Transforming Family Life Through Hope and Gratitude

Hope is a powerful motivator for families navigating tough times, offering resilience and purpose. This episode explores practical ways to cultivate hope through gratitude, community support, and shared experiences.

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Transcript

The Power of Hope in Parenting

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

Speaker 4 0:41

Cole Smith. I work in the Transitional Living Program. Mike Wilhelm Director of.

Speaker 2 0:46

Faith-Based Outreach. All right, let's start with our question of the day. We're talking about hope again. So what is something that you really hoped you would get for Christmas or your birthday as a kid, and you actually got it?

Speaker 4 0:56

Well, I'll say I got this and I'm gonna call it a kid. I think I was 19 years old in college, but I wanted a guitar because I hoped that my skills from Guitar Hero, the video game, would transfer over. And after actually getting it, I soon learned that my hope was not well-founded and my level of follow-through was low. And so I held on to that guitar a couple of years and it went to a couple of different houses with me before it eventually was sold.

Speaker 3 1:21

And I got it. Was there another hope attached to playing the guitar? Like, did you think I'll play the guitar well, and then I'll get a girl?

Speaker 4 1:31

No, I don't think I had that much hope.

Speaker 5 1:33

Guitar hero, is that right? Oh yeah, Spent a lot of time in college playing guitar hero, Maybe when I should have been, you know working on my schoolwork, I got a Schwinn bike and that was yeah, that was a big deal back in the day. Schwinn bike was the ultimate. So, that was a big day.

Speaker 2 1:53

That's so funny. That is exactly the same thing I was going to say A Schwinn bike was yeah and it was red banana seat. Schwinn bike is what I got. It was very. It was a very 80s looking bike. Bike is what I got. It was a very 80s looking bike.

Speaker 5 2:06

This was a very early, late 60s, I think, bike. So thanks a lot. Yeah, but it was gold, kind of a gold color. Yeah, it was quite a machine.

Speaker 3 2:17

I wanted a baby doll that would eat and drink and actually fill its dappers. And you know that was a big thing, and it came with some kind of food you mixed up and fed the baby and it had a little battery-operated mouth where it would actually move its mouth as it swallowed the food and then you got to change a diaper with said food in it. Afterwards it turned out to kind of be something gross. You had to kind of run some water through and clean it out.

Speaker 3 2:44

The commercials just made it look so enticing and I was really excited to have that baby.

Speaker 4 2:49

Yeah, we've had a few of those go through our house and after the first use I'm like, okay, how do I prevent this from molding?

Speaker 3 2:56

on the inside it's a water hose outside, flush it right through yeah.

Speaker 4 3:01

I think they've all been used once and then we hide them rat through. Yeah, I think they've all been used once and then we hide them?

Speaker 2 3:06

Oh no, no, laura. I want to start off by sharing a story that I heard from Dr Bruce Perry. It's kind of a odd story, but the way he told it was there's this really kind of old cruel experiment where the experimenters, they would get rats and they'd throw them into like a puddle or a pool of water and they would time to see how long it would take for the rats to just give up and drown. And it was a pretty consistent time, like seven minutes or something like that, where the rats would just give up and they would drown at that point. But then they changed the experiment and at the five minute mark they would pull the rats out, let them recover for a few minutes and then they would throw them back into the pool of water and then they would just time to see how long the rats would tread water for them and they would just do it indefinitely. At that point they would tread water and tread water and tread water. And he talked about how being rescued Josh, I want to interrupt.

Speaker 5 3:57

Oh yeah, You're traumatizing our audience.

Speaker 2 3:59

I know it's a pretty rough Okay.

Speaker 5 4:02

Besides, you're probably going to get calls from PETA.

Speaker 3 4:06

Well, we didn't conduct this study.

Speaker 4 4:08

No no no, no.

Speaker 3 4:09

Dr Perry just reported on this study and Josh is simply sharing that information.

Speaker 2 4:13

And it gets better at the end. Okay, so the ones that had been rescued and given some time to recuperate for a little bit? They would swim and tread water indefinitely. And he just talked about the power of being rescued and giving some hope that things can get better. How much that impacts our lives and our focus and our outcomes. I say all that to ask you this why is hope such a powerful motivator to keep going?

Speaker 3 4:39

I think hope it gives us the idea that something can be different, right, like it's an internal expectation of an external outcome, that there is a possibility that things will change right. And that's why, frequently when we go through hard times, we have hope, because we can remember when things were better in the past.

