Healing Trauma: How Parents Can Help Kids from Hard Places Find Hope and Wholeness

Matthew Darrah (00:01)

Hello and welcome to All Things Foster, a place for coffee, connection, and community. I'm super excited today to have John Moore on with us. We'll get into John here in just a little bit. But our episode sponsor this week is Brian Moore State Farm. And he says that his purpose is to help people manage the risks of everyday life, recover from the unexpected, and realize their dreams. We make it our business to help you care for...

to help you take care of your business. We specialize in second opinions. If you're not confident in your insurance coverages or premiums, call us and get that second opinion. So, John, thanks so much for agreeing to come on the podcast today. You bet. So tell us a little bit, ⁓ well, the title for today's episode is Healing Trauma, How Parents Can Help Kids from Hard Places Find Hope and Wholeness. So John, give us a little bit of a background.

what you do, what your licenses are and things like that. Sure. I'm a licensed professional counselor and founder of Caprock Family Counseling. And my background is trauma-informed therapy. And I've worked with children and families, ⁓ adults, ⁓ adolescents for a long time. Really got my counseling work started and cut my teeth at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch and learned this whole field.

trauma therapy, which actually in my master's degree didn't really teach me much about that. anyway, I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, well thanks so much. ⁓ We're going to explore how parents, specifically foster and adoptive parents, can help their kids heal from trauma through connection, regulation, self-regulation, and curiosity. ⁓ So John, go back a little bit. What... ⁓

What was the rationale, the reason to get into this field in the first place? You know, I had mentored and worked with kids in various capacities in the church, in camps like adventure camps. I had mentored, hung around, helped kids for a long time, and also young adults. And I kept feeling like I need more training. Part of my

I guess personality was just to kind of go deep with these folks and help them through their stories. And I didn't know that then. And so I kept running into this. And then in my thirties, I was making a career shift and a friend of mine was getting his executive coaching, life coaching certificates at the time and said, Hey, I need a guinea pig. Let's go to coffee. So, ⁓ so he took me to coffee several times and really helped me work through this decision in my life. Again, I was 37 when I started my master's degree.

And I just knew that that was the path for me. Yeah. Right. Wow. That's so. So I know you said your work at Boys Ranch kind of really opened your eyes. Was there things that you learned kind of out of that experience that that really kind of helped navigate and guide your path to the way that you approach things now? Without a doubt. I would not be the

the person or the therapist or counselor at all without that experience at Cal Farley's. I mean, just my first day on the job, it really is an intern. It was all about seeing kids and seeing these families in these situations from a trauma informed perspective. And I had really no clue. So I took a real deep dive. They invested in me and

I procured lots of different certifications, ⁓ EMDR and different things over the years. But really the main focus was not looking at kids from hard places as just defiant, disrespectful kids, but kids who their whole foundations of their life.

Matthew Darrah (04:13)

I really, I mean, the first training that I ever had at Cal Farley's was around the idea of, and I know we'll talk about this, but a calm brain calms a brain. I had no clue about brain-based attachment-focused therapy, but it changed my whole view of counseling and of...

helping people and being present with people. honestly, I would not be the same therapist without that experience. That's cool. So let's talk a little bit about, let's understand trauma in foster and adoptive. How does trauma affect that developing brain and nervous system? Well, that's a good question. ⁓ What I learned at Cal Farley's and what I saw over and over was that we

as humans are designed for attachment. all of us, it doesn't matter if you're in Morocco or Midland, Texas, people meet, they have babies, you know, and they grow families. And as we know, you and I both know, sometimes that does not work out. And the developing brain requires closeness, consistency, attunement, and just a core of relational care.

