Latest / A Time to Sharpen / FAQ's: Part 1

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FAQ's: Part 1 · A Time to Sharpen

0:09
Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
0:12
Yeah, well, lots of things, I guess.
0:14
Poverty War award shows. Thank you, Academy.
0:20
Seriously, though, a dull blade is bad.
0:23
It's unusable. In fact, it's downright
0:26
dangerous. Knives need sharpening.
0:30
From Whetstone Boys Ranch in Mountain View, MO comes A Time
0:33
to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast that examines how we can all be
0:38
better versions of ourselves. Better counselors, better
0:42
teachers, better parents. Better people, if you're
0:51
considering a place like Whetstone for your son, you're
0:53
not just looking for a brochure. You're looking for answers.
0:57
Real ones, the kind that elude you when you're trying to sleep
1:01
at night and keep you awake with worry.
1:04
So we're starting a short, straightforward FAQ series,
1:07
episodes designed to cover the big questions families ask when
1:10
they're weighing residential care, safety, school therapy,
1:13
work weekends, faith communication, discipline, field
1:16
trips, all of it in one place. For easy reference, today's
1:20
episode starts with the first question most parents ask.
1:23
Will my son be safe? We'll hit supervision standards,
1:27
how we prevent bullying and pecking order culture, what
1:30
happens when a situation escalates, how we handle
1:33
contraband, runaway risk, and what crisis response looks like
1:36
in the moment. Join us this month on A Time to
1:39
Sharpen as we discuss the most frequently asked questions about
1:43
Whetstone Boys Ranch. Welcome back to A Time to
1:52
Sharpen. This is Axel Limata.
1:54
I'm here with Brandon Maxwell sitting across from me.
1:58
Hey we got a new table. We do.
2:00
It's really nice. It's like the the faux wood kind
2:03
of 70s vintage look. Yep, Yeah.
2:06
Looks great, it's gives a lot more space in here too.
2:09
The other one was a little bulky.
2:11
So, yeah, and if it's the vibe of all the the eclectic, we'll
2:14
call it eclectic. That's a good word of furniture
2:17
that we have in here. We got AI.
2:20
Remember the day that we built that shelf behind you there,
2:23
Brandon, that that bookshelf that stood the test of time.
2:26
It was impressive. 15 years ago. Yeah, it's amazing.
2:30
We got the record shelf in here. We got various and sundry things
2:33
that have been donated and that have been purchased at thrift
2:37
stores and things of that nature.
2:39
Yeah, one day when we get the video going, everybody.
2:41
It's going to look cool. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty
2:45
important. Seems like that's the way
2:46
everything's going. It's video and I don't get it
2:48
because I know I just prefer to listen to it.
2:50
Why am I going to sit and watch? Yeah, why someone for three
2:53
hours podcasting? But.
2:54
It's like we've trained our brains.
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Then it's like an extra thing that you get to watch.
2:58
You know, you can subscribe and it's another way to like a value
3:03
add thing, right, I guess. But where's Dirty Harry someday?
3:08
That's what I. Want Dirty Harry is hiding?
3:12
Oh. He's hiding somewhere.
3:14
But it is still in here. I don't.
3:15
I don't. Know presumably.
3:16
Presumably all right. Yeah.
3:18
Do I need to explain Dirty Harry?
3:19
I think we do. Is that just, is that going to
3:21
scare people away from the podcast?
3:23
Yeah. I mean, I guess it's OK.
3:26
All right, I'll go for it. Yeah.
3:28
So Dirty Harry is a classroom pet that I acquired,
3:33
accumulated, we could say in my first several years of teaching,
3:40
you know, routine routines and procedures are such an important
3:43
thing in a classroom, an important thing at a ranch,
3:45
which we're working on right now.
3:47
More on that later. But one of the one of the
3:51
procedures, one of the routines in my class was, you know, using
3:54
the bathroom. As a teacher, you have to have a
3:56
bathroom policy. Like how are you, how are people
3:59
going to ask to use the bathroom?
4:00
What kinds of things will you allow them to use the bathroom
4:03
for? These types of things.
4:04
And so one of the things on my policy manual was like people
4:10
combing their hair or girls combing their hair or people do
4:14
strange things in class sometimes that that should be
4:17
done in the bathroom, you know? And so I said, hey, if you need
4:21
the bathroom, you can ask to use it, but don't do these things.
4:24
And one of them was combing, combing your hair.
4:26
I don't remember if I was having a problem with that with girls
4:29
in my classroom or something or is it was just I was finding a
4:32
lot of junk on the floor and I was trying to talk about
4:35
cleanliness. And, and to illustrate the
4:37
point, after I swept my classroom one day, I there was
4:42
like a bunch of just hair on the floor.
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And I was like, this is gross. Like people are not treating
4:47
this room with respect. And so I just started like
4:51
adding it to a little Tupperware like hair, like literal hairs,
4:55
because I would find hairballs just floating around.
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I don't know if people were shedding or what, what the deal
5:00
was. And, and I just added to it and
5:02
added to it and eventually it kind of became a thing and it
5:04
became a part of my first day lecture where I would go over
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the and it just kept growing and growing and it got to be gross
5:11
and, and it was a like shock value is an important thing in
5:14
teaching. You have to let your students
5:16
know that you're just a little bit crazy or unpredict.
5:19
Don't mess with me. I'm unpredictable.
5:21
It's kind of Trump's basic philosophy.
5:22
I think sometimes it's like you can't, you don't know what he's
5:25
going to do. So it gives you a certain amount
5:26
of like leverage. And so yeah, but I called it
5:30
dirty hairy because it was dirty hair in the and it is around
5:34
here. I don't use it in the
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illustration anymore because, you know, I don't know, get if
5:39
that got back to parents like the the boys would do something
5:42
strange with it. Oh yeah.
