Brain Based Parenting
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.
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podcasts@calfarley.org
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For More Information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch:
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Brain Based Parenting
How Community Service Builds Kinder, Stronger Kids: Building Gratitude, Empathy, and Real-World Skills
Want your child to trade boredom and entitlement for empathy, confidence, and real-world skills? We unpack how consistent, hands-on service can flip that switch.
We dive into why serving others accelerates brain development from self-focus to perspective-taking, and how repeated, real-life interactions build emotional intelligence that screens can’t teach. You'll hear how mission work reframes what kids think they need to be happy.
If your teen is stuck, we outline small, likely-to-succeed steps: a food bank drop-off, a nursing home visit, or a neighborhood cleanup. We share red flags like chronic boredom, entitlement, and the growing “I need” list, plus the counterintuitive fix: more service, not more stuff. Parents will learn to model compassion through tiny daily acts—holding doors, returning neighbors’ trash bins, paying it forward—and to frame service as “helping others,” not punishment. The result is a family identity built on showing up, preparing kids to be good neighbors, grounded leaders, and trusted teammates employers actually seek.
Ready to build empathy, gratitude, and purpose at home? Listen now, try one idea this week, and tell us what happened. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and email your questions to podcast@calfarley.org. Your next step could change your child’s story.
Contact:
podcasts@calfarley.org
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 Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, Cal Farley Staff Development Coordinator, Joshua Sprock.
SPEAKER_00:Hello and welcome to the Brainbase Parenting Podcast. Today we're going to talk about the importance of community service and how it can help expand our kids' awareness.
SPEAKER_02:To do that today, I'm joined by Julia Ortega, Direct Care Staff Trainer.
SPEAKER_04:Mike Wilhelm, Director of Faith-Based Outreach.
SPEAKER_03:Suzanne Wright, Vice President of Training and Intervention.
SPEAKER_00:All right, let's kick off with our question of the day. What kind of community service do you enjoy most being involved in?
SPEAKER_02:I think for me, I really enjoy cooking and serving food. That just makes me happy to be and I also like neighborhood cleanup.
SPEAKER_05:Community service I like to do would be I've I've just enjoyed community service with young people over the years. And I guess we'll be talking about that a lot in the podcast today, but I've enjoyed any kind of community service with the I I agree with both of you.
SPEAKER_03:I enjoy anything that serves others, but I also have enjoyed being involved in events where my children could participate and we could serve together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's one of the best things to be able to do is just serve with your kids. And that's one of my I I love vacation Bible school helping serve with that. And I don't know what it is. It's just such a fun, exhausting, but fun outreach. And I remember our pastor one time before vacation Bible school started just asked the congregation how many people first heard about Jesus during vacation Bible school? And like three quarters of the congregation's hands went up. And I just thought it was such a cool, powerful outreach. And so I just love being part of that. So why is it important for kids to develop an awareness of others outside of themselves, especially in today's culture?
SPEAKER_03:Part of a child's brain development is to be focused on their selves, right? For for young children, it's hard for them to see things from another person's perspective. But as they get older, they develop that capacity to look outside of themselves to see the needs of others. And I think that's that's important. It's always easy to feel sorry for yourself or bad about something you don't have until you encounter people in situations even more difficult than your own. And I think it really helps broaden your perspective and and it helps appreciate what you have, helps you to appreciate what you have.
SPEAKER_02:I think when you serve other people as well, especially people that are in dire need of support. I think it's also helps young people to remove judgment when they get to know those people as people.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And it removes judgment of who they think those people really are.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they're they're no longer a group, they're individual human beings.
SPEAKER_05:Well, that's a great point.
SPEAKER_00:So what might be some of the long-term benefits socially, emotionally, and spiritually of involving kids in service or volunteer work?
SPEAKER_03:Aaron Ross Powell I think that's a pattern that you can set with children when they're young to develop in them the importance of service to others and and they can carry that throughout their lives. Just like Julie said, it helps them to see other people for who they truly are. It helps you be grateful for what you have, it connects you to other people. I just think it's one of the most important activities you can expose your child to.