Speaker 5 5:01

Yeah, it's astonishing how we're made in such a way that all of these systems in our body really do. It makes a lot of difference what our mindset is if we really believe that things are either they're okay or they're going to get better, versus if we believe that all is lost and how in a negative way, how that affects us and that we just fail to thrive. Right, yeah, I've. I've heard the Dr Perry story actually before, and also very similar.

Speaker 5 5:30

Victor Frankel talks about you know, he's focused more on meaning and a meaningful life and having meaning, and he talks about the, the concentration camps in Auschwitz, right, and you guys have read that as well, and some of the listeners might be familiar and he observed that those that survived the horror of Auschwitz, they were not necessarily the physically biggest, strongest people, but those that had some kind of a purpose that they sensed they still had. Either they were a caretaker for somebody in the camp, maybe even for a pet rat, or there was someone at home that was expecting them. But it really is much of what you're talking about, josh. It was hope made all the difference. Those were the ones that could survive it. Right, gosh, it was hope made all the difference.

Building Hope Through Gratitude and Support

Speaker 2 6:19

Those were the ones that could survive it right. So for families experiencing loss, trauma or a significant hardship, how can they begin to rebuild hope in their lives?

Speaker 3 6:33

You know, I've heard it said that your brain cannot balance anxiety and gratitude at the same time. You can't feel both things and anxiety is so easy to give into. But when we choose to focus on things to be grateful for, it begins to change our paradigm and shift the way we see the world. And I think when you're struggling and when you're going through difficult things, it's really helpful if you can find some small things to be grateful for.

Speaker 2 6:56

So how do you encourage families to lean on support systems such as faith communities, friends or mentors when they feel isolated or overwhelmed?

Speaker 4 7:04

So you know, Helen church is probably everywhere in kind of the Bible Belt or the South that the correct response when people ask how you're doing is fine or I'm fine. Me and Chelsea is really the better one at doing this. That's my wife and she's the better one at doing lots of things. But in our Bible class community at church she just decided she's kind of going to be done with answering I'm fine and just kind of increase the level of vulnerability. And in our setting it worked out very well.

Speaker 4 7:32

It kind of attracted two different groups of people, people who came and said, hey, we've experienced some of those same things.

Speaker 4 7:39

This is what happened to us, this is how we made it through it, how can we support you?

Speaker 4 7:44

And then it also attracted the people who said I thought I was the only one. It's so great to hear that everyone else is not also just doing fine and other people are struggling. And so I think one of the biggest encouragements for families in those things is to is how can we increase the level of vulnerability that's accepted in our communities and the people around us, instead of needing to always put on the social media face of I'm fine, everything's great, everything's picture perfect in my house, instead talking about the times where we had to carry our screaming child out of the store out of the Bible class out of church out of the store or out of the Bible class or out of church and talk about the times where we didn't know what to do and increasing those level of vulnerabilities, not just for our sake and the support that we then received, but for the support that it then provided to other people who kind of got to know hey, we're not alone in this, there's other people.

Speaker 3 8:33

You're right, chelsea is amazing.

Speaker 5 8:35

The Galatians 6-2, bear your burdens with one another so fulfill the law of Christ. Yeah, we were made to live that way. And to Cole's point, I really had my feelings hurt one day at the Boys Ranch dining hall. I was going to test a friend to see if they're really listening when they say, hey, chaplain Wilhelm, how are you doing? And I said terrible, oh, that's good. And then she went on by, which tells you what. She wasn't listening and she didn't care. But that wasn't that. She's an uncaring person, she's a good friend. It just shows that we have a habit right of asking how people are doing when really it's just a courtesy and not really an investigation. She's since repented of that sin.

Speaker 2 9:19

What role does gratitude play in building hope and how can families incorporate simple gratitude practices into their daily routines?

Speaker 3 9:25

I think it's a great idea when you carve out that time to spend together each day. Maybe having dinner together, like we talked about last episode, would be a time to say, hey, what's one thing that happened to you today that you feel grateful for Just making that a practice. I know it's hard for us as adults, but if we could start that with children when they're young, it would become an easier daily practice.

Speaker 4 9:50

And I think a lot of family practices become easier if you can model them first as a parent. So before expecting your teenager, who's already struggling to sit down and do their gratitude journal with you, do your gratitude journal and share with them. Hey, these are the things I'm grateful for. Do that consistently and maybe even try to include some things about them and your gratitude and then invite them to join you in something, as opposed to ask them to do something.