Not perfection, because none of us are perfect. But a lot of these kids that we know about missed huge pieces of that in their life. And so what that does is that it actually begins to just break down and dysregulate their system that requires these things. And so they begin to, they don't know how to self-regulate.

because they're not attached and their attachment figures are distracted or abusive or neglectful. And that actually does change the brain. It changes the wiring of the brain. And so rather than the brain being wired for connection, the brain is wired, honestly, just for survival, which increases cortisol levels and really ⁓ starts this domino effect in the kids' lives where they don't trust and... ⁓

And they don't understand ⁓ that people love them. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about the difference between won't and can't when it comes to that behavior. ⁓ Are you saying like, I won't do this, I can't do this? Yeah. think it's more along the lines of, it's not that I won't.

have that connection is that I really can't because I don't know how. No, it's really good. ⁓ mean, the brain works off of priming and Adam Young in his book, Makes Sense of Your Story, does a really good job of explaining how every present experience is filtered through past experience. so honestly, in these kids from hard places, they don't have the neural pathways that lead them

to trusting and moving towards connection. Actually, their neural pathways lead them away. And they're more connected to the fight or flight, you know, or freeze part of the brain and the amygdala. so, ⁓ literally, where we see it as defiance, it often is they just don't have that part of their brain developed. So they can't. So we really have to be patient with them.

in helping develop that over time. And it does take a lot of patience. A lot of patience, a lot of time and a lot of grace. Totally. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. And it doesn't make sense to us because we really do have a heart for these kids and we want to know them and we want them to feel loved. But it's so difficult for them, even in a really good situation. It's almost like their eyes and their sensory experience. They can't see it or feel it.

when it's a good thing for them. Yeah, for sure. you know, I've had people say, you you just need to bust them, or you just need to do this, or you just need to do that. Why is it that normal parenting stuff doesn't work on these kiddos? Well, number one, they don't have the history with us. Like, maybe our...

our birth children do, right? So a mom who, you know, carries a child in the womb for nine months, I mean, that's all about connection. It's body to body. is, it's unbelievable. I mean, you can't mimic anything like that, right? On the earth. so, so you have that and then the birthing process and then mom and dad or caregivers are there. That, that kiddo from a foster situation or adopt a situation,

They don't have that with you. So they literally don't have that in the brain, that historical remembering, so to speak. And that's more implicit. That goes into that implicit, explicit memory. And so they literally don't have that. So if we were to spank them or to use traditional parenting techniques, mean, like a normal situation, a birth...

kiddo situation, they just know, this parent has been with me all my life. They have thousands of experiences, even at a young age, that this parent is going to help them and be there and not be abusive and not abandon them. But a kiddo from a hard, difficult place, they do not have those. So it feels implicitly like abuse, even though it's not. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. And it's sad because they just cannot feel the care that you intend for them. You know? Yeah. It's so...

It's painful and then it's mind-boggling because you're like, ⁓ mean, what do I have to do to get through to you that I love you, that I care about you, that you're safe, you're loved, you're valued, all the things. Yeah, it's really weird. Again, that's a good point, Matt, because over and over at Cal Farley's, there would

You know, these, these kiddos are given food and an education opportunity, but when that correction comes, is norm, there is nothing normal about it. Right. They feel, I mean, they, they feel betrayed. Oftentimes it feels oftentimes cruel to them. Now they, they won't say that necessarily. Yeah. And so it, it's just, there's nothing.

rational about it when we think of parenting. And so that's why I think, you know, and we're grateful for the authors and the practitioners who really help us with this stuff because it's hard to put language to it, particularly when we have big feelings around it too and we feel rejected. So what you kind of laid out five like basic principles that

that are those kind of core strategies to help facilitate healing and connection. So, the first one you said was parents need to do their own therapeutic work. 100%. Most of us have a story. Not all parents. I mean, I have a few friends who came from like a securely attached, pretty normal family background, but not many. Yeah. I mean, really not many.

⁓ So most of us come from some sort of trauma, you know, a handful of experiences that have stayed with us. And guaranteed when you're parenting or helping a child in a foster situation or a child from a really difficult place, that stuff is going to come up for sure. 100%. And it'll be surprising because you'll respond in ways that are not congruent with how you feel about this child, you know, or why you...

got into this work in the first place. So we need to, and I would encourage every parent actually to do their own work anyway, regardless of your family or parenting situation. But that stuff is gonna come up. For sure. So, I mean, and really we owe it to them because we're modeling, you know, we're modeling ⁓ what it is to pursue mental, emotional, spiritual, relational well-being.