SPEAKER_05:Probably Suzanne, Josh, Julie, you've read some Viktor Frankel. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:It's been a long time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Man's Search for Meaning. And he was a, for those who who aren't familiar, he was a psychiatrist that was a Jewish psychiatrist who was incarcerated in the the famous Auschwitz death camp, right, in Nazi Germany, and survived it and lived to tell the tale. And he he says that he noticed from that awful experience there that people can live with without means, but we can't live without meaning. So yeah, he saw people in very, very just just with every material thing stripped away. But those who had something meaningful, and a lot of times it was serving their fellow man there in that awful condition. But I think he's on to something, and here we you know, we can live with uh all kinds of stuff, but if we don't if we don't have meaning, and if our kids uh don't have meaning, it's they simply won't flourish. So it's it's important to get for them to be able to be engaged, right?
SPEAKER_03:My kids were involved in 4 H when they were younger. You yours too, right, Mike?
SPEAKER_05:Oh yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And and one of the things I always appreciated about 4 H was that regardless of the competition, whether you were showing animals or baking or sewing, whatever your um activity was, there was a community service component to it. So, you know, there it it had to be connected in some way. So if you were cooking, you might cook for another family or cook for someone in the community or an event. If you were sewing, you might make black blankets to take to a nursing home. Or, but every single part of that had a community service component. And I felt like it was so important for the kids to have that part. You know, I'm not I'm not just producing this food or raising this animal, but I'm also contributing something to the community as as part of this, and that's a central tenet of 4-H.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I I appreciate that. And I had that experience. I was in 4-H myself. And it sure it's oh, it's it's part of the that program, if you will. So it seems a little bit artificial or what it's you know, prescribed rather than just being something natural, but that's how most things uh how we get started, right? Introduced to something that's different. So I found that it was very beneficial to be asked to do that, introduced to some kind of community service, and then it it does kind of, I don't know, kind of greases the skids, then all suddenly that becomes more of a natural thing that that you're drawn to. I I think too, uh you probably have had some involved with scouts, and I I don't have a scouting background, but I think that's a component of of uh scouts and those that would go on to be an Eagle Scout. I think that's a big component, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And the Eagle Scout, I think, project is a community service project. It has to be something for the community or for others.
SPEAKER_05:For for great reason, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We try to look for opportunities for our kids that live at Boys Ranch to provide community service to others, which is so important. And one of Cal Farley's sayings was if it's good for the kids, it's more work for the adults. And I find that to be very true, right? Anytime you're trying to get kids involved in community service, that's gonna take some effort and creativity and planning on on the part of the adult, but it's so valuable. Julie, if I remember correctly, when you and Ray were house parenting, didn't you take kids to work on Habitat for Humanity homes?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, one Saturday a month, we would go to Habitat for Humanity as a home. And on those days, we like packed a lunch. We didn't go out to eat. We packed a lunch. We actually at one point, one of the boys in the home, his mother was trying to work towards a home. And so we got it approved for mine and Ray's hours to work towards her hours because she didn't have any family except her son that lived with us.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so that was that was one of the best experiences through community service we had as house parents was getting to watch that process through the whole process. And then eventually the boys got to be at her ribbon cutting for her. When she got a house, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and the boys actually earn the golden hammer a lot.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Through doing that community service. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And so what what would you say the impact was on the boys in your home who worked with you at Habitat for Humanity?
SPEAKER_02:I think greatest things to watch was they would always be paired up with somebody older, and that older person was always teaching them a new skill. And so that was cool to get to see those relationships and for them to start building connections in the community. And for people in the community to see our kids as not delinquents or you know, trouble kids that are. They were producers, not consumers. Yeah. Yeah. And then our kids, like in the home, we saw things like them helping each other out when they did um to help somebody in the home out, or just able to have better conversations, even about what each other needed and what each other could do to help. So it just, I mean, it just bled throughout their whole time at the ranch. That's so great. About three hours a month at Habitat for Humanity.