Speaker 5 10:14

Well, that's good. And here at Boys Ranch we have Wednesday evening devotionals and, getting back to the previous podcast where, Cole, you were talking about having those important rituals and a lot about that consistency, the same time, a tradition that emerges from it, that's built into that devotional and, like Suzanne, like you said, that meal can serve as something like that, that touchpoint. But one thing we do with our devotionals, and have done it for years, is we share highs and lows and it's just a very simple thing to do and it could start just very surface. You know, if you're right now, if you're a listener and this is all new don't try to do too much at one time, but just establish the ritual and to share a high and a low might be kind of selfish or surface things to start with, but over time it really can open up into a time of gratitude where you start to notice you know a high, basically something that you're thankful for. So it's a great way to start to cultivate. It's a practical way to cultivate some gratitude right which brings hope.

Speaker 2 11:17

So what is one message of hope that you would share with parents, children or families who are struggling today?

Speaker 3 11:22

When I was a new parent and I would get frustrated about something that my young daughter was doing. I had a close friend whose children were just a little older and so she'd already been through those stages and I would be frustrated about, oh, we're at the terrible twos and this is horrible, and it's my first child and I just can't see beyond that. And my friend would always say it's a stage and you will get through to the other side. And so we had that conversation numerous times and by the time I was dealing with early teens, she said that and I said you know, the first time you're wrong, I'm bringing her to live with you. It's hard to see you think, oh, this is the new normal, and in reality it's usually just a stage and we're going to go through it, we'll get out on the other side and we'll function better because of it.

Speaker 4 12:19

I'll reemphasize that you are not the only parent who is struggling. You're not the only family system who things don't look the way they thought they were going to look at this time. And I don't say that to minimize, I say that to empathize that we are. We're all struggling, probably more than we're letting on, and that may mean some of us have advice, but maybe we just have some listening ears or some some be able to lend a hand sometime, because maybe we're, we've been in it and aren't in it now and can help or but. But you're not going to come across very many people. I would guess that if you shared what you're going through and vulnerable with, you go oh man, I can't believe you're struggling. We've always had it so easy.

Speaker 5 13:00

I don't think that's the response most parents would give.

Speaker 4 13:04

I think most parents are going to go. Yeah, it is hard and we'd love to be able to help in whatever way we can.

Speaker 2 13:09

All right. So one of my favorite Cal Farley quotes Cal Farley was our founder at Boys Ranch. He said the best way to help a kid get rid of their past is to give them a future. Why is this such a powerful message of hope?

Speaker 5 13:21

Well, it's very biblical. Paul says getting what is behind and straining on towards what's ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God's called me heavenward, in Christ Jesus. And yeah, it seems like if we live with our baggage and live in the past, that seems to be a recipe for despair, doesn't it? But be accepting and to be forward looking is how we live and how we thrive.

Speaker 3 13:45

There's also a verse that says for I know the plans I have for you, saith. The Lord plans to give you a hope and a future. What's the rest of that, mike?

Speaker 5 13:52

I said Jeremiah was 2911.

Speaker 3 13:55

Plans to give you a hope and a future.

Speaker 4 13:57

We got a room full of people here. Plans to prosper, not to harm.

Speaker 3 14:00

Thank you. Plans to prosper and not to harm you.

Speaker 4 14:02

Those words in some order. I think yeah, yeah that's right.

Speaker 3 14:05

Actually, all four of us can't pull that together, but that is the plan of God to give us a hope and a future. Right, he states that the plan is not for you to always live in struggle although we will experience struggle because we're humans and we live in an imperfect world but there is a plan for us to have a hope and a future and to trust in that word and know that the Lord intends good for us to trust in that word and know that the Lord intends good for us.

Speaker 5 14:37

Yeah, and the context of that passage is God's people were being asked to live in Babylon and to not rebel against what they consider to be the heathens, and not to be trying to escape and go home, but to live there, which would have been very controversial to hear. But then I know the plans I have for you. So, whatever, that's a great word for all of us. Right Is no matter the circumstances to hold on to, but I find it helpful to just very simply, just like my new friends here at Boys Ranch that maybe have not been around a faith community very long and just need some little bits, just some affirming messages that just start to jumpstart some hope. But I tell them I sure don't know everything and in fact I probably don't know much, but I know that I truly believe you were created on purpose, for a purpose, and to let that start to sink in will change us, and it seems like hope comes alive when you start to believe that.

Speaker 2 15:33

All right. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that this was a helpful discussion. If you'd like to contact us and ask us a question, our email is podcast at calfarleyorg. I'll leave a link in the description and I hope you've already done so, but if you haven't, please follow, subscribe to the show and leave us a five-star review and, as always, you might have to loan out your frontal lobes today. Just make sure you remember and get them back.

Speaker 1 15:55

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 Cal Farley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.