5:43
I'm sure they wouldn't be good in this environment.
5:47
But it was useful. It was useful when I was in
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other school settings. I.
5:52
Got one of the. I could probably get a dirty,
5:53
hairy rounded up every day in my house.
5:56
You could with four girls. Yeah.
5:58
Oh my goodness. Yeah.
6:00
Right, yes, so that's Dirty Harry.
6:03
That is, you know, to to pivot into our topic today, the
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frequently asked questions like that, that was a frequently
6:10
asked question when I was a when I was a teacher because what is
6:13
that? What what is that Mister Lima,
6:15
what is that? So today and tomorrow, tomorrow,
6:19
but and the next podcast and, and maybe the next podcast after
6:22
that, we're going to be discussing FAQs, frequently
6:25
asked questions, and there's a place on our website where you
6:28
can go and see our answers to these questions.
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We have 70 podcasts at this point that touch on most of
6:36
these things in one way or another.
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But we thought it would be good if we could put them all in one
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place and people could hear it kind of from our own mouths and
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we can expound upon it and and do all kinds of interesting
6:49
things with the FAQs. Yeah.
6:52
And just to be clear, this one is specifically geared towards
6:56
parents that are looking to send their son to Whetstone.
7:01
And we know a fair amount of parents that are are looking and
7:05
that we're talking to currently. Listen to this and just get an
7:10
idea of life on campus. And obviously, as a parent,
7:14
you're wanting to try to do everything you can to get an
7:18
answer that you feel good about if you're faced with a situation
7:22
of having to send your son to a program like this, yes.
7:25
So just just a heads up, this one's geared for those parents.
7:30
Parental FAQs, Yeah, well, now, now I have an idea and we could
7:33
do like employee FAQs and different types of FAQs as well.
7:39
But this one, we have 18 different kind of broad
7:45
categories and then questions within those.
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So we have a list of about 80 questions that we're going to
7:52
try to get to. Some of them will be able to
7:54
answer pretty quickly. Some of them we have already,
7:57
like I mentioned, talked about. So we're not going to go into as
7:59
much detail as we as we would if we hadn't done that.
8:02
And then others are going to be things we haven't ever talked
8:04
about. And so we'll we'll kind of spend
8:05
some more time on those. But I thought I would just at
8:08
the outset just read what those big buckets are in terms of
8:13
prioritizing. We're going to start with the
8:14
first one, which is, is my son safe?
8:17
That's that's number one. We've already done a whole
8:20
podcast on that. So I think it's called Safety
8:22
first. If if you're concerned about
8:24
that and you want answers in even more detail than this
8:26
podcast, go there. 2 Is this place professional, right?
8:31
Or is it just a vibe with a logo?
8:34
We just therapy through vibing, you know.
8:38
Yeah, we got, we got very professional people here.
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I'm a certified teacher. You're, we, you have a
8:43
bachelor's degree. You know, most of the people who
8:45
are salaried here have bachelor's degrees.
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I would say several teachers with lots of experience,
8:53
licensed professionals and counselors and everything like
8:56
that. Or people kind of on the path
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towards those things at varying stages.
9:01
What do we have? A vibe and a cool logo.
9:03
We do have both of those, but we're not just a vibe and a
9:06
logo. Not just a vibe.
9:07
Three, what kind of boys are there here and, and will my son
9:12
get worse? Like what, what's the peer
9:15
interaction like? And you know, is he going to be
9:18
influenced in really negative ways and come back worse than he
9:21
was because of exposure to stuff that he didn't have exposure to
9:25
before? Great question 4.
9:27
How will you communicate with us as parents?
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Five What exactly are you going to do to help him change, right
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or transform? 6 Counseling and clinical care.
9:38
What What do we mean by therapeutic?
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What types of counseling? What strategies do we use?
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What techniques? 7 What does a normal day look
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like? What's the structure look like?
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8 What does the the school, the Academy portion look like?
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We have a podcast with Gabe Newell, our headmaster, where we
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talked about that in detail, but we're going to give you an
10:00
overview of that. What happened?
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We don't want our son to fall behind in school.
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We want him to stay caught up or even get ahead.
10:07
Is that possible? 9 What about the work in the
10:10
agricultural part of the program?
10:12
Are they going to get hands on? A lot of parents are concerned,
10:15
like my son is a he's a boy, he needs to be outside.
10:17
I don't want him inside doing school and therapy all the time.
10:20
I want him out in nature and stuff like that.
10:23
Ten What do you do for discipline?
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You know, are you going to like over discipline and try to break
10:27
him or are you going to like be too permissive and let him run
10:30
wild? So parents have concerns on both
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sides of that. 11 What do you do for spiritual formation Chapel,
10:36
church attendance, Bible study. 12 What do you do for health
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food, exercise to to make sure he gets stronger, healthier and
10:46
eats well. 13 What do you do with animals and outdoors and,
10:50
and recreation and activity? 14 What about off campus
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activities, field trips, enrichment opportunities?
10:58
15 How do you handle medication and, you know, illness and
11:03
sickness? And we've done a podcast on
11:05
illness and talked a lot about medicine over the course of this
11:09
podcast. 16 The length of stay. What if it doesn't work?
11:15
You know, how long are you going to need?
11:18
How am I going to measure success these types of things?
11:21
And the investment behind that. Yes, yeah, yeah.
11:27
And the money thing, we'll, we'll have to navigate that.
11:30
Like we try not to talk too much about specifics and we're
11:34
working out various opportunities that we can offer
11:37
here as a ranch and there's some things in the works regarding
11:40
that. So that's a little bit in flux.
