Latest / A Time to Sharpen / FAQ's: Part 2

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FAQ's: Part 2 · A Time to Sharpen

• 0:09
  Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
• 0:12
  Yeah, well, lots of things, I guess.
• 0:15
  Poverty. More running out of toilet paper
• 0:19
  in a public restroom. I mean, what do you do?
• 0:25
  Think about it. It's like a choose your own
• 0:27
  adventure. Do you ask the guy next to you
• 0:30
  to to help out? What if there's not a guy next
• 0:33
  to you? What if nobody's in there?
• 0:35
  Do you just wrap it up and head out?
• 0:39
  I don't know, that's your call. But seriously though, the dough
• 0:43
  blade is bad. It's unusable.
• 0:46
  In fact, it's downright dangerous.
• 0:48
  Knives need sharpening. From Whetstone Boys Ranch in
• 0:52
  Mountain View, MO comes a Time to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast
• 0:56
  that examines how we can all be better versions of ourselves.
• 1:00
  Better counselors, better teachers, better parents, better
• 1:04
  people. FAQs Part 2 will address some of
• 1:12
  the questions that come out around the kitchen table at
• 1:15
  11:30 at night. Is this place actually
• 1:18
  professional or just a ranch with a nice logo?
• 1:21
  What kind of boys are there? Is my kid going to get better or
• 1:25
  learn a few new tricks I don't want him learning?
• 1:27
  How are boys grouped? Who runs the program day-to-day?
• 1:31
  How is conflict handled? How do we communicate with
• 1:33
  parents? And what do people really mean
• 1:35
  when they say a program is therapeutic?
• 1:38
  Join us this week on A Time to Sharpen as we provide some
• 1:41
  straight answers to help you decide whether Whetstone Boys
• 1:44
  Ranch is the right fit for your son and your family.
• 1:53
  Welcome back to A Time to Sharpen.
• 1:54
  I am Axel Limata and I'm here with Brandon Maxwell.
• 1:58
  How you doing Brandon? Doing good, good to be back.
• 2:01
  Good to be back. It's Thursday, March, you know,
• 2:05
  it's a February, the 20. What is it 20?
• 2:09
  6th. Is that right?
• 2:11
  Is it that late 26th? That may be off.
• 2:14
  On 25, I'm going to say 25. We clearly have no idea.
• 2:18
  It is the 26th. It's the 26th.
• 2:20
  Yeah, the 26th. See, I know what's going on.
• 2:23
  Well, only 28 days this year, right?
• 2:25
  It's not leap year. Yeah.
• 2:26
  So we're going to be on March here pretty soon.
• 2:29
  Feels like May the weather around here.
• 2:33
  Yeah, it's been nice. Very balmy ticks are out
• 2:37
  apparently. Yeah.
• 2:39
  But I'm hoping maybe this tricks them into coming out and then we
• 2:42
  get a freeze. Never happens.
• 2:43
  Kill even more. It's a myth.
• 2:45
  Yeah, it's a myth. So we're going to sorry.
• 2:49
  Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go.
• 2:50
  We're going to, let's do this. We got it.
• 2:52
  We got to move. We got to get to the FAQs
• 2:54
  because we're trying to do a series of podcasts that address
• 2:57
  the frequent, most frequently asked questions by parents.
• 3:01
  And my basic strategy for this was honestly, I just went to
• 3:04
  chat and I'm like, what are the main questions that parents have
• 3:07
  when they're considering placing their son at a place like
• 3:10
  Whetstone? Because I figured a lot of
• 3:11
  people, that's what they're going to do.
• 3:13
  They're like, what do I need to ask Whetstone Boys Ranch to make
• 3:16
  sure my boy is going to be, you know, safe is he's going to he's
• 3:20
  going to get what he needs, everything like that.
• 3:22
  So that's why we started off with safety because that's like
• 3:24
  the number one concern. We do have a podcast about
• 3:27
  safety as well. We have 7071 different podcasts
• 3:32
  at this point and a lot of things that we talk about during
• 3:35
  the FAQ sessions are going to be going to have sessions like the
• 3:40
  entire. Deeper dive into it.