And we can't ask them to do it if we're not doing it ourselves. Absolutely. So, one, if parents are working through their traumas and their struggles and backgrounds, ⁓ then they can show up as that calm, consistent, emotionally available individual, right? Yeah. That's good. You said calm, calm brain, calm...

helps calm brain. That's right. So if we're triggered and if we're

reliving a past experience, there's no ability to connect and try to provide that stability and that safety to that calming co-regulation. yeah, absolutely. Because it's going to come up. Again, their brain is like our brain and our brain is like their brain in that you don't even have to think about it. Your brain and my brain...

is going to prime, meaning going to filter, present experience from past experience. So, as the adult, if this kiddo says something to me and it feels or seems like something that I've experienced in the past, which is related to harm or abuse or whatever, bullying, I mean, it can be decades in the past and you can respond to that child similarly with an overreaction. So, that's why it's so important to do...

our own therapeutic work so we can grow in our own sense of mindfulness and self-awareness of, ⁓ I'm noticing this is happening now. I need to tap out. Yeah. So focus first on self-regulation and then once we're regulated, then we can help co-regulate that child that's, you know, ⁓ activated. Yeah. mean, if I don't recognize

what it feels like in me, and I mean literally, like in my body, what it feels like to be angry, what it feels like to be activated, what it feels like to be defensive, then I'm not gonna notice that quick enough, and I'm gonna react to this child in an inappropriate way, actually, and take something out on them, maybe. We all do it as parents.

So that's why I'm like, all parents really need therapeutic work. We all do. We all have a story, but if I can sense that in my own brain and get regulated, change posture, start to breathe slower, maybe even say it like, Hey, I'm feeling a little bit triggered by your reaction. It's not your fault, but I'm just going to take a few seconds just to calm down because I want to, I want to love you in the best way possible. saying that I think helps them know, okay.

man, my parent is aware or they are aware or they're gonna do something about it. So anyway, yeah, because it's the whole idea of the mirror neurons and if I'm activated, they're activated and then I match it, then I'm just gonna make it worse every time, you know, as the adult. Yeah. So then if we can get regulated, then we can help co-regulate them. So talk a little bit about that co-regulation piece where we,

where we match and try to bring down this child's activation. Yeah, you know, they always talked about at Boys Ranch how we have to be their prefrontal cortex, you know? And I don't care what family or parenting situation you're in, we have to do this with kids because their brains are not fully developed. Sure. So if we can lead out with calmness and regulation and just awareness, then they, over time, if we will stay with them,

then they can sense that. They can sense that and feed off of that, so to speak, the regulation that we are exhibiting. And really, that's how it's designed. I mean, as babies, that's absolutely what's going on. Is that from our attachment, from our love, consistency and care, they feel in their system, they don't know it in their cortex, but they feel it down deep in their brain and body that, they're for me.

They're going to take care of me. They're calm. So now I can be calm. My big emotions are safe here. I can say what I need to say. But if we're triggered, then we can't do that. So yeah, it's absolutely an issue of co-regulation for that child. So you talk about connect before you correct. What do you mean here? You know, really, ⁓ the connected child, Dr. Karyn Purvis we owe a lot to her. yeah, and Dr. Cross.

Absolutely. Yeah, those two are just, we're just a power team together. And you know, so that book is just, she was able, they were able to communicate really complex truths about this work in very simple terms for so many of us. And so that idea of connect before you correct, again, like we talked about, if,

If we birth this child and we have been with them the whole time, we don't necessarily need to do that because we spent all of this time with them, showing them, living it out. We are for you. We're your parents. We love you. We're never going to leave you. They implicitly know that. So it's not necessarily, you know, like you just don't have to do that as much, but for sure with a kid who comes from a really

traumatic place, it's so important to remind them that our main job is to love you and be connected to you before we correct. you know, we have to slow ourselves down in the process because maybe they do, of course, they do need to be corrected. But in that regulatory, that co-regulation process, if we can connect with them and let them know, hey, I'm committed to you.