11:42
17, What do you do for aftercare coming home, communication after
11:46
graduation? And then 18, maybe just a grab
11:49
bag kind of miscellaneous category at the end of stuff
11:52
that we didn't get to. So that's that's a lot of
11:55
questions and there are questions within the questions
11:59
that I think are going to be really helpful.
12:01
So let's get right to it. Sounds good.
12:04
I just did a lot of talking, so I'm going to ask you the first
12:06
question, Brandon, and give it to you number one under the
12:12
under the kind of topic of is my son safe?
12:14
What are supervision standards like?
12:17
The ratio of staff to boys like line of sight?
12:21
What happens at at at night? Yeah.
12:25
Well, from the beginning we've talked about our ratios or three
12:28
to 1, three boys to one staff ratio is what we've never
12:35
compromised on. And so that's just important for
12:39
a lot of reasons, safety being one of them, relationships being
12:43
another key one. But the safety element of that
12:46
is just you got more eyes from staff on boys.
12:50
You can split up boys more where if one is struggling a little
12:54
bit more than another, then just having lower, lower numbers and
12:59
ratios keeps the boys safer overall.
13:03
And again, you have like on level 1 when the boys first come
13:07
in here we call it, we keep the level 1 boys within eyesight and
13:11
earshot. And so we're just gaining trust
13:14
with the boys and really they have to earn the right to to be
13:20
able to gain more privileges. And there's a safety factor in
13:25
that because we don't know, we've heard, we've talked to the
13:27
parents, we feel like this boy is a good fit for the program.
13:31
And so especially when they first come in, that's a safety
13:34
thing of just really gaining trust with the program and the
13:37
staff. So the line of sight and then
13:40
just earshot making sure that they're not saying things that
13:45
don't need to be said that's going to detract from the
13:48
progress of the other students. As far as like the overnight, I
13:54
mean, we have it, we're 24/7 facility where we have staff on
13:58
24 hours a day. There's two, we have two houses
14:02
now. So there's a night staff at each
14:05
house and that's a big job. I mean, that's we, that's a job
14:10
that we take very seriously, The night staff take very seriously
14:14
because at the end of it, it equals the safety of our boys
14:17
while they're sleeping, right? I mean, to be able to get good
14:21
quality sleep is, is one thing as far as just helping them with
14:27
the program, but just for parents knowing that there's
14:32
eyes all the time, essentially. I mean, it's base basically 30
14:35
minutes out of the hour. Yeah, they're going down the
14:39
hallway and just checking, making sure the boys are in
14:42
their beds and sleeping and you know all.
14:46
Is and we actually did the whole podcast with one of those
14:49
overnight with Curtis. Yeah.
14:51
So we. Call that one.
14:57
Was it about sleep? I can't remember sleep.
15:00
Yeah, do with like night staff. Or yeah, something like that.
15:03
Night staff. But yeah, so that's, those are
15:07
some ways that we as far as safety goes and just the overall
15:13
supervision with the ratios. Yeah.
15:15
So I'll, I'll just jump in. We'll give something to add.
15:20
Yeah. I was going to say line of
15:21
sight, like the house that we purchased, which was, you know,
15:25
an answer to prayer back in 2011 is built like very like if we'd
15:31
have sat down to design this house for what we want to do, we
15:35
we could have done probably a little better, but not a whole
15:38
lot better. Like the lines of sight in this
15:40
house that we have, the way that the rooms are built, the
15:42
hallways, the glass windows, the wrap around porch, the
15:48
sturdiness of it, you know it with stood a tornado.
15:52
Yeah, it's. Yeah, mostly, mostly it's it's
15:57
just a really well built house that allows us to do these
16:00
things in a in a safe manner and and allows us to spread out
16:04
staff and that three to one ratio very effectively.
16:07
We can have like 3 boys in one room, like the living room with
16:10
one staff and then there can be 3 boys in the dining room with
16:14
one staff. And there's actually, there's
16:16
literally a room that we used to call the glass cage used to be
16:19
Brandon's office, the glass cage of emotion.
16:22
And you can see the one room from the other, but you can't
16:26
get there because when you can go around, but there's like a, a
16:29
door separating the two. And, and so, and then the new
16:32
house as well. We we were able to build that
16:34
from the ground up with the those intentions of keeping boys
16:37
safe and sight lines. And we just don't want places
16:40
for boys to hide and hide stuff or hide from staff.
16:44
So, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
16:47
People should feel good about about that, OK?
16:49
All right. You want to ask #2 check one
16:53
down 79 to go. Quicker than that.
16:57
It's OK, It's OK. These are important things.
16:59
Yeah. So how do you guys prevent
17:02
bullying or intimidation or pecking order culture?
17:06
Yeah, it's a big one. It is a big one.
17:08
We did 22 podcasts on this one right?
17:11
Didn't we have a 2 parter with with Mr. Brown?
17:14
Probably. I think it was a 2 parter
17:17
because we spent the first one kind of talking about his
17:19
experiences and his background and, and his, his expertise and
17:23
things like that. And then advocacy.
17:26
And then we sent the spent the other one talking about like
17:29
specifically what he, what we do here at the ranch.
17:30
So yeah, pay it. Listen to that if you want to
17:33
know, have a very in depth discussion about bullying.
17:36
But how do we prevent it? Well, First off, I would say
17:40
that it's I don't know that you can prevent this type of thing
17:43
from happening entirely. I think boys are going to be
17:47
bullies and boys are going to put themselves in position to
17:52
get bullied. It's kind of kind of par for the
17:55
course when the boys show up here.
17:57
So it's more a matter of like coaching them through their
18:01
recognition of when they're doing it.
18:04
They're abilities to prevent themselves from being victimized
18:09
cause certain behaviors like they've just learned to be
18:12
helpless and put themselves in positions to be bullied.
