Exploring Family Values and Childhood Purpose

Purpose transforms the way children perceive their identities and behaviors while solidifying family bonds. This episode explores how parents can help kids discover their strengths, engage in purposeful activities, and create shared missions to enhance empathy and community involvement.

• Understanding the significance of purpose in child development
• Strategies for helping kids identify strengths and passions
• The concept of islands of competence for building confidence
• Overcoming time constraints to focus on purposeful family activities
• Creating shared family values and missions through discussion
• The power of small acts of service in fostering empathy and connection

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Transcript

Discovering Purpose in Childhood

Speaker 1 0:00

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 Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now. Here is your host. Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer Now. Here is your host. Cal Farley's Staff Development Coordinator, joshua Sprock.

Speaker 2 0:30

Hello and welcome back. Today we're going to talk about the power of purpose for kids and families. To do that again, I'm joined today by Suzanne Wright, Vice President of Training and Intervention.

Speaker 4 0:40

Shelly Minor, Director of Youth Activities.

Speaker 5 0:43

And I'm Mike Wilhelm, the Director of Faith-Based Services.

Speaker 2 0:46

All right since we're talking about purpose, can you recall a time as a child that you did something that helped you feel a greater sense of purpose?

Speaker 3 0:52

I remember as a child that we had a neighbor couple. They lived right next door to us and they were kind of substitute grandparents for me. But I remember that, you know, we purposefully would go and check on them during cold weather or if we knew they were ill or we hadn't seen them in the front yard in a couple of days, right, but we felt a sense of connection and care and concern for them.

Speaker 4 1:17

When I was in elementary school, I remember we had a student that was very sick and could never attend school, and so we would take his homework to school and to back every day, and he was on our walking path on the way to school and so we would stop by and visit with him. But I didn't think about that until you brought up that question, so that was a very hard, hard lesson, I think, to learn.

Speaker 5 1:40

Yeah, mine's going to differ from Shelly, you and Suzanne in that this, rather than this, being something that has that noble purpose. It was more just of a useful purpose when I was I don't know in maybe sophomore, in high school. But I went to AI school, which is not what you're thinking, listeners. It's not computer AI, it's bovine AI. Okay, so it was artificially breeding cattle. Okay, so it sounds really impressive to say I was an AI technician, doesn't it? Okay, but people don't know what I'm really talking about. But we had herd of beef cows and 200 cows and I had to pen them twice a day and sort and did the artificial breeding of the cattle. There was purpose in that. You know I was needed and it served a useful purpose. So that was mine growing up.

Speaker 2 2:28

Mine was similar to yours, Suzanne, Our neighbor.

Speaker 3 2:30

My mom always made us shovel her walk and we grew up in Wyoming, so we had to do it all the time. Oh, that's a lot of snow.

Speaker 2 2:36

It is a lot of snow and I remember I was just grumbling walking over there. It was cold out, I didn't want to do it, I had other stuff I want to do. But by the time we got done it was just felt good to see like what we did and cleared it all and accomplished. But then she would come out and she would just be so thankful and grateful and that it really just kind of changed my outlook on it at the end. But I was always grumpy going into it. But by the time we were done it actually felt good that we had done something for someone else.

Speaker 3 3:06

You know, just last week we got eight to nine inches of snow here in the Amarillo area, and on church last Sunday I visited with an older couple and she was sharing that she had to shovel their walk just to be able to get to the mailbox or get to the car, and this woman is of an age that she shouldn't be physically accomplishing that task. And I thought where were the kids in her neighborhood or where were the adults or other people who might go do that and be helpful? And so that just underscores even more what a valuable service you provided for your neighbor Josh. Tell your mom I said good job.

Speaker 2 3:41

All right. So how can parents identify the unique strengths or passions in their children and help guide them to finding more purpose?

Speaker 3 3:48

I think it's important to let kids have a lot of experiences, a big variety of experiences, to help them figure out what that interest is or what that purpose is. You know, when kids are young, they're interested in something that might look glamorous or it might look fun, and maybe they don't understand the steps it would take to accomplish that goal or the hard work that you would have to put forth. I also think that kids change their mind a lot, and so, as adults, we need to be flexible enough to follow that rather than being stuck on oh, my child's going to be a fill in the blank whatever that is right A rancher or a doctor or?

Speaker 3 4:29

I think that kids the more experiences we can give kids, the better informed they are when they make a decision about what they want to do with their lives.

