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.
Contact us: email
podcasts@calfarley.org
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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
Brain Based Parenting
The Power of Asking for Help?!?!?!?
Ever felt that asking for help might make you seem inadequate? You're not alone. We explore why reaching out for assistance is, in fact, a sign of strength. This episode of Brain-Based Parenting dives into the unique self-care journeys of parents and caregivers and how recognizing personal needs can be challenging amidst daily stress. We also shine a light on the role of supportive communities and the importance of embracing vulnerability in fostering resilience.
Balancing the demands of work and parenting can be a tightrope walk, fraught with fears of rejection and self-doubt. We delve into how faith groups, parenting circles, and professional networks can provide a safe haven for sharing experiences and receiving empathy. We also focus on the struggles faced by single parents, offering practical strategies for integrating self-care into their routines and building a network of supportive friends. Through our conversation, we reinforce the idea that no one should feel isolated in their parenting journey.
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's Staff Development Coordinator, joshua Sprock.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome. Today we're going to continue to talk about the importance of incorporating self-care into your daily and weekly routines. To do that today, I'm again joined by Sam Serna, Assistant Administrator of Residential.
Speaker 4:Programs Cole Smith. I work in the Transitional Living Department.
Speaker 5:Jill Ortega. I'm the Direct Care Staff Training Specialist.
Speaker 2:For our question of the day. Last week, I asked what your go-to self-care thing was. So this week I thought I'd ask you what is something that others find helpful for self-care that does not work for you?
Speaker 4:I don't do quiet and listening to music by myself, and I'm going to pick that because that's what Julie said worked for her, and so that is never my choice to sit quietly and have music playing.
Speaker 5:My thing that does not work for me is something that Cole does. That does not work for me and that's running I tried it a few years ago and it was not my thing and also fishing. I like to be there, I like to be by the water. I don't want to touch a fish, I don't want to put a worm on a hook. I will accompany you and be your cheerleader, but I do not want to fish.
Speaker 4:That's a great role for self-care.
Speaker 3:I typically I don't really like reading for self-care. I think that's more of a building block versus a make me calmer thing. I want to. Sometimes I just like to move or do something mindless. I like to pace a lot when I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:I hate naps. Like I wish I could take naps, but I feel like a hundred times worse after I take a nap as opposed to if I don't.
Speaker 4:I'm so good at naps, Josh, I'm sorry, I'm really good at it.
Speaker 2:April, my wife April loves she loves naps and that's like her thing. I cannot, I don't know. I wish I could, but it just.
Speaker 4:I really mastered like the five-minute in my recliner nap and not even sure anyone knew I was asleep. So my wife always tells me it's very easy to tell that I was asleep for five minutes.
Speaker 3:Don't tell my boss, but I mastered the five-minute in a meeting nap.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's continue our discussion on self-care. Why is it difficult for parents and caregivers to recognize when they need help?
Speaker 4:I think so much of parent and caregiver identities is kind of wrapped up in the ones who are in charge and taking care of everything and meeting all of the need, and when that becomes like your core identity, then acknowledging needing help kind of feels more like something shameful, guilt, all of those feelings that come up around it. And so I think when so much of your identity is taking care of everything, kind of acknowledging that they need help feels like a crack in the armor.
Speaker 3:I also think parents and caregivers they're so good at balancing multiple things right, you have to do this and make the schedule and take care of your own stuff, right, and that's all great, until something out of the ordinary happens. And once that thing happens, now they got to add another thing or two, or whatever, or some terrible event that's happening in their world, and now it's chaos, right, and I think Cole said a little bit of this, Right? I think, hey, we're, we're so used to just taking care of ourselves and we feel inadequate. And so when I ask for somebody for help, for example, hey, it might. Maybe they're thinking I can't do it or I'm not good enough, or I'm being judged, or anything like that.
Speaker 5:You know it's kind of hard. I agree with that. I think that we do feel some kind of shame or inadequacy over the word help. Also, I think, like our experience over the last year, we there were so many times that we had people helping us, but people would also ask what we needed during this past year and I would be so exhausted or so just enmeshed in trying to manage everything that I would just say I don't even know what I need right now. Like that would take time for me to have to stop and think about and plan this is what I could use for help and I just I didn't feel like I had the time to do that. So it's hard to ask for help. It is.