• 3:41
  That's right. You can take a deeper dive and
• 3:43
  then I'll try to publish like a, a list of those things and we'll
• 3:46
  we'll reference them as we can on the podcast.
• 3:48
  But let's get into the second question, which is what kind of,
• 3:51
  sorry, is this place professional?
• 3:54
  I mean, we don't know what day it is, but other than that,
• 3:57
  yeah, I would say, I would say we're pretty professional, you
• 4:01
  know, so let's talk about some of our professional like
• 4:04
  qualifications, accreditations, degrees, things like that.
• 4:07
  OK. All right.
• 4:09
  Yeah. I mean, from our therapeutic
• 4:12
  standpoint, I mean our, our therapist or licensed social
• 4:18
  workers, the LSW sometimes is the that you know, the, the
• 4:23
  letters behind the names, but a licensed therapist, marriage and
• 4:27
  family therapist. Mr. Hamilton is a yeah,
• 4:30
  licensed. Well, he's he, he's out of
• 4:33
  school and he's doing his basically what amounts to his
• 4:36
  residency. So he sees a doctor, right?
• 4:38
  You know, not a doctor per SE, but if he were in Med school,
• 4:41
  he's been through the training, he is considered a doctor, but
• 4:44
  he has a series of like a couple years where he has to be
• 4:46
  underneath another professional. And so, but he also has 10 years
• 4:52
  of youth ministry experience before that.
• 4:54
  So he's not some young guy right out of college, right, Right.
• 4:59
  So keep going. Yeah, I mean, as far as Gabe's
• 5:04
  our education director, our headmaster, and you were our
• 5:08
  headmaster prior to him and maybe you got all of your, I
• 5:12
  know you have a master's level degree in literature.
• 5:17
  And is that, does Gabe have a master's?
• 5:21
  I'm not sure what his. Well, mine is actually, I, I
• 5:24
  have a master's in secondary education with an emphasis in
• 5:28
  English or Language arts. And I also have a, a national
• 5:31
  board certification, which is considered a terminal degree in
• 5:35
  education. It's not a PhD or doctorate, but
• 5:37
  within education, it's, it's the equivalent.
• 5:39
  Like if I were in public schools, I would get paid just
• 5:42
  as much for having my national board certification as I would
• 5:45
  if I had a, a doctorate. So it's a little more specific.
• 5:49
  Gabe has a, has a bachelor's, but he has lots, he has many
• 5:53
  more credits than is necessary for bachelor's because he's, he
• 5:56
  was in the theater for a while. That was the route that he went
• 5:59
  down. And then he exploded a bunch of
• 6:01
  different things. And he had a couple different
• 6:03
  careers as an animal control officer and then managed Menards
• 6:07
  and, and so, and then he was a house and then he was a stay at
• 6:10
  home dad for a period of time. And so, and then he settled on
• 6:14
  science and biology. So he has a degree from
• 6:16
  Missouri. S and.
• 6:19
  TS and T science and Technology, which is a great school, great
• 6:22
  school. And then and then back to the
• 6:26
  counseling. We have Scott Collins, who has
• 6:28
  two master's degrees and one of them is in psychology and
• 6:33
  counseling and education as well.
• 6:37
  And then right now we have Zach Nelson, who's a counselor who
• 6:44
  works for us as well. And he also has letters besides
• 6:47
  his name. I'm going to read these off.
• 6:49
  He's an MANCCLAC, you know, substance abuse, mental health
• 6:53
  and substance abuse counselor has I think 1520 years
• 6:57
  experience working in a lot of different facilities, many of
• 7:00
  them up in the Northeast. Yeah, I was going to mention
• 7:03
  that with there's a lot of those acronyms with different
• 7:05
  specialties with the counseling, you know, broader based, what's
• 7:15
  the word I'm looking for is the practice.
• 7:18
  You know, there's just a lot of specialties and everything's
• 7:22
  kind of specialized. And so we use caliber counseling
• 7:27
  as well, which is with where Zach works at and just to help
• 7:33
  kind of fill in some of the gaps and, and being able to consult
• 7:38
  with them as well as contract with them.