Speaker 4 4:39

That's exactly what I had down as well, and we got plenty. We had all the sports that we could choose. We had scouts and just all sorts of you know. You could run in the races that are in the town. I mean it was just. It was crazy. You could get jobs. My sister really followed suit with that with her own kids and they were able to try out scouting and the sports. And then they got to do fencing and all this music. They got to have music lessons and one is now playing in the symphony because of that.

Speaker 4 5:11

So they really kind of followed their. They got their purpose from being able to try so many things as a kid.

Speaker 3 5:22

I frequently say that it's almost impossible to be a bored kid here at Boys Ranch because we offer so many activities and opportunities, not only recreational activities but vocational activities and experiential learning opportunities and that's all very purposeful, in that we want to encourage kids to try new things, to find out what their interests might really be.

Speaker 2 5:43

And you never really know what it's going to be either. I know with my youngest daughter. She got a job babysitting in the summers for a special needs boy and at first I was a little kind of I didn't know if I was going to be okay with her doing it. But she ended up loving it so much and she did it for three years and now that she's decided that's what she wants to do with her life, she decided that's what she wants to do with her life. She wants to work with special needs kids and I just thought that was such a cool deal that I would have never guessed that going into it just a random summer job.

Building Purpose Through Islands of Competence

Speaker 5 6:12

Yeah, helped her find her purpose. Helped her find her purpose, yeah. Yeah, we take a group of kids every year down to Camp Alfie, a group of high school and college age students. Suzanne's daughters have gone and Camp Alfie is a free camp for pre-adolescent children who are battling cancer, and we'll take a team of high school college-age students to go down and help serve at that camp and it's a beautiful thing that you get to watch happen and there are some in that setting that discover that they really have a heart to help and maybe even that particular population some of the kids will want to in subsequent years will want to go and serve the whole week as a counselor and that sort of thing. But I thought that's a good point you made, suzanne, that how do you help them? You know, find, you know, maybe, a strength. It is about what both of you said about providing lots of different kinds of opportunities and then just be attuned and be watching right and I think it becomes evident.

Speaker 2 7:00

So out here at Boys Ranch we stress islands of competence, finding a kid's island of competence. So what is an island of competence and how can we help build a child's sense of purpose through those?

Speaker 3 7:10

You know, I think with kids it's easy to identify what they need to work on, right, and you know, most school systems are set up in a deficit-based approach, right, what are you lacking, what are you missing? And then let's go in and fill those gaps. But looking at islands of competence is more about focusing on what do they do well, what are they already good at, and how could you build upon that. And when you can focus on the things that children do well, the things that they struggle with seem to shrink by comparison. Right, you just build those islands up and watch the deficits slowly but surely fall away, right. And so when we're looking at things they're good at, things that they're interested in, that helps build their sense of purpose with what they call the STEAM lab right.

Speaker 5 7:58

Is that science, technology, engineering, mechanics? Is that right or STEM lab?

Speaker 3 8:09

Arts and mechanics. Arts and mechanics.

Speaker 5 8:11

Okay, most of the public school is set up in such a way that it's probably best suited for auditory and visual learners auditory maybe especially so for eight hours a day in an arm desk and probably works well for 80% or 90, I don't know. But for those that are kinetic learners, that's a smaller group but that really do have to interact with their hands. Those kids really struggle and I'm pretty certain that some of these kids that sometimes come to boys' rants, that have not been doing well at school, may fall under that last category. And so they have been.

Speaker 5 8:51

Oh, school's been not an island of competence, it's been a source of shame because they have not, you know, they've been. They just assume that I'm not a good student, I'm dumb or whatever all those negative self-talk things. They plug into our STEAM lab here where they're engaged with woodworking, robotics, graphic design, making things with their hands. And that group of kids that has not done well in school they come to life, don't they? They do, and suddenly I'm good at something, and some of them are not just kind of good but really good and they're really smart, but they just didn't know it. Well then, the next thing you know that translates into them getting some traction, even with their classroom things up there at the traditional schoolhouse, right yeah?

Speaker 2 9:37

We actually I worked with a girl exactly that story. She was difficult, she was probably one of the hardest kids I ever had to work with out here and we were getting to the point where we were like we don't know if we can actually maintain her placement out here at Boys Ranch. And then, kind of as a last-ditch effort, she got plugged into the STEAM labs, into Rocket Club and she got into Rocket Club and she took off.