Speaker 2:I wonder too, when it comes to recognizing it, how much of the daily grind of life just wears us down and we don't even realize that we're burnout, that it's not like some ginormous, sometimes it is, sometimes it's a big thing, but sometimes it's just that one straw that breaks the camel's back, that kind of pushes this over the edge to burn out. So you guys started to talk about this a little bit. But why is asking for help a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness?
Speaker 3:Well, we're built to live in communities. We're built to exist and survive with other humans, right. So asking another human for help shouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for most of us, right. And so it's a sign of strength, because I think more people can handle more load right. So if I can have somebody help me with something, even a small thing, I think people have, like when I've been sick, prepared me a meal or brought me something that they know I needed right, and it's just one less thing I have to take care of when I'm taking care of this other thing.
Speaker 4:I think asking for help kind of shows a sense of security in that my need for help is not defining of me as a person. I'm able to. I can ask for help without I say all this, asking for help without feeling shame, as if you know, it's kind of a level of strength that is hard to get to almost, and so I think that's why I think that vulnerability kind of shows a higher strength than a lot of us have. When you can express a need without feeling like it's a reflection on yourself, it's kind of a unique character trait to see in people these days.
Speaker 5:Well, I think, too, if we're in a place where we're needing help, to be able to still be that self-aware that this is what I need is also a strength, because sometimes, by the time we're willing to ask for help, we're in a crisis mode and we don't have that awareness. So, yeah, I think that is a sign of strength instead of weakness.
Speaker 3:And maybe our willingness to ask can be infectious. Right, we build a community where other people can say, hey, it seems like it's okay to ask and maybe we have help, and that's just people looking out for each other kind of thing. If nobody ever asks and that never happens, I think that building a supportive community that's how it happens. Obviously it's give and take. It's not like we're keeping score, but hey, you know, these people are willing to help. These are people I can trust. I want to help them too when I see that they need something.
Speaker 4:You know, yeah, and there are so many times where I have been asked to help with small things with friends, kids or things around the neighborhood or things at work, and I'm more than happy to help and I'm often glad that I can be helpful and then think about what I have been willing to reach out and ask for help in this situation and so kind of other people. Like you said it does. It becomes infectious. It normalizes that we're not all autonomous, that we are interconnected and that there are ways that we can bring value to each other and make our lives better and so making that a normal characteristic of the community feels so much better than we all operate completely independently and perfectly on our own and don't ever need anyone's help.
Speaker 5:And Cole is right, often it's just it can be such a little thing that makes such a big impact on somebody, and then it does become infectious. Somebody does something like a small thing for me that was helpful. Then I'm willing to do something else for somebody I was just sitting here thinking about, and this year I had a heavy box at the headquarters and I couldn't get it into my car, and so Sam said just let me know anything I can do to help. So I said, hey, I have this box at the headquarters and he delivered it to my house for me, and that was a small thing for Sam but made a huge difference for me. That was just one thing I could easily check off my list. I didn't have to worry about it and Sam was so willing to do it. And so you know then that makes me want to help somebody else by having people do those things for me.
Speaker 2:So what role do support networks like your spouse, friends, community groups? What do they? What part do they play in helping parents prioritize self-care?
Speaker 3:I think that if we express what we need right. So my wife and I have been married so long now she knows the things I need for the most part. She knows that sometimes I need a few minutes to myself just to have me time. I'm very introverted when I want to do something, like when I got on this. I want to work out consistently, kick right. She was completely supportive. How can I help? I think the important thing is to let people around you know what you're doing. Right, you're doing, hey, I'm trying to eat better, I'm trying to do this better, or this is what I need. Like telling my boss I need certain time. You know a certain time that I need to go take care of something. Right, that's important. I think the communication of it is really important. I think letting the people around you know what you're trying to accomplish they can support you through whatever that is that you're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard that we get sicker in isolation and we heal in community and if you're just by yourself all the time, you don't really have access to other people who can jump in and help you out. But if you put yourself in positions where you're around friends, community groups, then there's more people who can give you help and more people that you can reach out and help as well. So I think that's an important part of it as well.
Speaker 3:Well, there's important things, like you know, sometimes a person's life or their work life does something Like they got to stay late for some reason and it's really nice to be able to call a trusted friend and say can you pick up my kids? I see that here all the time in these busy schedules and hey, I got so-and-so picking up my child and they're going to watch them at their house for a little while. I mean, those things are so important because there's things out of the realm that we can't control and your kids could pay for that, right, and if, if, what? If I don't show up to pick up my kid from school, or that's going to be a problem and the poor kid.