I know you did this thing and we're going to talk about that. So they're going to be able to be open to the correction much more easily if we provide and experience that connection first. And that care first. Which is incredible. And that's the principle that they, you know, so wonderfully, you know, taught on for so many years. Yeah. So you talk about repairing after a conflict, this building trust. I mean, there's

There's, I mean, I don't care if you have the most perfect marriage or you're the best parent and you have this perfect child, there's going to be ruptures in the relationship. There's just, there's going to be times when you're frustrated with each other, you did something that weren't supposed to, they did something that weren't supposed to, something like that. And so the relationship's going to get ruptured, but then we have to come back and repair it. That's right. Yeah. I mean, and that's true in all relationships. Like you said, we do it in our...

marriages with, you know, siblings. So, you know, one example of this is after maybe some time, maybe, you know, the child has done something and broken something or disobeyed in some way. One of the things, one of the ways we can do this is simply by coming beside them and sitting beside them after they've calmed down maybe, or taking a walk. I don't know how many walks.

We did at boys ranch, ⁓ even my own, with my own kids, just around the neighborhood, just helping the situation calm down. and, know, like Dan Siegel would say, it's actually not going down. It's going back up in the brain. we're going from the low brain up into our cortex so that we can think about the situation, but we can't do that without connection. And so.

that repair, it's like building bridges, you know? And I tell clients all the time, and particularly young clients, like our life, if we could see it, if we could illustrate it, there'd be thousands of bridges, ideally, of repair. And simply what that is, is like, hey, and maybe as the parent, hey, I wanna apologize, I really lost my cool. I was stressed, I thought you were really hurt, and...

I was afraid. And so I reacted. lost my temper with you and I'm really sorry. Would you forgive me? you know, number one, I think that humility from an adult is something that the kids we're talking about have rarely seen. Absolutely. They've rarely seen that humility and that, ⁓ I don't know, just the care.

You know, that man, I care enough for you that I'm going to admit my faults and it's okay. And I think over time, again, I know this can feel a little theoretical because for those of you who are in the work and you're deep in it, you don't see this. But over time, I think what can happen is it is making new neural pathways in that child's brain that says, you know what, I remember so and so, and they would apologize. You don't know how many clients I've talked to.

who have never heard, I'm sorry, will you please forgive me? And I'm talking folks who are in their 40s and 50s. For sure. They just never heard that from their caregivers. Yeah, I know. My parents were... When Nikki and I met, started dating and everything, and it was like, need to apologize. It's like, no, parents don't do that.

Matthew Darrah (23:27)

my dad would tell us, your mother is never wrong. If she says that grass is purple, it's purple. Wow. Right? And so, I came to this parenting thing with this idea that, you know, we don't apologize. We're the parents. Right. You know? And it did. It took me, you know, realizing that, man, if I want them...

to admit when they've screwed up and to try to change that I've got to do it too. No, I totally, I hear you. I kind of came from the other side. ⁓ My father died early in my life when I was eight years old. And so I grew up primarily with a single mom. And so when I became a parent, there was a lot that was just insecure in me, just as a human. And I needed counseling, I needed help. And what I found was I apologized too much. ⁓

And my wife, God bless her, helped me understand that that just brought some instability to the kids that, sometimes you really need to be firm and it's okay. And it needs to come across strong, but it's okay because safety is a real thing and that's important and they trust you. But again, even if we do it too much, even if we start late,

It's still, think, maybe the most powerful thing we do in relationships is repair. Our brains don't tell us that. I think our low brain especially, and the fear that we have, can kind of tell us, don't be exposed like that. Yeah, don't be exposed, particularly as a man, right? They're going to... And I heard this a lot at Boys Ranch. I hear this a lot in my office. Like, they're not going to trust my authority.

They'll trust your authority way more if they know that you're human and that you're committed to growing as a person. And it gives them permission anyway. Yeah, no, think it's super important to come back and repair that relationship. So maintain healthy and clear boundaries. That's number four, I believe. So what do mean here? Well...

You know, as we've talked about before, boundaries create safety. And for a child from traumatic backgrounds, very difficult backgrounds, chaotic backgrounds, there were no boundaries. There was no safety. So, you know, they're eating candy and soda and whatever for breakfast or whatever they can find. Yeah. Because parents are not, you know, they're on drugs or they're, you know, they're out. You know, kids are left all the time to kind of fend for themselves. So,

Again, it's just about survival. So this can be very difficult for these kiddos, but creating structure, loving care, predictability is really what the brain needs. But when it hasn't had it, then they're going to push back on that. For sure. Yeah. going to be almost offended. Yeah. What does that count? Do you think it's just...