Speaker 5 9:56

Sorry. Oh wow, good dad joke, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 10:01

But she actually started doing really, really well. She had some purpose in that she made some really good connections and relationships with the mentors there, and then, you know, she really took off. She started doing well, she stopped having getting sent home from school all the time, she started making friends, and it was a much, much better environment for her. Now there were some times, though, when she still struggled and there was some people who were like, well, maybe we need to give her some consequences and take away Rocket Club for a while. Why do you think that that might not be a great thing to do when kids have islands of competence, to use those as consequences?

Speaker 3 10:32

Well then, they have nothing left to lose, right? And so you've got to not only build on, but protect those islands of competence and give them somewhere to continue to go. That not only feeds their brain and their soul, but their self-esteem.

Speaker 5 10:48

Yep, that takes a lot of awareness, taking a deep breath and not reacting out of frustration. It's like I want to provide discipline which is for the greater good for this child, and not just to kind of do something to act out of my personal frustration in the moment. So how can I consequence this child in such a way that's going to be helpful, but it doesn't seem like taking away that island of competence would be the thing that I would want to take away. Seems like that would go from bad to worse, right yeah.

Speaker 2 11:22

What are some common obstacles families face when trying to live with purpose and how can they overcome them?

Speaker 3 11:27

I think one of the biggest challenges for families is time. There are so many demands on our time. The parents may work all day. The kids are at school. You come home, you've got to finish homework and have dinner and maybe you know if the kids are in sports. There are extracurricular activities. Kids are in sports. There are extracurricular activities that it just we are maxed out, tapped out with obligations that may all have meaning, right, it's not to say that those things are bad, but they consume a lot of our time, and so engaging in something purposeful together is easily pushed to the back burner when you have so many other commitments and demands on your time.

Speaker 5 12:06

Yep, you took the words right out of my mouth. Time is what I thought of, and I certainly feel for listeners, though. The world places a lot of demands on us, and our days are so busy and folks might be exhausted, some folks might be just under-resourced, and you're just trying to get through the day and you feel like you just don't have the energy, the time or the energy, but my hope would be that somehow this has got to happen right. We're going to have to be intentional with our parenting.

Speaker 3 12:37

Well, and I think you have to give yourself a manageable goal with purpose, right. So it may not be that I can do something on a weekly basis, maybe not even a monthly basis, but could I could quarterly. We do something together, you know, and that that might be we go and volunteer at the food bank one Saturday a quarter right. Or we we go and volunteer at a animal shelter right, it doesn't have to be frequently, but it does need to be purposeful and meaningful, and then we set the tone for that, right. Just like when you said earlier, if you're yelling at the kids to clean up their room and meanwhile yours is a disaster, right. You've got to be able to set the tone and, rather than drop them off at the food bank, go work alongside of them. It's one Saturday a quarter. Could you make a family commitment to that? I think you'd find a lot of meaning and purpose in that.

Speaker 4 13:30

I don't know how my family did it, but my mother, I think, attended every one of our extracurricular activities. And even when I was in college and I played softball and she made even time to get to some of those games, which was really amazing to me. So it was noticeable, but I think parents who have multiple kids all being in multiple activities, it is hard to make each and every one.

Speaker 5 13:53

And back to what you said, suzanne, and you've mentioned this, so really make do a good job of bringing this out to the listeners. With all the things is to do manageable things and but you know small things and if seems like if you could do that and install that a routine yeah.

Speaker 5 14:11

And it's a ritual, it has a rhythm to it Once you get there, and it doesn't have to be such a big thing. Like you said, once a month we're going to go to the food bank or whatever, and this is just what we do. It seems like once you get it installed and just stick with it, it does become easier and kind of gives your days, your weeks, your months sort of a rhythm, don't you think?

Speaker 3 14:31

I do think, and again I think, just like you said, you find joy in it. You feel good about the time you spent helping someone else, and then you look forward to it next time.

Speaker 5 14:47

Yeah. But if you're trying to do, just all of a sudden you're feeling really guilty, like oh purpose, and you try to do this big thing, that's exhausting and it's probably not going to be transformative and it might even go wrong. Or if you're trying to reinvent the wheel all the time, but just to have just just like we talked about. Hey, we're going to have a sit-down meal and how, how that would benefit a household and don't try to do too much about that, but we're just going to at such and such a time our schedules all allow for this we're going to sit down and face-to-face and unplug our phones and have a meal. Okay, that's a big deal if you can just install that. Or if you can install, then, that once a month going to the food bank. Those things are doable even for busy people, aren't they?

Speaker 2 15:22

So how can parents help children who feel lost or unmotivated reconnect with a sense of purpose?