18:15
Not that that excuses it or, you know, that they're to blame for
18:19
it, but there are some things that they can do to prevent
18:21
themselves from being put in compromising positions.
18:25
And something that Mr. Brown talks a lot about is like, we
18:29
have, we have to have compassion for people that are being
18:32
bullied, obviously, but there's also a, a sense in which we have
18:35
to have compassion, empathy for the bully.
18:38
Why is, why is that boy bullying?
18:40
Why is he behaving in that manner?
18:42
And so we deal a lot with those root causes and counseling and
18:46
in, you know, behavior modification coaching with boys.
18:51
You know, I think that your answer to 1 gets at #2 as well,
18:55
like being around, being within eyesight and earshot and being
19:01
proxemics. We use that word this morning in
19:04
a discussion we have being, just being there.
19:08
You know, the pecking order culture that's, that's going to
19:11
evolve. There's always going to be a
19:13
kind of subculture that exists on some level because the boys,
19:17
you know, they, it's social dynamics, right?
19:20
Yeah, I mean, it happens everywhere, whether or not
19:22
you're here at a youth group in in church, right, or something
19:26
like that. There's some type of a.
19:29
I think it's more about how to navigate it, how to be aware of
19:32
it, to name it so that you can so that you can treat it.
19:39
You know, I think teaching boys to be manly, you know, to stand
19:44
up for themselves, not to punch someone in the face, but but to
19:48
stand up for yourself in a respect, in a, in a way that is
19:50
appropriate is good. You know, having to deal with
19:54
some adversity and, and overcome it, I think that's, that's key.
20:01
Yeah. And and we do have pretty severe
20:03
consequences too. It's not just like, oh, bullying
20:06
is a part of growing up. I mean, that's not our stance at
20:08
all. So if, if a boy is bullying
20:12
another boy, he, he will have some very serious consequences.
20:15
And that's, it's not just physical bowling.
20:17
There's verbal bullying, emotional bullying and all
20:19
kinds. And so we have discussions about
20:22
what it is and we define it and name it and all these things.
20:26
Yeah, I think that's what you said was key as far as just
20:30
there's consequences when it gets across the line or crosses
20:34
the line. And again, staff just being
20:39
present to to see that and direct it as needed.
20:42
Yeah, is kind of how we handle that.
20:44
Mm hmm. All right, you never been here
20:47
for three? Yep.
20:47
OK, two down, 78 to go. All right, what happens if my
20:52
son becomes violent, threatens self harm or escalates fast?
20:58
Escalates fast yeah well as far as the violence I'll just
21:05
there's obviously different levels of that If a a kid the
21:09
kind of the best way that we do safety in those situations is
21:15
separation. You know, we try to get the the
21:17
crowd or the other boys away from the boy who's escalating or
21:23
escalated already and is, and I would say if he's throwing
21:28
things or punching walls, obviously that's getting
21:31
violent. And so as long as he's not, you
21:35
know, physically hitting or attacking another student and
21:41
he's just kind of throwing a tantrum, then we will separate
21:46
him from the group and try to give him a chance to, you know,
21:50
use some de escalation techniques and try to be able to
21:54
get him back to baseline. And if he we don't really, we
22:00
don't do any physical holds on boys unless we feel that they
22:06
are threatening the safety of other students or really the
22:10
safety of themselves. So if that student's going to
22:14
sit there and just bang his head on a window or the door, which
22:21
we don't see that stuff very often.
22:22
But obviously if he's got to do something like that where he
22:25
could very seriously injure himself, then we will, you know,
22:32
put him in a hold or, you know, at least remove him from that
22:35
situation. We very rarely ever put boys in
22:38
holds. Like I said, we just because on
22:40
the front end of that, we try to make sure that this boy is going
22:45
to be the right fit. So if a boy has a lot of history
22:49
of doing things like that, it's probably going to need a higher
22:52
level of care, right? But and.
22:53
When, just to clarify, when you say a hold, we're not talking
22:56
about like holding a boy down or holding him for any amount of
22:59
time. We just, we have a, a technique
23:02
that we use or training that we go through called TCI or
23:05
therapeutic crisis intervention. And it does coach us in terms of
23:08
how to separate two boys if they're about to beat each other
23:10
up or if a boy is in a harmful situation, we know how to move
23:14
him away, right? We're not just going to hold him
23:17
and put him in some kind of like vice grip or lay on top of him.
23:20
We never do anything like that. And I think the other part of
23:25
that, if a boy threatens self harm, sometimes this is a tough
23:30
one because there are boys that know how to say the right things
23:36
to get kicked out of a program. And that's one tactic that a boy
23:42
can use is threatened suicide. And you go through the suicide
23:47
protocol. And I mean, so on a normal
23:50
situation, that's kind of what we do is just there's a series
23:53
of questions. And with the suicide prevention
23:58
protocol, and if you deem that boy to be really dangerous as
24:03
far as like he's serious about those thoughts, then kind of the
24:08
next level is to to phone that in.
24:10
And, you know, that needs to be taken to a hospital, you know,
24:15
and, or if it's not, as there's different levels of that
24:18
severity, right then if, if not, then sometimes it's just make
24:21
sure you have the protocol is to have more eyes on him more
24:27
frequently, you know, through the night and kind of that
24:31
suicide protocol. But some boys come in and they
24:33
just, they know what to say and what it takes to get them to go
24:38
to a hospital, a psych, psych hospital and get out of here
24:43
because that's all they can think about, right.
24:44
So, so those are some of the things that we've seen here as
24:49
far as threatening self harm. But in general, we have a
24:52
protocol to ask them a series of questions and then we anything
24:58
like that, we call the parents right away.