Is it self-reliance? Is it just, I don't want to be told what to do, I'm used to doing my own thing? Yeah, I think all of those things. I think that number one, the brain has had to go into this self-soothing. In many ways, they've had to be their own parent. And I've talked to a lot of kids where at very young ages, they were their parents.

I mean, they were the ones finding things, pulling things out of the pantry or the fridge for their younger siblings. So that takes a long time to...

to rewire. Right. You know, and they just don't trust anyone else, particularly adults. Yeah, because nobody helps. Nobody's there. And again... if they are there, it's violent or something. It's violent or it's inconsistent or it's chaotic. And there's people coming in and out of the houses all the time. I mean, the stories that... I mean, and you know this, Matt, like the stories these kids endure.

I feel like almost anything we could say would be the understatement of the year. For sure. Like it's just so difficult to imagine the world in which they grew up. And so you think about going from a motel room or moving lots of times or strange people coming in and out of a house that is not clean. ⁓ There's no Saturday chores. There's no...

You know, on Sunday we do this, you know, we go to Sam's and we bring the food home and we all put it up and, we mow the grass. ⁓ Are we keep things in a shed rather than just throwing them out? You know, I'm not judging these situations. I'm just saying for the developing brain, it needs structure. It needs boundaries. It needs someone older to provide the guidance. even if kids buck against it.

they know about it. Like for instance, that study that they did where, or that experiment where kids would stand at the, what do you call those? At the, the fence. What's that type of fence? It's not a picket Electrified fence? No, like a, my goodness, metal fence you can, know, anyway.

Barbwire? No, it's like it's around playgrounds. Chain link. Chain link fence. And literally all the kids were like right up against it. No, they're just standing looking out. So then they took the fence down, the chain link fence down. All the kids were huddled together in the middle of the yard, the playground. So it's like when the boundary isn't there, they have to create assemblance ⁓

a boundary in themselves. And I think a lot of kids do that, particularly in sibling groups. So, it's really wild and it doesn't make sense to our brains because we know we care for them. So, that structure, those things that we actually take for granted, days to do this, times to do this, like bedtime and rhythms, reading, prayers.

sitting down to eat. know, all that is very new to a lot of the kids that we work with. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, they need those boundaries to just help guys. I know ⁓ Kashawn when he came the first time, ⁓ it'd be three o'clock in the morning. We could not get this kid to go to sleep. ⁓ And so we were told that, and he was

almost three and we were told that he knew how to work the TV and he better go to sleep because he's gonna be tired the next day. So if he didn't go to sleep, didn't go to sleep, used the TV. So it's like no wonder it's three o'clock in the morning and this kid's wide awake and then exhausted the next day. I mean it took us six months to get him on a consistent sleep pattern. Where he you know went to bed at a normal time and actually slept. It was tough and so yeah they

But we all need that. ⁓ We all need some measure of consistency and stability. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's part of the way, that's part of that social learning that unfortunately these kids don't have is they don't see the adults in their life. Now they might see it at school. And so you see this where kids will do well at school. ⁓

But then they won't do well at home. lose it. They lose it. Even if the home is structured or loving, you know, there's afternoon snack and then homework, but they lose it. It's like they cannot hold it together that long. Or they can do one or the other. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. ⁓ And having the empathy and the patience, like you said, the six months, the year.

to just hang in there with them. It's really hard because it's super taxing. ⁓ It's exhausting. So talk about the skill of curiosity. Yeah, you know, I'm really indebted to Dr. Dan Allender and folks like him and Adam Young who talk about ⁓

even the Gottmans in terms of the marriage work stuff. I did not grow up with that as a skill. I probably didn't have any understanding of that even in the first decade of my marriage, really. But the skill of curiosity, I think it does build a bridge because it shows presence and interest in the person. And also, I can't be curious...

if I'm not in a calm brain state, or if I'm not at least regulated, meaning I've got some awareness, I'm mindful, even if I've got some big emotions going through me, if I'm regulated, if I'm like, okay, I know that I'm here and I could be triggered, then I can't be curious. But being curious is like, hey, what does that feel like right now? When you say that, that everyone hates you.