Speaker 3:Right Versus I have this person that the child knows that is set up, that if dad or mom doesn't show up, you know you're.
Speaker 4:I reached out to one of our coworkers because I saw where her car was parked and it was close to daycare pickup, and so I picked up her daughter, which made her daughter and my daughter happier because they got to hang out for a few extra minutes, and then my wife was running late getting home but I needed to take our oldest daughter into town and so within 20 minutes the favor had been repaid by a whole nother neighbor and once again everyone's kids were happier because they all got to play together again. And everyone's kids were happier because they all got to play together again. And so a series of people helping each other out made probably the night calmer and easier for most people because their kids got a little bit more special friend time and it seemed like everyone's night was going happier because of the situation where we were all just seeing a need and able to help out pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:I always wonder. It seems like I don't know if you guys feel the same way. It's kind of scary sometimes to ask for help, but from what I've heard you all say, most people are more than happy to help. What do you think that that insecurity is about? That we're scared to reach out.
Speaker 4:I can think of two things. One of them is what do I do if the person says no? It just I have very few people in my community or network of people who I think would say no if they could help. But if for some reason they can't, then what are my options? And so I think sometimes, when I get to the point of asking for help, I feel like a rejection is very risky, because now, what do I do? And then also the idea of are they going to think I don't have it together? And, spoiler alert, I don't have it together and most of the time we all don't have it together, and that's the part that is okay to normalize. So what role?
Speaker 2:do faith communities, parenting groups or professional networks play in providing safe spaces for parents to seek help?
Speaker 5:I think in those groups you're going to find people that are going through the same things that you're going through. Like Cole said, we don't all have it together. You know most of us go through times when we don't have anything together. You know we might really be struggling, and so I think you find support in those groups, other people that are going through things that you're going through.
Speaker 4:Yeah, two of our three kids have had different health issues as between like kindergarten and second grade, and almost every time we would talk about it at church or in some other situations. We found out how many other people's kids had the same issue that we didn't even know existed before our kids had it. But we'd have two or three other couples be like oh yeah, my son had the exact same procedure that your daughter's about to have. Everything went great, yeah, and so we got some empathy from people who had been there before and had gone through some of the same stuff and we didn't even we had no idea that that resource was out there until we kind of talked about what was going on and also these organizations that you mentioned here are there.
Speaker 3:That's what they do. They kind of advertise. This. Stuff to me kind of makes it more okay, right, hey, we have this, we have that, we have this program available for you. We can, we can help with childcare after this time or whatever. It is Right so parents can still do the things they need to do. You know, and like I love going to church, and then there's a place to put the kids right so the adults can focus on that. Now, that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is have your kids with you, obviously, and there's another way to do it. But there's all these organizations here. To me it's like permission, they're all here Julie said it, we're all struggling or seeing the same thing, or there's a person there who's been through it and they can help talk you through those things and provide help.
Speaker 5:I think sometimes too, help doesn't always come in the form of an act, like doing something for somebody, but faith communities, your community, your church community, people can be praying for you, supporting you in those ways as well, and I think there's a lot of power in prayer.
Speaker 4:So I think there's also just a lot of power in not feeling alone in a situation. You know I talked about the health situations. None of our friends provided extra medical care whenever our kids were going through those situations. But knowing that we weren't alone in that situation created a more resilience in us. I guess Gives you a lot of peace of mind.
Speaker 2:How might self-care strategies differ for single parents?
Speaker 3:I think we mentioned the last podcast that sometimes you got to do things that are. They compound things, like you know. Take your kids out on the walk with you or find some way that they're enjoying some kind of recreational time that you also enjoy.
Speaker 3:I think, cole, you mentioned coloring yeah, for example, it's harder, right, because you have a single parent, has, I mean, less support, are already just in the home. Hopefully sometimes you can reach out to extended family members and maybe they can help out with some things. And it goes back to am I willing to do? I have that ability but if, if anything, you know, you know sometimes you, just you have to just find a way to build some of that into your routines.
Speaker 5:I was a single parent for a while and my son did everything with me. So if I was going out on that walk, Jordan went with me If I was cooking.