• 7:40
  And they, all of those counselors have a lot of those
• 7:46
  specialty trainings behind them and which I don't know exactly
• 7:50
  what all of those are, but but nevertheless they bring a level
• 7:56
  of professionalism to our therapeutic realm, which is.
• 7:59
  Super helpful. And it's important to have that,
• 8:02
  that level of knowledge when you're making policies and when
• 8:05
  you're making decisions. And because you can, in this
• 8:08
  business, you can let your emotions get the best of you and
• 8:12
  make decisions that are just out of, out of touch with what's
• 8:18
  considered to be good, good practice because you kind of
• 8:22
  lose perspective. And so our program director has
• 8:25
  the training to be able to look at the big picture and say, Hey,
• 8:27
  you know what, we're getting a little too strict or we're not
• 8:29
  getting strict or we're not strict enough.
• 8:31
  Because those are generally the two extremes that you, you have
• 8:34
  to watch out for is running a place that has so much structure
• 8:38
  that, that people are being like, you know, the, the, that
• 8:43
  the mood can get oppressive, you know, and you can take away
• 8:46
  things that should not be taken away.
• 8:48
  Like you should never take away food, for example, as a
• 8:51
  punishment. And you should now you can
• 8:53
  modify someone's diet and maybe say no sweets and things like
• 8:56
  that, but you shouldn't be like, OK, you're just on bread and
• 8:58
  water for the next week. And programs like ours,
• 9:02
  sometimes you kind of ratchet up the level of like consequences
• 9:07
  and discipline slowly and you get to that point and you can
• 9:10
  get in some real trouble. So we have, you know, guardrails
• 9:14
  in place to keep that from happening.
• 9:15
  And the other is the extreme of just letting the place run run
• 9:18
  amok and, you know, letting the the inmates run the asylum to
• 9:23
  speak an analogy. Not that this is a prison, but
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  yeah, that can that can get to be a problem also if you don't
• 9:28
  have a professional who's doing these things.
• 9:31
  Talk about your As far as my degree, my degree is in
• 9:34
  construction management technology.
• 9:36
  You got a bachelor's degree and so obviously I'm doing something
• 9:41
  completely different from what I studied in school sort of I
• 9:47
  mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of volunteer management
• 9:50
  that I do here. And obviously with the new build
• 9:52
  that we've talked about and I helped manage that.
• 9:54
  So it's been helpful in a lot of ways to just manage different
• 9:58
  projects and things with volunteers here.
• 10:02
  But Jeremy Thompson, our executive director has the same
• 10:06
  degree that I do. And so just managing projects,
• 10:12
  managing people, most of the full time staff and professional
• 10:17
  staff we've already mentioned has at least a bachelor's degree
• 10:21
  and the necessarily necessary master's degree for those
• 10:25
  respective positions. And then as we get down into
• 10:28
  direct care staff and in those positions, some of them have
• 10:32
  bachelor's degrees and some of them don't, but we provide, you
• 10:36
  know, our TCI training and there's different, you know,
• 10:39
  our, our background checks as far as just what do we do
• 10:43
  overall with the professionalism with our staff from the top down
• 10:47
  to really make sure they have the skill sets that they need to
• 10:51
  be successful and right. So we each kind of do different
• 10:55
  trainings in our respective fields at, you know, whether
• 10:59
  it's development or extending credits for our therapist and
• 11:04
  then TCI training for direct care staff, things like that in
• 11:08
  addition. To that I would add that we
• 11:09
  have, you know, policies and procedures that have been in
• 11:12
  place for 15 years that are always getting better.
• 11:15
  And we're always learning from our mistakes or from boys who
• 11:23
  present new challenges that we haven't, you know, we haven't
• 11:25
  seen before, You know, at this point there are very few of
• 11:28
  those boys with over 150 residents and families that we
• 11:31
  worked with. So I think you can feel
• 11:33
  comfortable knowing that that whatever issue, if we accept a
• 11:38
  boy into the program, we don't accept just any boys because
• 11:41
  obviously there's some things that we're not equipped to deal
• 11:43
  with. But if he, if we accept him in
• 11:45
  here, we feel like we have a good chance of being able to, to
• 11:48
  get at the root of the problem with a very strategic and
• 11:53
  intentional approach, which I think is what defines a
• 11:56
  professional right. Yeah, that policies and
• 12:00
  procedure manual been a big topic lately.