Fostering Purpose Through Family Values

Speaker 3 15:28

I'm going to repeat myself, but I do think you, as the adult, lead the charge, you set the example. And how many times have we all had conversations with kids who were unmotivated? You know, we all do things we don't want to do sometimes. Right, I don't always want to load or unload the dishwasher, I really don't always want to sweep them off the floor, but there's a reason, there's a purpose, right, and so that's just a conversation where, rather than argue with the child, we can acknowledge how they're feeling about it. Right, listen, acknowledge, argue with the child. We can acknowledge how they're feeling about it. Right, listen, acknowledge. And then we have a conversation where we say you know, sometimes we go do things we didn't really want to do at first. Sometimes we go shovel the neighbor's walk, even though you really didn't want to, but we're doing it with them, as Mike said before. And sometimes you commit to the behavior and the feelings come after the behavior. You don't always have to feel motivated. You have to do the chore and the feelings come along.

Speaker 2 16:21

I think passion is contagious too. If we're, if we lead the charge, if we're the ones who are excited about whatever activity we're going to do, then the kids are more likely to be excited and passionate about it too. But if we go into the situation we're like this is lame, we're just doing it because I guess we have to, and kids will follow suit. Kids always follow the suit of the people in charge, of the parents leading them.

Speaker 3 16:42

I don't think parents realize how much influence they have over their kids' thoughts and behavior. But we lead the way and they will certainly follow.

Speaker 2 16:51

I've heard it said when us, as parents, our whisper is like a roar. So kids are going to be paying definitely attention to how we are, how we're interacting with whatever the activity is. Yeah, so how can families create a shared sense of purpose or mission that everyone can contribute to?

Speaker 3 17:05

I think it might, especially if you have more than one child. But to get the kids involved in what are, what are some ways you'd be interested in helping other people right, what are things that you're interested in? If you have a child who's terrified of dogs, you're not going to take them to the animal shelter, but sit down and have a meeting and talk about you know what are our values, what things are important to us, what suggestions do you have? But let them be part of the planning.

Speaker 2 17:31

I think clarifying what your family values are and what you guys focus on is important too, and because kids just aren't going to know them, we have to actually talk about them and exhibit them and once we kind of have that conversation, like you're saying, with them, I think that's going to open their eyes and desires to want to participate and have that purpose as well.

Speaker 4 17:48

And they have some good ideas. I mean, you'll be surprised if you, like you said, if you just ask the kids, they may know of something a friend needs or a family needs through school and that we could help volunteer.

Speaker 5 17:59

Yeah, Boy, that's the, that, that is the. I don't know. That's the art of this whole thing, isn't it, shelly? It's, it's. How can we draw that out? And and let them participate in some of the, the dreaming, the brainstorming? I just shared this little article in the in our last newsletter there were oh, we had some boys out here Talk about those who feel lost or unmotivated. Josh, you just asked us about how to help those to reconnect with sense of purpose. These four boys were ninth graders and they were lost and unmotivated both.

Speaker 2 18:33

Okay.

Speaker 5 18:35

And I'm not sure which more of which, but they were.

Speaker 3 18:39

Does that describe all ninth grade boys?

Speaker 5 18:42

Well, yeah, they're the bottom of the food chain for heaven's sakes.

Speaker 1 18:45

Okay.

Speaker 5 18:45

Yeah, they went from being the big cheese of middle school to now the bottom of the food chain. Because the ninth grade girls there's interest in ninth grade girls. Those ninth grade boys are the bottom of the food chain yeah.

Speaker 5 18:58

And they were, uh, yeah, they just weren't fitting in anywhere. They were struggling, they. They didn't have a sense of purpose. Um, they, they weren't kids that were connected at chapel. And I, I asked them if they'd like to go to town and, uh, get an angel tree angel, get Christmas for a kid that needs a Christmas, and those angel tree angels that are in bank lobbies, right, and they say, oh sure, and of course they were just glad to go to Amarillo and that sort of thing.

Speaker 5 19:26

But we get there and suddenly you're looking at this little angel tree angel description and it tells you the boy's age I think he was nine years old and it says his shirt size and he likes Ninja Turtles and all of a sudden I saw it draw them in, it captured their imagination. And so we go through the store and I'm still in my box, shelly, okay, and I'm just trying to, you know, just get from point A to point B and get this done. I was feeling real good about you know what I was teaching the kids. We get the stuff in the cart and then, before we get to the checkout stand. Well, the kids are hanging back and they're looking at some gaudy stuff and everything and I thought well, they obviously didn't really get the message of what this was about. Okay, they're looking at cool stuff they wanted, or whatever. Well, it turned out I was wrong. They come over and they said hey, sir, no offense, but we want to get this kid some really cool stuff.