What do you feel right now in your body? Now, they may not be able to answer you right off the bat, but if you stay with it, what that helps, I think, is for them to regulate and see, hey, I'm not in a hurry here. Now, sometimes we have to be in a hurry. Sure. As parents, I get it. I really do. But I think asking curious questions about what they think, particularly what they feel, what this is like for them,

Hey, what was that like for you to hear that at school today? Helps them to, you have to kind of calm yourself and pause and think. again, really difficult to do early on. But I think as we have curiosity, not just in like serious situations, but in everyday life, you know, and many parents say this, like they sit down and they ask the questions and kids usually don't like them. You know, what was your favorite part of the day?

I like this. I heard this one from John Eldridge. To know me is to know that. Fill in the blank. To know me right now or to know me in this season is to know. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Or to know me as a fifth grader is to know that. I don't know. Be curious to see what they would say. So the idea of curiosity is that we're kind of overriding the neglect that many of them felt. Sure.

I think the other thing is that, again, intrinsically, we feel like someone actually cares about us and that they're interested. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're giving them a voice. You're giving them a voice. That's a good way to say that. Yeah. Yeah. You're giving them a voice.

Matthew Darrah (35:15)

So yeah, we need to be curious about how they are perceiving themselves, how they're feeling in the moment. that helps, like I say, helps them feel seen, I think. You know, I think the other thing too with parenting, regardless of the situation, is if I have the time and if we really can slow things down, just if we can just slow the situation down, ⁓

It's going to be better. We're smart people. They're smart kids, even though they may not believe it, depending on their situation, but we're going to figure this out. Yeah. I think also if in that curiosity, we're helping them build emotional intelligence to figure out how am I feeling? Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you didn't grow up with that, you know, like, so if you didn't grow up in a household where you read books about it or ⁓ you had a

or a caregiver ask you, how does your tummy feel? What are you feeling right now? And you actually told your symptoms and someone cared? Well, then you have no idea. You just blow right past it. So you just literally don't have awareness of big parts of yourself. sure. So obviously, your practice is...

focused on faith and hope and healing, right? In your practice, having that Christian faith, the belief in Christ, the belief, I think, in value and self, is crucial to the way in which you approach healing. that...? Yeah, I mean, you know, I see folks really from

all along the spectrum in terms of belief. I would say most of my clients and their families believe in God, but some don't. And the way that I navigate that is that every person is important, and in my belief, every person is made in the image of God. And so, that means that they have intrinsic worth and value. So, for many folks, I just start right there. Regardless of what they're professing,

⁓ I just, it's kind of a, I mean, it's just part of my practice and part of my calling is to treat people, well, to take them seriously. That as a human being, they were created and made for an identity and a purpose. And in my office, I just want them to be taken seriously and to feel like they matter. So that's how I...

That's how I typically weave that in and do it, you know, because it's just a, it may be the biggest value in my practice. Yeah, we got coins made and we started giving them to kids. There's challenge coins, you know what those are? So on the backside it says, I'm valuable and loved. And the hope is this is big heavy coin that they'll carry around in their pocket. Just as a reminder, I'm valuable and loved. Absolutely.

when you grow up in this chaos, that's a hard thing to accept and believe. Yes. You know, and I would say most of the kids I've worked with...

We could not talk about faith early on, maybe even for the first year. And I think that's one of the things that's very difficult in this work, whether you're parenting these kiddos or whether you're helping them in a mentoring way or in counseling, therapeutic work, is that it's slow work. You know this. You know this very well. And it can get exhausting.

if we focus on the wrong things. They're not wrong. They're just, we're just not there yet. know? And so I would say for most of the kids I've worked with, it's really taken upwards of a year to build the rapport and the trust that, Hey, you matter here. Your voice matters. And you're kind of in the driver's seat. but when you show that you're, you're feeling safe and so you do it, you titrate it, right? You do it slowly.

ask him about things and asking him about their story and their life and, what does that feel to you? And then when you see that the pressure is too much, we take them seriously by backing off. So I think that's one of the biggest things is that they can see that there is hope when people hang in there with them. And then the other thing I've had to say is that I'm just a piece of this tapestry.