Speaker 5:Jordan was there with me, you know. He just he did everything with me. Also, I remember very few of my friends had children. So I was young, we were all young, and so not all of my friends had had their own kids. And so I had a friend tell me one time you need to find you friends that love your kids, find you some friends that love your son. And that helped, because then I had more resources, people to help me if I needed help. I had that person that could pick Jordan up from daycare or could you know, keep him for an hour in an evening so I could have some time.
Speaker 2:And my mom was a single parent and I think she often worried that people would judge her for taking time to herself and things like that, and I think she was also worried that we would be upset with her if we weren't getting her time. But I think we all recognize that she needed that time and not to feel guilty about that and that we'd be okay if she took some time to herself. I also think she did a good job in reaching out to our church, getting some of the other people involved in our church that would kind of watch us and hang out with us and expose us to new cool things to give her some time off. So I think reaching out is a good thing too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm going to imagine growing up when you were going to hang out with other adults and do cool new things you never thought. Oh, I just wish that I was home alone with mom right now.
Speaker 3:I also think for single parents. You know you probably got to focus more on your schedule and focus more on pre-planning things. You know, because, like like we said earlier, I don't I don't think everybody self-cares taking walks and going outside or leaving If it is. You've got to find a way to plan for that. But if you can do things in the house to recharge your batteries like after I put the kids to bed, I can have a little bit of free time or, like I said, get up a little earlier. A person needs to get some reading done or some work done. I mean, there's ways to manipulate your schedule, that you can get ahead of it and plan for things.
Speaker 2:What about working parents? How can they balance their professional responsibilities while at the same time providing self-care for their parenting?
Speaker 3:There are a few people that I really admire that are working professionals and they really prioritize family. You know some people I'm guilty of this. I really prioritize it. I was raised that work is important. We got to make money and all these things right. But the balance is what I learned as I've gotten older. Balancing that thing right.
Speaker 3:Me being at work all the time isn't really healthy for me or my family, right, because dad's not around. In fact, that's why my wife wanted us to get this job was because I was gone too much and I was always working. And she said, hey, I want to do a job where we work together and we ended up being house parents, right. And so the balance was is difficult because you know some people, we want, we gotta, we, we gotta do good and we have to have a purpose. Right, so I gotta do good in my work. It's a strong work ethic that I have creates me to want to do it and do it a lot and also get tons of fulfillment from it.
Speaker 3:But then I'm lacking over here, or maybe I come home and I could be a little unhappy because everybody's kind of mad at me because I got home late, or you know, or I'm more tired and I and I don't want to engage, or there's it's.
Speaker 3:It's weird. So working professionals got to find a got to find a balance. Right, you have to. You got family at home. You got to figure out a way that I can get everything I need at work done at the same time. There's got to be ways I got to shut it down at least for a little while to do the things I need to do. And the things I respect about these people is they take this extra time. One of my friends finds bedtime really important and this routine, and it's very important to them that these routines are maintained so their children have the healthiest experience they can have, and the kids also do. I think kids as they grow they realize hey, my dad's busy, my mom's busy Also, they also see that, hey, they are taking this time to make this the same for me every day.
Speaker 5:I think that's really cool. I admire that a lot. I think you have to have really good boundaries to keep that balance. I also think, too, from Ray and I and our work experience. I mean, we've been at Boys Ranch for a long time, but when I look back when we used to not work together, as opposed to when we do work together, we spend more time talking about work outside of work now working together.
Speaker 5:And so we have to keep boundaries around that as well, too, that we aren't spending our whole evening talking about something that maybe is going on at work, because it's common, you know, for both of us. So I think we were better at that when we didn't work together, so we have to set those boundaries better.
Speaker 2:What advice would you give to parents who feel that they are constantly in survival mode and just can't?
Speaker 4:find that time to do self-care. I think I would say one feeling like you're in survival mode as a parent, I think is very common. And two is I think you think self-care is a bigger thing, that big events, it's big activities as opposed to tiny, small decisions. Because you're right, when things are hard and you're out of energy, parenting and it feels like it's chaos, you don't have time for big. You know you can't take the parenting day off and so kind of those big. You know I think we talked about on last podcast those big aftercare events you don't necessarily have time for. But you can still make the small decisions and it's super hard to make small decisions when you're small. Consistent decisions, repeatedly, are really hard to do when you're drained and out of energy. But those are the things that make the difference, not the two or three hour blocks of time that are so hard to come by.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we've talked about this a few times and you have to mold, mold what your vision of self-care is right. Sometimes I just need a breather, I just need to step outside or just get a minute, close my door for a minute. Kids are on the other side of the door. I just need a breath and I come back and get out there. Right, because if you're in survival mode, I mean things are, I mean wow.