SPEAKER_05:You know, that we had one of our Iona project interns a couple years ago was taking groups of boys' ranch, teams of boys ranch kids down to work on a Habitat for Humanity home. He did that over a year's time. And I think that I think his boys ranch group was the main they were the main hands that built this particular home. And then there was a family they were there for presenting that home where it was a it was a a a refugee family that was had immigrated to the United States, some that came from some very difficult circumstances, and it was so it was a beautiful thing to behold. And probably jumping ahead, Josh, on the with but the magic of it is the kids love going on those trips. And I don't know, listeners might wonder, well, I don't know if that would really go over. Would they want to do this? And they would be lined up, they would waiting list, wanting to go on those trips. They just were so jazzed by those trips.
SPEAKER_03:I think, you know, we can remember when we were young children how excited we were to get a gift. But at some point in our development, something in your brain switches and you become really excited about giving gifts to other people. You know, try to think back what was the first time you remember that you were so excited to give a gift to someone else, you could barely keep it a surprise. You wanted to give it early. And so that was encouraged, right? At some point, we kind of flip that switch and we learn the value of giving to others and and how it truly blesses us.
SPEAKER_00:How does helping others build empathy, compassion, and other emotional intelligence in children?
SPEAKER_03:You know, we used to have a a set of house parents here on campus who had served as missionaries in Mexico, uh, Tim and Susan Nation, and they were fabulous in both of those roles. They were house parents at a time where the border situation was safe enough for us to take children to do missionary projects. I love to visit with the kids when they would come back from those trips because they had such an amazing experience. You know, I think most teenagers have, you know, a mental list of what you need to be happy, right? What kind of shoes do you need and what what's the brand of jeans you should be wearing and what kind of phone do you have? And do you have a car and what does that look like? And, you know, what kind of jobs do your parents have, or do you live on the correct side of town? You know, all of those things. And our kids have those lists too. But they would go to Mexico and they would interact with kids who lived in an orphanage with outdoor toilets and dirt floors and mismatched clothes, and yet those kids were happy. And so our residents had to ask themselves, they don't have anything on the list, but what makes them happy? And it and it caused them to kind of question their paradigm. And so anytime those kids got back from a mission trip, I like to, you know, kind of track them down one by one and have that conversation and just say, tell me about your trip and tell tell me about you what you learned. And they were just excited and impacted on a long-term basis, right? They learned some lessons through giving to others that are gonna last them a lifetime. And it was always such an encouragement to me as well.
SPEAKER_00:What about the emotional intelligence part? I've heard a lot of researchers saying that employers are now really, really looking for people who have high emotional intelligence as opposed to just IQ. How does it help develop that and why is that so important?
SPEAKER_05:I would like, just so I'm clear on what that means, and some listeners might want emotional intelligence. What what exactly are we talking about when you say emotional intelligence?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell Well, I think it's the awareness of ourselves in relation to other people's emotions and just being able to read read the room really and see how other people what needs they have and how you can meet their needs type thing.
SPEAKER_05:Well, no, I that I I appreciate that. We're probably are we're we're in some uncharted waters right now, and I know I hate to sound like a broken record on the podcast, but we are in a a digital age. Uh I mean, kids are growing up, they're having a screen-based childhood as opposed to a play-based childhood, and that's just reality. And with that, there's there are less uh social interactions in the room that happened. Used to be part of normal human development up until now. So without that practice and without just, I'm sure the the neural connections that happen from that, we we will tend to really be lacking that ability to read the room, know how someone else is feeling, how to respond, what's appropriate. So uh these type of things to get out to serve others is really a great way to help enrich those kind of necessary experiences, don't you think?
SPEAKER_03:I do. I agree with that. And you know, I see a lot culturally now that the person with the biggest platform and the loudest voice dictates that everybody else should see the world the way they see the world. And that's just not reality, right? You know, in in most work environments, unless you work from home and you're fairly isolated, you work with other people that you have to maintain relationships with. Our brain defaults to the idea that everybody sees the world the way we see it. I think Josh mentioned that recently on a podcast. And in reality, that's just not true. We all have our own experiences that that have shaped how we see the world. And we have to be respectful of other people's backgrounds and experiences as well. And that requires some emotional intelligence.
SPEAKER_02:I think one thing too that doing for others teaches us that we can't gain from like social media or being connected to um our digital things is compassion.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that's so important for kids to learn compassion and how to not only help serve others, but how to treat others. And I I think that's something that is well learned through community service. I agree.