So if something doesn't work out, they need to move on, they go live somewhere else, they no longer come into my office. I just have to believe and trust that God is in charge of that. God is in charge of that. He sees way beyond what I see and, man, He cares for these kids in ways that I can't see. And so I just have to trust in that process that I was part of it.

Yeah, we plant the seeds, but ultimately God makes them grow. That's right.

So, some encouragement for some parents that feel like they were just not getting anywhere, we're just not, nothing's getting better, we just keep going down this rabbit hole. What do you say to them?

think that I would say.

We've got to pause and find encouragement for ourselves. Find some people you can really, really be honest with in a living room, around a cup of coffee with some folks who won't maybe get offended by your language or the way that you communicate something when you've had enough. I think that's super important because you're trying to keep so many things together and so many plates spinning.

Parents in these situations need a place where they can, and I don't know where that's at for folks. ⁓ Maybe sometimes it's church, maybe sometimes it's through like your organization, but we need spaces like that where people can just be as honest as they need to be. Because they're carrying a heavy load, a heavy burden. So when parents come in to me, really the bulk of the session is just allowing them

to say what they need to say, however they need to say it. And then we can get to some, hey, have you considered this? Or I'm thinking about this or I'm making these connections, what do you think about this? But really finding a place of encouragement so that they can kind of reset a little bit. What's the next step? And we're certainly not going to do that if our brain is triggered, if we're in our low brain, if we're activated. That's when you know you're just, you're in burnout.

Yeah, for sure. is, I mean, what would you say, Matt, like right now, what's the landscape look like for support for families like this in terms of groups, et cetera? It's growing. It's growing. I started this organization in 2016, there was not much. There's been several organizations that have gotten started, some other organizations that have...

kind of gotten some new leadership and are going about things a little bit more ⁓ planned and deliberate. then the state, Governor Abbott and the First Lady, ⁓ they adopted because he was paralyzed and so they couldn't have kids.

And so they adopted. so foster care and adoption was really important to them. ⁓ And so they're doing this whole thing where they're moving everything to privatize, where the only thing CPS is doing anymore is investigation. And then once they determine that there needs to be a removal, they go to this other organization.

when they were making that transition, the Heart Gallery, which was supposed to be managed in each region, was kiddos that are ready and willing and able to be adopted and getting their names out there and getting their pictures out there and stuff like that. And it kind of fell through the cracks across the state when they moved to this privatization. So Governor Abbott and his wife pushed and kind of reestablished the Heart Galleries. And then they came out and said, okay, well we're...

we're trying to get these kids adopted, now we need to support them once they've done the adoption. And so they've kind of done some things. so there's some funding that's come out for ⁓ some counselors that are in Amarillo that are kind of specific to trying to help families navigate and things like that. the landscape is completely different than when it was eight, nine years ago. I mean, you've got Amarillo Angels,

Greater Everyone Foster Parent Association has gone through some pretty significant leadership change and some ideas and ideals and things like that has really helped. And so I have seen a ton of ⁓ shift. Now, there's nowhere near enough. That's why we started this podcast, because we need that sense of community, people that understand. ⁓

And so that's why every other week we have a foster family on to tell their story. Because even though they might not be sitting across the table with this foster adoptive family, they can listen to them and they can have that sense of belonging and community over the internet. It's good. It's really good. Well, which is hugely popular and so many of us have the podcasts we listen to or the teachers and preachers we listen to on the weekends, part of our support.

network. So yeah, I've seen tremendous, tremendous change here in the last eight or nine years. And so it's good. And like I said, there's just nowhere near enough. I mean, there's not enough counselors that really understand trauma. so you might get referred to somebody and then they're full. It's kind of what happened with

with us, with you, was I went to the person that they had seen previously, well, she's not seen anybody, so then she referred us to somebody who referred us to somebody who referred us to you. You know, because they were all full. And so, I don't think there's anywhere near enough support mechanisms. However, what I've seen, you know, a lot of people in the foster care world think that people don't care, and the church doesn't care, and nobody does anything,

But my experience has been, not that they don't care, it's that they don't know. And once they're made aware of the need, I mean, we did a book drive at a real estate agent and just so many books, you know, I mean, people respond once they kind of find out what the needs are and things like that. there's a lot more than there was, but we've got a long ways to go to where we can really have that support.