25:00
We let them know of the situation, we call the program
25:06
director and we would also call the therapist in that standpoint
25:10
or from that time to just let them know that this is going on.
25:15
And so there's a series that's kind of how we handle all of
25:20
that in the name of just keeping the boys safe and trying to do
25:24
what's right to get the boy back to a a baseline setting.
25:29
Yeah, yeah. And I want to add to that too.
25:32
We're very careful with sharps. We're careful to do like sweeps
25:37
and searches after we go off campus or things of that nature
25:41
to make sure people aren't smuggling in dangerous items.
25:45
Yeah, we lock all that stuff up, you know, for any kind of
25:48
kitchen knife or anything that's obviously dangerous that they
25:55
could use as a weapon. They we do a search when they
25:57
come in to try to make sure they don't have any contraband of
26:02
that nature or just like, yeah, anything that's harmful.
26:06
Yeah, a knife or a gun or anything like that.
26:09
Yeah. I think this would be a great
26:10
one to go into more detail on at some point with the counselors
26:14
about strategies, techniques, 'cause this is a, this is a
26:18
major concern that a lot of parents have in terms of a boy's
26:20
safety, especially if he's acted out in that way already.
26:24
I would say like the, the enrollment intake process is
26:27
probably going to exclude boys that have a repeated, you know,
26:34
have a history of a lot of, you know, self harm or attempts like
26:37
that. Like we're not equipped to
26:39
deliver that kind of psychological care.
26:43
And that's why after a certain amount of time, when a boy
26:45
continues to make threats, it is it is a situation where we may
26:49
have to find what we call a higher level of care.
26:53
But what she said is exactly right.
26:54
That's it's a tricky one that boys find out those little
26:57
things, those things that they can do to get kicked out,
27:00
whether it's getting in a fight or running away or threatening
27:03
self harm or certain things. Yeah.
27:07
So they had to be careful with that because, I don't know, it's
27:13
it's just takes a lot of skill, which is why I think like having
27:16
a therapist on here would would be great.
27:17
Yeah. All right.
27:18
Well, that handled you handled 4 there too.
27:20
So 2 for the price of 1. Brandon I.
27:22
Think we're good on 4. How do you handle restraints?
27:24
Is that 1? So #5 We talked about this a
27:28
little bit, but maybe you can expound more on how we handle
27:32
contraband. I got a good story on this one.
27:38
I think this is OK to say to say.
27:40
I'm not going to mention any names, obviously.
27:42
And I, I, I don't remember if I told the story or not, but we
27:47
had. We have to be careful when we go
27:48
off campus with boys bringing stuff back, like you said.
27:53
But on one field trip, the boys found an unopened can of beer.
27:58
Oh, yes, you remember this one, right?
28:01
Have we told this one? Lucky, lucky.
28:05
And that happens around the river here a lot.
28:08
People like to imbibe and have a good time when they're on the
28:12
river because we have these lazy floats that people do and you'll
28:16
find 6 packs just floating in the in the river a lot of times.
28:20
Wipe out. Yeah, but they found a can of
28:22
beer and they brought it back in the van and decided that they
28:26
would try to drink this beer in the van discreetly.
28:34
It's hard. Hard to do.
28:37
Hard to. Do when you can't do the.
28:40
Yeah, up the top. So I think the plan was to like
28:44
poke a little hole in it or to just crack it a tiny little bit
28:48
so that it would like seep out. Yeah, right.
28:52
And it could be shared like among among the boys.
28:56
And obviously you the smell of alcohol is gonna in a van tight
29:03
space, it's gonna you're gonna start to smell that.
29:05
And also the the sound could could be a problem as well.
29:10
Crinkling. Can.
29:10
Yeah. So that that was a a serious
29:13
infraction, as you can imagine. But we have to be careful with
29:17
people smuggling back like cigarette butts or refries, as
29:22
they're called. That was a new one for me when I
29:25
first started working here. One of the first residents use
29:29
that term, which I, I kind of respected, like the poetry of
29:32
it. I thought that was really,
29:33
really fun way to describe those things.
29:36
Refries. And we've had boys try to light
29:38
those things in in creative ways.
29:41
Oh yeah. We won't, we don't need to go
29:43
into all the details about about what those creative ways were,
29:47
but and I remember you were responsible for just finding out
29:51
one, right? Oh yeah, and you light bulb man.
29:54
Yeah, I'll say how. Did you figure that out?
29:56
You were like, we went outside and and watched what they were,
30:01
what they were trying to do. Yeah, I can hear someone going
30:04
on the windows in the room. And at that point we still had,
30:09
I think we still had a door, OK, on their on their room there.
30:15
And I just had at at different times anyways, 'cause we were
30:19
house parents at the time. And so I just had a habit a
30:23
couple times a nights a week would just go outside at 10:30
30:28
or 11:00 and just see what's going on.
30:31
You know, again, I'm not night staff, but because we didn't
30:33
have night staff, we had like alarms on the windows and on the
30:37
hallways and whatnot. But because it was dark, we
30:40
didn't have those big floodlights on.
30:42
So I could just walk out there little ways and they had no idea
30:44
I was out there. But they have like lights on in
30:46
the bathroom or. And so that was one night I
30:51
could hear some commotion going on and knew something.
30:54
They were up to something. And yeah, sure enough, I look in
30:58
the bathroom window and like 2 of them, one kid in particular
31:04
standing on the countertop and he's got one of these reefers
31:08
or, you know, half cigarette, and he's trying to figure out
31:11
how to light it on the stick in his mouth.
31:15
Up to the light bulb, man. My goodness.
31:17
Try to get it hot enough to where he could smoke it.
31:22
Oh man, so those were sounds like another lifetime.
