking. You know like who's in control. If I'm vulnerable, then I'm not in control or whatever.
Speaker 4:But I also think like my, my daughter, when I was upset it was so neat to see her kind of watch what I did, like you're saying, and she went and got me a cup of water which I don't know. I guess she thought I must be upset because I'm thirsty, I'm not sure how she was gonna help but it was her effort, right, so she could see.
Speaker 4:So she was kind of contributing to that. She was trying to contribute her help, right. And me being upset was simply like I just needed a minute, right, but it would. I think it would have been even more confusing for her, Like what would she have learned if something upsetting happened and I just was a statue? Like that's bizarre to me, right? So, within normal limits, obviously we don't want to be hysterical, but and I just think it's, I think that's the primary way our kids are learning is watching us, which is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time.
Speaker 5:Well, it gets turned around on you, right? So, like now my five year old be like mom, you're yelling, and I'm like Because I'll tell him when he's yelling. He will now say you're raising your voice, you're yelling, and I'm like oh man this is really taking a full circle.
Speaker 5:I know I mean self-care. This is a huge one for me, because most people that know me know that. So workout is my self-care and it has to happen and I really enjoy it. But when I don't, even my coworkers will say, hey, have you worked out lately? So because it is. But I think time off too, stepping away, especially because we live and work at the same environment and sometimes that's difficult or your neighbors are your friends but they're also work next to you, and so all of the things I think self-care, just being attuned to what really resets me.
Speaker 2:Is it?
Speaker 5:reading, is it walking? Is it working out? Is it being with friends? Is it taking time to myself? Because me and my husband both self-care different and so having honest conversations with yourself about that.
Speaker 3:And I feel like the term.
Speaker 3:I love self-care so much, but I feel like the term self-care can be a little misleading at times because I think some of my favorite moments, especially when working with families, are seeing how well there are so many things but seeing how well a set of parents complement each other and one can step in when it's time to be nurturing and one can step in when it's time to be a little bit more like authoritarian, but also I mean just leaning on our own web of support, because we cannot do this all on our own.
Speaker 3:I also really love and respect so much when I see single parents working so hard for their children and also taking time to lean on their resources or their resources are so limited and reaching out to their community or that youth group pastor or that coach. I think a big part of self-care is really using our community because we can't be on all the time and sometimes we don't always have the resources to take a step back in that moment. So as much as we can use them when they're presented to us. And it's hard and sometimes it feels like we're failing because we have to reach out to those resources, but it is so it's such an integral part of self-care I think I think too, maybe what Erica was saying.
Speaker 4:I think Self-care. I think a lot of people will think, well, I'll go get a massage or I'll go spend this amount of money or that it costs us, and I think that it's neat to reset what that actually is for people, like it's more sustainable. And so for me, kind of like what you were saying, like that reaching out to my community, using my community, letting my community help me, things like that it's not always really easy for me, but it is an act of self-care. And then I think, too, I find self-care in very short spurts of time because I have two kids, and so the 10 minutes my kids are both asleep in one day I mean, it's probably about six minutes or five minutes, but anyways, I'm reading something that's fulfilling for me. And so it's like these little pockets of time that, even though they're small, they're still filling up my cup.
Speaker 4:And I do notice the days that I'm not able to get those five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever, that I do struggle a lot more. So I think, talking about within our limitations whether it's financial or time or whatever it may be, what resource it may be that we find self-care that works for us. And what are our kids seeing when we stop and take care of ourselves? Yeah, exactly Like I work hard to verbalize to my kids, hey, mommy needs rest too. Or even when we're sitting down for dinner and I've sat down before my play and they now need something, I work hard to say, hey, baby, it's important for mommy to eat too. Her mommy needs to eat too. I will get that for you in just a moment, and not just self-sacrifice constantly because my daughter needs ketchup.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks again for spending some time with us developing your brains. Until next time you might have to loan out your frontal lobes today. Just make sure you remember to get them back.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Brain-Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Farlies 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 calfarlyorg. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for Cal Farlies. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.