• 12:04
  Just another just kind of revamp of as we grow, just needing to
• 12:11
  redo that and not totally redo it, but enhance it and revise it
• 12:15
  and add to it, organize it. I mean the original 1 was, who
• 12:18
  knows, 30-40 pages 15 years ago and now we're getting up to 200.
• 12:23
  Right away, it'll be at 200 for sure, Yeah, by the time we're
• 12:26
  done. And so and that also was
• 12:28
  informed by documents that are put out by the state that that
• 12:32
  govern license facilities. I should mention that we're not
• 12:35
  a licensed facility because we operate under, you know, we're
• 12:40
  5O1C3 nonprofit with religious exemptions.
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  And so we like it that way. We feel like it gives us the
• 12:46
  freedom to operate within the confines of our statement of
• 12:49
  faith. And having a license and being
• 12:51
  accredited by secular state organizations tends to restrict
• 12:55
  your ability to talk about the Bible and to share the gospel,
• 12:58
  right? And to make certain decisions
• 13:00
  that aren't in line with what's, you know, for lack of a better
• 13:04
  term, politically correct, which isn't always in line with what
• 13:06
  the Bible says. We don't need to get into the
• 13:08
  nigritty there. But yeah, I'm sure you all can
• 13:10
  read between the lines if you're listening.
• 13:13
  But having said that too, there's like the KARF
• 13:15
  certification, which is kind of a, an acronym for a statewide
• 13:20
  certification for these types of programs.
• 13:23
  And we, even though we operate under a faith exemption, we also
• 13:28
  understand that it's important. A lot of those rules and
• 13:32
  procedures are there for a reason and the safety of the
• 13:34
  boys and we operate at or above, you know, those standards.
• 13:38
  Yes. You know, Yep.
• 13:40
  Yeah, we want to operate as if we had a license, really for the
• 13:42
  most part. And I would say that that's true
• 13:46
  with very few exceptions. All right, let's move on to 3.
• 13:50
  Let's do it. What kind of boys are at
• 13:53
  Whetstone and is it possible that my son could get worse?
• 13:57
  Yeah, that's a great question. And that would be, you know,
• 14:01
  just putting myself in that position, that would be a
• 14:04
  question that I would have and it's a valid 1.
• 14:08
  So just to start with, what kind of boys are there?
• 14:11
  That's been really something we've tried to for 15 years,
• 14:15
  like hone down what families and boys work best in this
• 14:19
  environment. And really a lot of our boys
• 14:22
  are, there's some defiance, there's some, a lot of anger
• 14:26
  issues. They're they're not going to
• 14:28
  school. So there's a lot of, this isn't
• 14:31
  all of them, but many of them have kind of checked out of
• 14:35
  school. They're lethargic.
• 14:37
  Some of them are addicted to video games and not a whole lot
• 14:41
  of motivation. Some of our boys are adopted.
• 14:45
  So they struggle just kind of with the attachment and the
• 14:48
  abandonment things that come along with that and just a lot
• 14:54
  of anger through that. Sometimes, you know, dad's snot
• 14:58
  around or, or parents are busy and they're traveling all the
• 15:01
  time. And so sometimes a boy feels
• 15:05
  like he's not being paid attention to or like we talked
• 15:09
  about before, there could be a death in the family or something
• 15:11
  like a tragic event that happens in the family.
• 15:14
  And all the, all the energy goes to that, that event or that
• 15:20
  tragedy. And sometimes a boy didn't get
• 15:23
  the attention that he needs during that time.
• 15:24
  And it's just a, a factor of life.
• 15:26
  And so all of that can come to a head and just create some, a lot
• 15:31
  of anger and a lot of defiance that's working against the
• 15:37
  parents, working against other siblings.
• 15:39
  And it gets to a point where parents just need intervention
• 15:43
  and some space, right? And so we're not talking about
• 15:46
  boys who are involved generally speaking in the criminal justice
• 15:51
  system. There may be a few things like
• 15:53
  shoplifting or maybe they do trespassing or things like that.