Speaker 3:I mean you can't explain sometimes the things people go through out there. You, you know, and these crises we find ourselves in, especially when we're young and if we're young parents, you know we have a lot of we don't know a lot and we don't have a lot of resources at times, you know. So there's many people like that In your survival mode. I think you just got to try to try again, build in some time, make remember that if you don't do it, you know, I think you're never going to catch a breath and you're going to always just be very stressed. So sometimes we just got to carve it out somehow.
Speaker 5:I think you have to start feeling better to feel better, and so that's hard if you're in survival mode. And so I think, if you can just find a minute to just stop and take a deep breath and say what do I need right now, what is something that I need right now, and figure out in that minute, in that moment, in that day, what do I need right now? Then as you start doing that, it's a process and you'll start building maybe some habits or some self-care into your daily routine. But if you're in survival mode, it's hard to come up with a long-term plan, right?
Speaker 3:So survival mode to me is like you're in your low brain, right, and I'm barely functioning, I'm, I'm, I am working on the things that are automatic, right. That's why I think what Julie said is really important you have to find a way to step back, you have to find a way to take that breath, because that's what survival mode I'm barely, I'm just breathing. I am, uh, whatever I'm doing, automatic I'm fighting, I'm flying or I'm freezing, and that's not a healthy place for anybody. And so I think it's really important that it's really important to figure out how to get myself out of that. There are times that's going to happen, but I think, if we're living that way on a daily basis, self-care is even more important for you.
Speaker 2:One thing I found that's kind of interesting. I always thought that my kids would be upset if I in the middle of a crisis or a hectic, chaotic day, if I just took a second. But I've been surprised that I'll just say I need a break for a few minutes, and even when they're like super needy and super crazy, like I think they get it too. So just be bold enough to say dad needs a break, mom needs a break, and just take a few seconds and come back and be the better version of yourself.
Speaker 5:I think that's important for our kids to learn too, because a kid might be afraid to say that to a parent like dad, I just need a break, you know. And that would be a healthy thing, a healthy way for them to cope with a difficult situation to just say I need a break, can I have a few minutes and then come back. So I think that's a perfect thing to role model to our kids. What advice would you give to someone who's never asked for help before and doesn't know where to start.
Speaker 5:I think one thing is if, maybe to, if they could reframe the word help and to support, that feels better than the word help. For me it did anyway, when somebody would say to me I had a friend that would say what can I do to support you, and that just felt so different than what, what do you need? Or or you know, what can I do to support you, and that just felt so different than what do you need or what can I do to help you. The word help, we just get afraid of that word help. It feels like we're inadequate or not enough. And so I think if we can just kind of reframe the word help in our mind to maybe support or a resource.
Speaker 3:I like that. I think asking for assistance is difficult for any of us and I think, if we can acknowledge that, I think many people have the same problem. That being said, right, everybody has these difficulties. Everybody's going to have a time when they need somebody. And I think, if we can put that in our minds and remember that and hopefully you're building relationships and I think you can got to try it out.
Speaker 3:The truth is, you know the the courage of the first step right to to do it, and you might be surprised how many people would be willing to do it. It goes back also. I, when I went to this church group they they split us up into, you know, our age groups and things. I found it so enlightening and so refreshing that you could just say something in this group and josh said this they're just praying for you or they're, and even just knowing that, like, people are thinking about me. And then, when I go back the next week, they remembered the thing I said and they said, hey, how's that going? You know, even though they're not physically helping me, right, but that's another step right.
Speaker 3:Or somebody will walk up and say, hey, I know so and so can I. Can I give them your number? These doors open. But you have to first be vulnerable, and that is so hard, and once you do that, I think people will be surprised how much, how many people out there have a resource for you or are willing themselves to take some of that burden off of you Because it feels so good just to help other people. It does, it does, and if you feel that way, I want you to think that other people feel that way. If you feel inadequate, I want you to think that other people also feel that way. We're all the same, inherently. Some of us are just braver than others at times, you know, and so I think that's the advice I would give.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you'd like to contact us and ask us a question, our email address is podcast at calfarleyorg. I'll leave a link in the description and, as always, you might have to loan out your frontal lobe today. Just make sure you remember and get it 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 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 Calfarley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.