31:26
Ago yeah, yeah. So so boys are point being boys
31:32
are very creative and and desperate sometimes just for
31:36
escape, for an opportunity to just do something fun or risky
31:45
or whatever. Like there's, there's risk
31:47
seeking behaviors, like there's certain levels of dopamine and
31:51
certain addictions that that people have to those, to those
31:54
behaviors, not just the chemicals, but but the the
31:57
actual behavior of what it feels like to do something that is
32:02
wrong or risky or illegal. So what do we do to that?
32:07
Yeah, yeah. So what do we do when we find
32:09
contraband? How do we handle the?
32:11
Well, it's consequences. You know, we mentioned the
32:13
sweeps when we, we, we know the times when guys are likely to
32:16
pick up stuff that they shouldn't have.
32:19
We do we have a, a process that we use to kind of check their,
32:23
their clothing, their pockets, you know, they'll hide stuff in
32:26
the waistband. We're not, we're not stripping
32:29
them down and doing anything like that.
32:31
But this is within reason the searches that we're able to do
32:36
and. Something's found on their.
32:40
Yes. Body or their person as they
32:43
say. I don't like using that word,
32:44
but I don't like this buzzwords you hadn't noticed, But what
32:51
would be their consequence if something was like on a work day
32:54
or on a run, they come back and we find that they got something
32:58
in their sock or a cigarette? How would we handle that from
33:04
well standpoint? Yeah, it would probably depend
33:07
on the level of of the severity of the thing that they brought
33:10
back. Like if they brought back a
33:11
knife, which no one's ever done before, but people will pick up
33:14
like sharp things, pieces of glass and things like that.
33:16
Nails. Yeah, some of that stuff is it,
33:19
it has to have a consequence, but it also has to be addressed
33:22
from a therapeutic way because like with cutting, for example,
33:26
like a boy is, if a boy wants to cut, he's he's going to cut.
33:29
Yeah. Like you cannot stop it.
33:30
Not that you shouldn't to collect whatever things they're
33:35
using to cut themselves with, but it also has to be addressed
33:38
from a therapeutic way. You can't just consequence it a
33:41
way, but you also have to let people know it's serious
33:45
infraction so they they might be on PR restriction.
33:49
So if a guy is on level 2 and he doesn't have to be as close to
33:54
staff all the time, earsight, earshot and eyesight, eyesight
33:58
in your shot, then he'll lose that privilege for a period of
34:01
time. Might be a week, two weeks if if
34:04
it's happened repeatedly, could be longer, could be consequences
34:09
in terms of work days, things of that nature.
34:14
Yeah, we consider that a major infraction.
34:16
Yeah, for the most part. Just cause serious.
34:20
It's a biggie. They, you know, early on there's
34:25
well, there's just like what if they bring, I mean, they could
34:30
bring whatever. I mean, they could find drugs on
34:32
a work day and that would. Be or pills.
34:35
Any kind of pills like this, that's a major deal.
34:37
We take that very seriously. Yeah, here.
34:39
So anyway, I'd say let's keep moving on, I think.
34:42
We, well, I, I would like to address the pornography thing
34:44
because that's, we could do a whole episode on, on that,
34:48
right. But like guys taking pictures
34:50
out of magazines or, you know, we have to be careful with the
34:53
books and the stuff that they'll tear out of books and things of
34:57
that nature and hide between sheets and, and things like
35:00
that. So it's something that we're
35:03
aware of smuggling and, and in terms of like the safety issue,
35:07
I think it's, it's important for parents to know that, that we
35:10
take it seriously and that we do try to prevent it.
35:13
But it is something that is going, you know, it's going to
35:16
happen like people are going to, to bring stuff in.
35:19
And so there's nothing that's 100% foolproof with that.
35:24
All right, six, what is your runaway protocol prevention
35:28
response? You know, that's a big one.
35:31
Parents are concerned about, yeah, it kind of goes back to
35:34
the US not being a restraint facility.
35:37
Like the kid wants to run. He's, we don't try to tackle
35:40
him. And so we, if he's bent on
35:44
leaving campus, we just let him know that, hey, once you step,
35:48
you have 15 minutes basically. And once you step off the
35:52
property, you have 15 minutes to get back on property before we
35:57
call the cops and file a missing person report.
36:02
And we'll call the parents at that point as well and just say,
36:06
hey, sometimes the boys are still in eyesight.
36:11
Sometimes they'll just cruise through the woods and just roll
36:15
out. And so we just notify the
36:18
parents, we notify the police, and then basically they'll come
36:24
in at some point, they'll get the boy, they'll find where the
36:27
boy's AT and bring him back on campus.
36:31
And then we will deal with the the fallout from there as far as
36:36
he'll get consequences and beyond privilege restriction and
36:40
just all those things that we we do for even like, like the
36:43
contraband stuff that we just talked about.
36:47
But yeah, that's kind of how we handle the, the runaways.
36:50
And if really if, if a boy runs away more than a few times, it's
36:55
that's about when we say he needs a higher level of care
36:59
because he's just not, we just can't, we're not the right
37:02
program for somebody who's not going to be plugged in.
37:04
And just we're, we're dealing with runaways all the time.
37:07
And again, he'll need that's a safety factor for the, the kid,
37:12
right? And so that's a big thing
37:14
overall from the safety standpoint, we want to do what's
37:18
right by the kids and give that boy the help he needs.
37:23
If we deem through things like that, that he's not a good fit
37:27
for our program, then we will. We've always been, I felt pretty
37:34
fair with the parents on just honest with them say, hey, I
37:37
think your your son needs a little bit higher level of care.
37:40
So. Yeah, it's, it's a problem with,
37:42
with management, Like if you have a three to one ratio and
37:45
you have one kid that keeps running away and you have to
37:48
send one staff out to that person, that messes up the
37:51
quality of care you're able to give to the other boys.