SPEAKER_00:Amen. I think we've talked a little bit about this, but how does community service help kids develop gratitude and perspective, especially when they see people who have less than they do?
SPEAKER_05:You know, Suzanne, you talked about the the trips that Tim and Sue Nation helped with, and I I I was blessed to be uh part of a number of those trips. And where we went to uh to Mexico and did some service projects, we would a lot of times we would build a casita for someone that didn't have housing. But one thing that we did was we would drive through cardboard city, whatever the different nicknames they gave the neighborhood, but it'd be acres, people living in shelter built out of pallet and cardboard out in just a dirt area. And we had a group of kids down there, one holiday break, and these are kids that didn't have the they stayed with us on ranch through the holiday because they were from quite a ways out of state, and they they were just so happened it was a bunch of oh, I just love these guys. They were kind of rough bunch, and they were from inner city, Philly, inner city of New Jersey, and Chicago. They were all inner c kids from the inner city. They were not the easiest bunch to be in the van with for a 10-hour drive. Okay, but and they were and they weren't the easiest bunch to direct, but when we drove through that cardboard, the the cardboard city, the van got quiet. And I mean just quiet, nobody saying a word. And finally I heard one in the back, and he was a real he's a real mouthy kid. And he said, Man, he said, I thought the hood was bad. And that driving through and getting that perspective of how other people with what little some people might live with and those conditions, that that was always just very helpful. And it wasn't that you want to throw some kind of an unhealthy guilt trip onto kids that that or anybody, that that that doesn't get us anywhere. But to see to get that perspective and hopefully just awaken new levels of gratitude and more of a commitment to service, right?
SPEAKER_03:When my children were in middle school, our church had a three or four-day camp town. They didn't leave and go somewhere, but it was kind of a camp where they did community service all day in the evening. They got to have a fun activity. They, you know, made sandwiches and took bottles of water and fed homeless people in the park, or they went to an animal shelter and played with it. I mean, they did a variety of things, but it was 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They were working and they were doing things for other people. You know, in the evening they might swim or but each child will tell you that was their most favorite summer activity ever. Over any other kind of camp or fun thing that they did, that community service had the biggest impact, I think, for some of the same reasons. They weren't told you ought to be happy for what you have, right? But they were led to some insight that showed them, hey, not everybody has what you have, right? And and through no virtue of your own do you have those things. But you could be helpful to other people. And I just think it it was very powerful.
SPEAKER_05:That's such a great point, too, about, and I know when we're frustrated when our when our young friends, our kids are at their worst, and you know, some days are gonna be at their worst, it it's gonna push our buttons, and our our reservoir of compassion and patience has been exhausted. And we will want to go there where we want to lecture that you should be grateful for what you have. And what that's doing really is as I'm frustrated and I go there, it's really touching on some, it's kind of shaming. That does not generate a a good result, which is what we want with our kids. We we would want them to awaken to gratitude and and and feel a commitment or being compelled to service. If I'm tapping into a kind of a shaming thing, that just shuts the whole thing down. And you cannot lecture someone into gratitude. But if you show them or invite them into an experience, it's it's just magical what can happen.
SPEAKER_00:So, what might be some signs that a child may be becoming too self-focused or lacking awareness of others' needs?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think when that list starts to get longer, that that list of here are the things I need to be happy, and a and a focus on things or a focus on keeping up with other people, which which we are inundated with in our culture, right? We're constantly shown through social media and advertising that we are lacking in some way and that we need X, Y, or Z to be happy.
SPEAKER_05:I would say boredom is good too. Yeah, I would say boredom is is a red flag showing that this kiddo right now is not flourishing. If they're if they're really stuck in a state of boredom, there probably is a self-centered focus. And the harder you lean into that, the the more boredom and despair and just meaninglessness that that life brings. And you can't you can try to feed it with more and more material things or self-centered things, and it just won't get you there. So I would say boredom would be one of those things that would tip me off that may maybe there's a there's a lack of uh there's a self-focus and a lack of awareness. Um would you say?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've heard also that the brain can't process the emotions of anxiety and gratitude at the same time, that they're polar opposites. So if a kid is feeling anxious, then that might be a pretty good warning sign that they're lacking some gratitude and some some service to others might be a good remediation for that.