So if you were, if there's a parent out there and they say, need some help or I need to get my kiddo some help, how do you recommend parents finding the right person? That's good. ⁓

Well, right off the bat, if you're checking out, particularly for counseling, you have to look to see if on their website or their material, if they mention right, just right at the beginning, they're either trauma-informed, attachment-focused, trained in EMDR, anything like that. Because if they are, if that's the case, now the other difficult thing is whether they work with kids or not. And we all have to make decisions.

as therapists and who we're going to work with and all that. But nevertheless, that's the first thing. The other thing to do in my mind is to look at ⁓ websites, organizations like IMDRA, that's the EMDR website, but also like Dan Siegel and this- Robyn Gobbel. Yeah, Robyn Gobbel, to see if there's connections in our area for folks who are either trained or certified in this method, things like that.

That is a big deal. It's a starting place. Yeah, because if they just have the same, you know, if they just talk about, I'm here to help with anxiety and depression, all that's great. But CBT work is not going to help. Initially, the big behaviors and emotions that come from chaos, trauma, foster and adoptive situations. we've got to look for those keywords. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So, do your own work, stay calm and regulated, connect before you correct, keep healthy boundaries, and lead with curiosity. Yes. Yeah. I cannot stress enough that as a parent myself, and I'm not a parent of a foster kid and we have not adopted

we've chosen the route of providing help for those families and those folks who do it. But the principles still stand. Like I've got to be calm and in my body and grounded if I'm going to be any help to my kiddo. And I think even way more in these situations, parenting kids from hard places and from foster situations,

We've just got to be practicing that and you can't do it alone. So do your own work. Find a therapist, find somebody that you can really work through this stuff with who's not going to be judgmental. Who's not going to just have all the answers because I don't have all the answers. No one does. that's not, and I would say the biggest thing is that we need presence. We need people in our lives who can be present for us as parents. And that can be difficult to come across.

you know, or to find. But that's what I would say that we need so that we can be that for our kids. Yeah. So how do folks connect with you? They can connect with me on caprockcounseling.com. So that's my counseling website. And then for dads, therugajourney.com. And I have groups and book studies and events that I do for men. And that's an area in which I've shifted.

helping more men in our community so that they can do well and they can be the men they want to be, the husbands and fathers they want to be in our communities because men are really hurting. Absolutely. And ⁓ so those two websites, Caprockcounseling.com and theruggedjourney.com. And I'll link those down in the show notes down below. I'm super excited because I'm going to be in the, by the time this episode ⁓ drops,

first section will be pretty much over, I'm going to the ⁓ start of the men's group tomorrow night. And I'm really excited about it. I've read the first chapter of Adam's book and everything. So I'm really excited about that because there is, you know, we say this all the time, if you're not in it, you really don't get it. That's right. You know, and so just being around other people who understand, who are struggling, who are open and willing to talk about things.

⁓ is important. Yeah, I think we've got to be committed to do our own story work. You know, we each have a story and that is going to come out in positive and negative ways in our parenting. sometimes we just need to remind ourselves to take ourselves seriously. So, you know, ⁓ do their own work. That may be finding a way to get out and take a walk ⁓ with your moms, you know, with some ladies or get to the gym.

or just sit and read, you know, with some quiet, but helping one another do that, particularly in these really stressful, exhausting years of trying to help these kiddos. anyway, that's what we're trying to do. Yeah, absolutely. Well, John, thank you so much for the work that you've helped our family with and for just being willing to come on here and talk to some folks and share some strategies that will hopefully be beneficial.

Thanks for having me. It was an honor to be with you. Absolutely. And once again, guys, Brian Moore with State Farm is great guy. I say this all the time. The sponsors that we usually have on here, I have a personal experience with. And so if you need some insurance ⁓ quotes, give Brian a call. ⁓ And again, we'll link his stuff down in the show notes below. Thanks and have a great week. Thank you.