37:54
And and then like another person needs to be involved too in
37:57
terms of like calling law enforcement or making a, you
38:00
know, it's just it takes all of our energies, you know, for one
38:04
boy if he keeps doing that. Well, it's a safety issue for
38:07
the staff. Yeah.
38:09
You know, 'cause something a lot of staff will want to go and
38:12
follow them and try to talk them back in.
38:15
And I mean, you're been there right through the woods and
38:18
running through downed trees and yeah, stuff like that.
38:21
I will say it's pretty rare. We've got a lot of boys who
38:25
quote UN quote ran away, but it was really more like they got
38:28
overwhelmed and they didn't know what to do and they ran out into
38:31
the woods and they just just got overloaded, right?
38:35
Or it was a spur of the moment thing, like they couldn't even
38:41
explain it, you know what I mean?
38:45
And they were just desperate. I would say of of the 150 boys
38:48
that we've had, maybe half a dozen have actually been, like,
38:55
dismissed because it just kept happening repeatedly.
38:58
Yeah. And I don't even know that it's
39:00
that much, but it feels like that feels right to me.
39:02
I haven't never really added it up.
39:06
So it's pretty rare. It's pretty rare that we were
39:09
not able to develop relationship with a boy to the point where we
39:12
can keep him from running away. And some of it helps.
39:14
We're so far away from anything. That's what I was going to
39:17
mention. We're kind of geographically in
39:18
a good spot and especially in the summertime, I mean, it's
39:22
woods and you're going to get, you're going to pay the piper
39:25
with ticks and Poison Ivy and all that kind of stuff.
39:30
Some chiggers. Bears.
39:33
Sasquatch. You never know out there.
39:36
You never know and there's not a whole lot of traffic coming by
39:38
our place. They can't really hitch a ride
39:39
with anyone. It's.
39:41
Yeah, if it's at night, it's like pitch dark.
39:43
So we, we only take boys within like a 50 mile radius as well,
39:48
which has helped to reduce the amount of we we don't take boys,
39:51
sorry, we don't take boys within that radius.
39:52
And so they don't, they don't know the area, they don't know
39:54
where to go. They don't have friends who can
39:55
come pick them up. Yeah, things of that nature.
39:58
So sounds good. I feel like we've covered 7:00
40:01
and 8:00 there. Let's see crisis response, who
40:06
gets called document. Yeah.
40:08
I mean, we have counselors. We have trained counselors on
40:11
staff who can come in and talk to boys if they are escalated.
40:15
If things have gotten to the point Thomas is, Mr. Brown is
40:18
really good. We're gifted at talking to boys
40:22
and de escalating them. That's kind of one of his roles.
40:24
He doesn't have like, shifts anymore where he works from, you
40:28
know, 8 to 5 or whatever. But he's on call always because
40:31
he lives here and anyone can call him at any time of day
40:35
because those are the hours he kind of keeps.
40:37
And he can come in and talk to a, a, a boy.
40:40
And then how do you keep residents safe during high
40:42
emotion moments? Yeah, the, the glass cage of
40:45
emotion moments where they have meltdowns and shutdowns and
40:48
panic and, and rage. And I think it's hard for
40:51
parents sometimes to to comprehend that someone is going
40:56
to be able to handle those because they are at a point when
40:59
they call us where they don't have any other options.
41:02
Like, you know, your parents a lot of times say we've tried
41:04
everything. And I don't want to discount
41:08
that and say that you haven't tried everything, but you
41:11
probably haven't tried everything.
41:12
And even if you have, we can do the same things that you're
41:16
doing. And it's just going to it's
41:18
going to hit different. Brandon to use one of your
41:20
favorite phrases. And you have a lot more staff
41:24
and you just, the structure is it's just a different
41:28
environment. And for that.
41:31
So when you're already for a mom too, a lot of times the anger
41:35
can get taken out on a mom. And so it's different there when
41:40
it's when you're dealing with just, I guess sons sometimes
41:46
trying to, especially when they get bigger physically, they feel
41:48
like they can push their mom around and some of that violence
41:52
when they get over that edge, it just kind of a power play.
41:57
They use that to their advantage and can throw stuff around and
42:02
get violent to get their way. And they just can't get away
42:07
with that as much as they can at at home.
42:10
They try for sure. Yeah, yeah, W Zone is a place
42:14
for them to to reset, to kind of start over.
42:17
Some boys really take advantage of that fresh start and they
42:21
don't have the baggage, you don't have the history, you
42:22
don't have all the scripts that you run through as a family over
42:25
and over and over again. So we we have some advantages
42:30
and some tools that we can use to to really reach your son and
42:34
to help him and coach him through these these blow UPS
42:36
situations. So.
42:37
Yeah, a lot of that's just getting that space and that
42:40
separation from the environment itself.
42:43
So, and sometimes we don't see that until a little bit later
42:48
down the line when they're really facing some of the, the
42:53
traumas or things that they need to, to kind of work through.
42:57
Just having some separation from that kind of chaotic environment
43:00
that's happening at home is a relief for them.
43:06
And we don't see that, right, violence and and rage.
43:12
I mean, we don't see a lot of, like we said a lot of that
43:14
anyways, but that separation is is huge initially puts things
43:19
into perspective for him. All right.
43:23
Well, we got through the 1st question, is my son safe?
43:26
That's eight down 72 to go, which some of these are will
43:30
take longer than others, but that's, that's a, a big one.
43:34
And I feel like it's important to, to get that.
43:37
And we talked about some things there that we didn't talk about
43:39
on the safety podcast. So I think that's great.
43:42
I I do have one more question, Brandon frequently asked.