SPEAKER_05:It seems like that joy entitlement, boredom and entitlement and joy don't can't really go together either, and either. So entitlement and and boredom is kind of a joy killer, but on the other hand, joy just really does it extinguishes all of that. It's so but you said what were the two you said can't exist together?
SPEAKER_00:Anxiety and gratitude. And gratitude. Yeah, that's good. So what encouragement would you give to parents who feel that their child is struggling with empathy or doesn't show much interest in others' needs?
SPEAKER_03:As we've talked about, I think it'd be great to find an opportunity for community service. And I don't think you have to look far, right? Whether you live in a in a small town or a big town, there are generally opportunities there, involvement at church or 4-H, or you know, look to find a need. What did uh the movie Robots said? You know, see a need, feel a need. And so I think that all around you there are opportunities to to serve in your community, but you set you set the example, right? You're the role model. What do they see that you also value service to others? And and I don't think it always has to be a big production, right?
SPEAKER_05:That's a great point.
SPEAKER_03:But but do they see that that you open a door for someone? I have a pet peeve when I see someone pushing a wheelchair or someone with a stroller struggling to get through a door and people are just walking right by. You know, so my children were taught from a young age, you better have your eye on that door and you better beat me to it, right? But I mean, that's that's important. Or you see sometimes that somebody in a drive-thru will say, Hey, I want to pay for the person behind me. I mean, those are small gestures, they don't take a lot of time or a lot of effort, but your kids are watching.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that's a great point.
SPEAKER_02:I think there's room almost in daily life to do something for somebody else. And and I agree with Suzanne, it doesn't, you don't have to plan this big thing. It could be, let's go pick up trash on our street. Or may we we had somebody in Ray's mom's neighborhood that when they would have to put their trash out, there was a boy in the in the on the street that would go and put all everybody's trash cans on. Such a simple thing, but such a sweet, sweet thing um to do for and it was young and old, it didn't matter. You got your trash can put back, you know, where it went after after the trash had been picked up. Just a simple thing that was such a huge gesture. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You know, I I would caution uh any you know, parent listening, if things are kind of at a stuck point right now, and can easily be the case, especially if I have a a a young person or a teenager that's really stuck into their electronics, which is real common now. So I understand it. You uh there's it's easy to be frustrated, hear a podcast like this, and then kind of have a knee-jerk reaction, uh almost an angry knee-jerk reaction. Well, we're gonna do community service.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Good luck on that. Okay, I'll bet it's probably not gonna go well. To uh and and like Suzanne said, it doesn't have to be, at least for starters, like a big thing, but it could be a small thing for them just to watch. Might just uh, you know, ask my my teenager, hey, I'm I need your help with something here after school today. Would you go with me and go down and you take some hams down to the the food bank right at Thanksgiving? They were just right in the middle of that, and I'll I'll bet you that would be a positive experience. But it has a chance if things right now are a real stuck point, some some things like that where you don't have to, one, don't have a knee-jerk reaction and do it out of anger, and then you don't necessarily have to all of a sudden we're gonna just do it all and have this big event thing. But for starters, just find something that could have a some success with it, right?
SPEAKER_02:I think your language is important too, Mike. Like instead of like reframing community service into just helping others, I think might be better perceived and just as natural. Yeah. And just can become part of your natural way your family does things. Community service does make you think about, oh, I have to go to this big project and the whole family's gonna be drug-along. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, there are times where where kids and or adults are assigned community service as a punishment through the legal system. And so you certainly don't want it to become that, but you just really want it to become here's something that our family does. As we were talking, I had this memory from many, many years ago when I was a little girl and I was in the brownies. I didn't go on to Girl Scouts, but I was a brownie. And and we had a meeting where we were told a story about brownies. And as I remember, they were almost like fairies, and they went into this older couple's home at night and took took care of all sorts of little chores that needed to be done. And the intent was that we would go home and also do chores for our family, right? You know, just secretly pick up the trash or fold the laundry, or you know, but but that was something instilled in us at a very young age through the telling of a story, but it inspired us to go home and do those things.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:I hadn't thought about that in many years.