Speaker 3 20:18

Not the boring stuff you picked out Not the boring stuff I picked out.

Speaker 5 20:23

So this is where.

Speaker 5 20:23

I had to get over myself and I said, all right, take the cart. And they took off. And after a while they come back and they had the gaudiest shirt in the entire store, the last shirt I would have ever picked out. It was bright fluorescent orange with black trim and chrome spikes on it and I thought, well, after I got over the shock of it I thought you know what that nine-year-old kid probably thinks that is the coolest shirt. And then the Ninja Turtle toy that they bought was over budget. Well, it turned out that their little bit of spending money that they had for our town trip they all chipped it all in to pay and they were able to pay for the whole thing. So there was all that generosity that tapped into these kids to put these things into motion. But then also, we need to let go of a little bit of our need for control and let them take some ownership right, and just the coolest stuff can happen. It's there, it's in the kids, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:28

So what are some traditions or routines families can adopt to reinforce their core values and purpose?

Speaker 4 21:33

Family dinners, I know that's hard to do anymore. But growing up we ate dinner almost every night together and that was also a time to kind of talk about your day and family meetings. I know we do that here at Boys Ranch. I don't know if we really did it when growing up, but I think that's just coming together when you can and making the most of that time.

Speaker 3 21:53

I think, just like Chaplain Wilhelm shared you know, as a family, going to choose an angel off the tree, and we often would choose an angel that was similar in age to our kids, and so then it's a really great conversation about what did this child ask for Christmas? How is that different from you, what you asked for for Christmas? What kind of things does that make you think about? If we didn't take this angel off the tree, would this child have a Christmas? I just think it's a really powerful. Again, it's not focusing on yourself but looking at the needs of somebody else.

Speaker 5 22:29

Absolutely. Yeah, that's so cool that you do that. And, shelly, just a few podcasts ago we talked about the value of having that sit-down meal and I mentioned in the podcast but, yeah, a number of years ago at the University of Madison they had, of all the brainiac studies and things that they'd done, they had determined it was all said and done that there is great power in just simply establishing one sit-down, face-to-face meal every day and just putting that into a home that maybe is really on the margins and really under-resourced and struggling right on the brink of some negative outcomes, with kids maybe even leading a school dropout. If they could just get a home to establish that one sit-down meal, they had the data to show that we can really change the trajectory of a number of lives that are maybe heading off the rails. So yeah for sure.

Speaker 5 23:30

Another thing, josh, about this is whenever kids get outside of themselves and are you know we're going to go do an angel tree this whole thing about faith formation in an age right now where it's not a given that everyone believes in God Some people have a hard time today believing in God. That's a whole other podcast. But kids that have experiences like that of going and serving, imagining what it's like to be someone that might not have a Christmas and be part of getting that kid a Christmas. Suddenly you have an imagination that's prepared to be able to believe. It becomes much easier to believe in God, right?

Speaker 2 24:09

So how can serving others, whether volunteering or helping in small ways, build a sense of purpose for both kids and families?

Speaker 4 24:16

I think it teaches empathy I don't know Giving back, seeing that others struggle as well, and it makes you feel like your struggles aren't as bad as they seem. So it's easier, I think, to help others.

Speaker 3 24:30

Well, and when your kids see what's important to you, that you value helping others, that becomes important to them and I do think it makes you feel good. Right, josh mentioned earlier you know kids having a sense of entitlement, and when you're only given to and you never learn to give back, that breeds entitlement, right. And so the more opportunities we give for our kids to give to other people and that could be, you know we hand them a quarter to put in the offering at church on Sunday, or we go and sweep a neighbor's walkway or shovel their snow, or you know whatever that is that giving back to others is important in building character but also developing those core values that your family thinks are important.

Speaker 4 25:16

Yes, I still volunteer. I volunteer at the Wild West Wildlife Place on Sundays, and I mean it just for like three hours or four hours, but it does your heart good.

Speaker 2 25:27

All right. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you'd like to contact us and ask a question, our email address is podcasts at calfarleyorg. I'll leave a link in the description and, as always, remember you might have to loan out your front of the obstetrics day. Just make sure you remember to get them back.

Speaker 1 25:42

Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Farley'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 calfarleyorg. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for calfarlies. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.