43:45
Why are those shorts so short? Axel I mean, why are long pants
43:52
long? I mean, why are bushes bushy?
43:56
You know, if we're going to go down that road, we're we'll be
43:59
here all day. Yeah.
44:01
It's already 72 questions so. OK, I mean, I know it's.
44:04
Stressed. I don't want to stress.
44:05
Casual day, but man, I was not expecting.
44:07
I was not expecting those those short shorts so short.
44:12
For those of you who don't know, that's a an SNL skit starring
44:15
the great Will Ferrell. So always got to get one of
44:17
those. Thank you.
44:18
We always got to get one of those in here.
44:22
Well, thanks, Brandon, this has been good.
44:25
We both have some time off here in the next couple weeks, but
44:31
we'll we'll report back on our our adventures in the next
44:34
podcast. Yeah, that sounds good.
44:36
Yeah, you're going. Japan.
44:40
I'm going to Japan. Yeah, Tokyo with my
44:43
brother-in-law. Wow.
44:44
Who's invited me along. And I actually took two years of
44:46
Japanese in high school. I did, I did.
44:50
I took two years. I don't remember a whole lot,
44:52
but I did develop an appreciation for Japan and
44:56
Japanese culture and things of that nature.
44:59
So it's. Why did you take Japanese out of
45:03
curiosity? Well, it was a part of we, our
45:07
school had like a gifted and talented program of and there
45:12
were certain like classes that you were encouraged to take in
45:15
that program. I'd already taken 2 years of
45:17
Spanish and I just, I wasn't super interested in Spanish and
45:20
the teacher, it wasn't like a like, OK, I did that.
45:24
I, I checked the box, but, but taking Japanese was like a
45:28
challenge. It was like, it was like, I
45:30
don't know, almost. There was a little certain
45:34
prestige quality to it, I guess. Like I'm taking Japanese, you
45:38
know? An elite, You're an elite.
45:40
Yeah, I felt it felt very much elite status and and my friends
45:45
were taking it and it was a good experience.
45:49
So I'm looking forward to that. What what you got going on?
45:53
Well, we're starting off going to a couple Mardi Gras parades
45:57
and down in Baton or actually Louisiana, New Orleans, so
46:04
that'll be cool. It's been a few years since
46:05
we've been to a couple of those parades.
46:07
A lot of people. Oh yeah.
46:09
On eBay. Oh yeah, some good swag.
46:12
They throw some pretty crazy things.
46:15
But yeah, a lot of people think, oh, you know, Mardi Gras and
46:18
they they think what happens down there on Bourbon Street
46:20
during Mardi Gras, That's like way down the line, You know,
46:23
this where we're going to be at. It's just kind of families
46:27
coming there with their kids. They set up a ladder so the kids
46:30
can sit on ladders and see higher, you know, for the
46:32
parades coming through. And so you just kind of go down
46:36
there and just for the day and bring some coolers and your
46:40
lunches and just watch the parade.
46:42
So it's it's a cool vibe down there.
46:45
And so we're doing that for a couple days over the weekend and
46:49
then on Monday we're all going to Georgia, Blue Ridge, GA, Blue
46:55
Ridge Mountains, and just got a VRBO house out there to hang out
47:00
and do some hiking and I guess get out in the woods and check
47:05
out that scene a little bit. Never.
47:07
The kiddos have never been to that part of the country.
47:10
So Atlanta's about 45 minutes away.
47:14
So I don't know, maybe we'll get adventurous and go to the city
47:21
one day. Yeah, we'll see the.
47:22
Home of Chick-fil-A. Oh, is it?
47:25
Yeah. I used to work at.
47:26
Headquarters, Yeah. Years ago, right in my
47:28
construction days, yeah, so. They have a Olympic museum
47:32
there. The 96 Olympics was out there.
47:35
Yeah, which is good. Jimmy Carter Museum.
47:37
I've done that. And.
47:41
Is that a Habitat for Humanity museum or what?
47:45
No, it's the Presidential Presidential Library.
47:47
So, yeah, the thing that was that was definitely worth
47:50
visiting. Those are always worth going to.
47:52
Got you. Yeah.
47:54
Yeah. So we'll check some of that out.
47:56
Cool. Well, thanks for making the time
47:59
to do this, Brandon. Yeah, and.
48:01
FAQs Yeah. FAQs Thank you to Thomas Brown
48:05
for helping out with this and maybe we should come up with a
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list of FAQs for Thomas. We can end each podcast with a a
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question from a listener. Just a a question.
48:18
Yeah, just a right question that people might have let's.
48:20
Keep the answer to the needy about.
48:22
Thomas But OK, well, this has been great.
48:28
Thank you and thank you guys for listening to A Time to Sharpen
48:32
and how do I end this thing, Brandon?
48:34
How do I get out of here? What do I say at the end?
48:36
You thanks for joining us. What do you say?
48:42
I don't know. I just, I, I, I lost my rhythm
48:45
usually I'm like, right. Thank you to Thomas and thank
48:47
you to Brandon and thank you all for listening to.
48:50
Until next time. Until next time.
48:53
A time. We'll catch you next time, I
48:54
think, is what I say. There you go on.
48:56
A time to sharpen. Yeah, Whetstone Boys Ranch is a
49:07
therapeutic boarding school located in the scenic Ozarks of
49:11
southern Missouri. It was founded in 2011 to serve
49:15
families from around the country who are struggling with
49:17
challenging behaviors from their 12 to 16 year old sons.
49:21
Our mission is to sharpen the character of young men.
49:25
Please visit whetstoneboysranch.com if you
49:28
want to learn more about our program or about how to contact
49:31
us for help. Thanks for listening and we hope
49:33
to catch you next time on A time to sharpen.