SPEAKER_05:I'll bet you were a good brownie. Pretty good. But but I I can think too, there's there's so much potential, especially if this has not been part of someone's uh the way you you've been doing parenting, and all of a sudden you're hearing this message, and okay, we need to get started with this. And I agree you do. For me to make sure that there's a it's easy for this to go off the rails at first, where all of a sudden we're doing this new thing, and there's also there's there's almost a shaming with it. And it's all about you're I'm needing to fix, you know, the the teenagers just hearing, okay, I'm there I there's something wrong with me. We're trying to fix me. And I would say as an adult to my you know, my kiddo, hey, I just realized I've been a lot more self-centered than I should be. And and I know I'm I'm the parent here, but you know, I mess up too, and I feel like we need to, you know, or something I need to do. I want to know, would you come along with me and yeah and invite them along? So it's not all targeting the kid and they're feeling like we're trying to fix them. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, that's good advice.
SPEAKER_05:I even wonder about this is me and you Josh, you and Julie, Suzanne, you might disagree with me. I'm not sure that I would give them choice. Okay. Now that sounds uh that sounds awful and heretical, but what I'm saying is I think I might say, hey, here's what we're gonna be doing after school tomorrow, and and I I just need your help with something. I feel like if you just it was something new and say, hey, would you like to? I'm gonna say the default's gonna be what? I I think you're gonna get a no, and then you're really in a stuck place.
SPEAKER_00:I think you're right. When one of the homes I supervised out here, they took their girls to the nursing home to do community service. And initially it was just grumble grumble. We're not, we don't want to do this. But the house parents there are just like, no, this is what we're doing as a home. And the first probably they did it once a month. The first two months, I think the girls grumbled every time, but after that, it became just part of the routine. And I think a lot of it also is the enthusiasm and passion of the staff doing it. They were excited about it and that became kind of contagious to the kids. And before too long, it wasn't the staff leading it, it was the girls who were like, Yes, we're doing this, and they were they were the ones leading the charge. And so yeah, I think you're exactly right.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I don't know. I'm welcoming pushback on that because normally I'd you'd like to talk about choices, and it seems like without being bossy and getting into a power struggle, but just kind of like in a very loving way, hey, we're this is what we're gonna be doing at three o'clock today. I'm really needing your help with something. Yeah, and here we go.
SPEAKER_03:You know, Mike, I love to push back when it's you, but I agree with you. You do push back.
SPEAKER_05:Well, this is on recorded too. So I'm gonna save this forever.
SPEAKER_00:So, how early should parents start teaching kids about helping others? And what are some age-appropriate ways to do this?
SPEAKER_03:I don't really think you can start too early, right? If they if they can walk and they can talk, they can help. And you know, we've talked about that on previous podcasts uh about how soon can we assign chores, right? The same is true for community service. And if you are involving them from a young age, then they just know this is how our family operates and this is is what we do. So I think you can start that young. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, wow, I mean, how could a kiddo be too how could it ever be too soon, like say, to go visit a lonely person at the nursing home and take them a little take them a little gift or something like that. I mean, I can't imagine there would be a too early time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was just gonna say, as far as it being age appropriate, the child may not understand we are going to help other people. They're just involved in it. It just becomes part of how our family operates.
SPEAKER_00:So maybe you can give me some examples of some simple servic service projects that even young children can participate in.
SPEAKER_03:You know, we about once a year we have a cleaning day at our church. And I think even very small children can come and dust with a rag, you know, push a broom out. Right. And and it's it's not necessarily as helpful as it might be. It takes a little longer to clean when you've got in a a young assistant. But again, they see everybody's participating, everybody's doing that. And so I know at the last, at the last day we had our our preacher and his wife have three children, and their youngest daughter was probably five or six at the time, and and she saw everybody else working, and she wanted to be right in there with whatever else we were doing. And and so I think it's really powerful. Whether you are visiting someone maybe who lives home alone or going to a nursing home, I think, you know, preparing food for somebody, it's so easy to involve children in those things. Maybe not in working at Habitat for Humanity. You might need to be a little older for that, right? Yeah. Do you think that'cause they do have an age learning? Yeah, I think so. But I think, you know, most things it it's more simple than you think to involve a child.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's like if you're making a meal for somebody, you know, maybe a meal train and for people at your church or your community, take your kids with you to deliver that meal. It's not a big thing, but it's a very impactful experience for them. You know, if you're going to I can remember when I was growing up, my grandmother lived in a nursing home. And we never, when I was younger, we never went to visit her. She just came to our house. And so the first few times I when I became in high school and I on my own went to go visit her, it was uncomfortable to me at first because I've never been around that experience. Eventually I was very comfortable there and I'd go a lot and visit her. But you know, if you're going to those, just take your kids along with you. Even if they're not doing anything, they're experiencing it.
SPEAKER_00:What role do parents play in modeling compassion and a servant's heart for their kids?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think if you aren't role modeling it, it's going to be hard to get your kids involved in it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sometimes I think we're really good at telling kids you should go do community service or you should go help other people and we're pointing the finger at them and we don't really model good behavior ourselves. It's I think much better to do it together. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03:Do you know, Josh, when your kids were younger, they went to VBS and they've continued to go to VBS way past the age when they're eligible to participate because they're serving right alongside you and their mom.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell So how can families connect the idea of serving others to biblical teaching and spiritual growth?
SPEAKER_05:Oh wow. Well, uh that should be shouldn't be too difficult. Uh one, we at the very core of our gospel, you have Jesus giving his life away. You have the event on the cross on Good Friday where he gives his life away. And then you follow the the teaching of the New Testament, and you have let's see, what did he uh when Paul uh has his conversion and he he meets with the with the the higher ups in Jerusalem and they affirmed him as a brother and commissioned him to go out. They said they only asked that I remember the poor, which I was eager, in fact, to do. So that that was that was the the pattern of the New Testament church from the get-go was to mem remember the poor. And I think, as best I know, that would have been an unusual thing in the ancient Greco-Roman world. That just that that is what Christians do. And there's a there's a passage in Ephesians 20, 35 where Jesus is quoted that uh it's more blessed to give than to receive. And it's funny, that's a place where Jesus is quoted not in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, it's actually in Ephesians. There was a saying that this had been retold. But it really is. It's more bl blessed to give than to receive. And best way to it's a great thing to teach and then to go and take them out and to experience it, and you'll find, you know what, that's true.
SPEAKER_00:So, how do these kinds of experiences help prepare kids to be good neighbors, leaders, and citizens?
SPEAKER_03:I think if you were to sit down and describe what kind of neighbor would be your ideal neighbor, or what kind of mayor or other elected leader would be your ideal leader, you would include in that description somebody who was helpful, somebody who was kind towards others and somebody who was compassionate towards others, right? Just how impactful that somebody else carried my trash can, you know, back and forth. Some s a neighbor that showed up and mowed my yard a week when I was sick. I mean, like all of the the wonderful things that you have experienced yourself, that's that would be included in your description.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I was thinking that this whole thing about inviting kids into this life of service, it it really it will, it's the it's the cure for the boredom that's eating our lunch right now and the the entitlement and the boredom where we flourish the way we were created to flourish as as far as uh so I hate to even talk about just the the utility of of this or the material benefits from it, but there can't get around this the fact that employers are looking for people that have higher emotional intelligence, as as you the word you used earlier, Josh, that have that kind of imagination that can see other human beings as human beings, not just objects to to use for your own personal benefit. And it seems like these, the kids that would grow up knowing how to serve, an employer would find that refreshing because they're probably gonna also just have a natural work ethic and be a delight to be around the kind of people that right now I think are rare and in demand. So I again I hate to throw you hate to throw community service out there as a here's a way to get ahead in life. But no, it's a it's a way to flourish because it's the way God created us to be. But when you're when you're flourishing, you really are that special person that people are looking to and looking for, right?
SPEAKER_04:All right, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00:If you'd like to contact us and ask us a question, our email address is podcast at calfarley.org. I'll make sure and leave a link in the description. And as always, you might have to loan out your funnel lobe today. Just make sure you remember and get them back.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about CalFarley's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your channel, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit CalFarley.org. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for Cal Farley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.