• 16:01
  But generally they're they're, they haven't spent any time in
• 16:04
  in juvie or in. Right, they're not in foster
• 16:06
  care. Not, not currently.
• 16:09
  Not right out of foster care. Yeah, they have.
• 16:12
  They may have been adopted by a foster care family and then when
• 16:17
  they got, you know, tried to integrate and adjust and, or
• 16:21
  maybe that was fine for the first five years.
• 16:23
  And then when they hit puberty, all these issues started to come
• 16:25
  out. And so there are red flags that
• 16:29
  we are careful to observe and before we agree to work with a
• 16:34
  boy or a family that that will prevent him from ever coming
• 16:39
  here in the 1st place. So I think that should make
• 16:41
  parents feel a little better about the the types of boys that
• 16:45
  they're going to be around. Yeah, boys that are heavy into
• 16:51
  addiction or whether it's a a drug addiction and heavy
• 16:55
  pornography addiction, that's we're not really set up for
• 16:59
  that. That's a higher level of care.
• 17:01
  Yeah, sometimes we'll get boys that are coming out of those
• 17:03
  programs, they're not ready to go home yet.
• 17:06
  And West sounds a good transition, but that would be a
• 17:12
  higher level of care for. Another one is arson.
• 17:15
  A lot of running away. Yeah, and like extreme, you
• 17:20
  know, attempt physical, Yeah, extreme physical, like
• 17:24
  destruction, breaking things, damaging or hitting people,
• 17:28
  right. You know, those that's again,
• 17:30
  another higher level of care. Yeah, that.
• 17:33
  We have very few physical fights.
• 17:35
  You know, I'd say that's it's, it's rare for things to come to
• 17:39
  blows here. I'd say that's pretty bunk.
• 17:43
  I'd say that's pretty uncommon for facilities that like ours.
• 17:48
  Yeah. Most people that I've worked,
• 17:49
  talked to who worked at facilities like ours are
• 17:52
  breaking up fights, you know, every day, sometimes in some
• 17:56
  cases, or multiple times a day, or at least once a week or once
• 18:00
  a month. I mean, I wouldn't even say we
• 18:02
  have a fight once a month or once a quarter even.
• 18:05
  Yeah, you know. That goes back to our our ratios
• 18:08
  and why we've chosen to have for that reason just to try to
• 18:11
  alleviate some of those occurrences.
• 18:15
  Yeah, but no, go ahead. And if a boy does exhibit those
• 18:19
  tendencies and can't control his anger, he's not going to be here
• 18:22
  very long. So yeah.
• 18:25
  And on that note, as far as you know, what will my son get
• 18:29
  worse? That's I don't know.
• 18:34
  I wouldn't say your son will get worse.
• 18:36
  He will be exposed to some things, probably that he hasn't
• 18:41
  been exposed to before. And he will probably expose
• 18:44
  other boys to things that they. Weren't exposed to right.
• 18:48
  It goes both ways and you just you really can't get around that
• 18:52
  when you've got boys when you got 10 to 15 and when we fill up
• 18:57
  both houses that 18 boys here and that's but what that's part
• 19:03
  of the the therapy really not that just learning how to live
• 19:08
  in an environment that can be very stressful and there's a lot
• 19:12
  going on. There's a lot of emotion and to
• 19:16
  be able to regulate your emotions around the other things
• 19:21
  going on and be able to focus on what you need to do is something
• 19:25
  that we continually try to coach our boys is you do you.
• 19:29
  You don't worry about. Try not to worry about
• 19:31
  everything else that's going on and do what what you need to do.
• 19:36
  And I've heard from multiple boys that have graduated that
• 19:40
  when they go home, they realize how prepared they are for some
• 19:46
  of those more potential stressful situations at home.
• 19:51
  That kind of they geared up in their head that they thought was
• 19:53
  going to be more stressful and more chaotic.
• 19:56
  But because they were used to the environment here and just
• 19:58
  having so many things going on and living in a house with that
• 20:02
  many other boys that it's prepared them, they didn't
• 20:04
  realize how much that prepared them to be ready for some things
• 20:09
  and challenges they're going to face when they go home.
• 20:11
  Yeah, yeah. And I would kind of add to that
• 20:14
  that, like, conflict is not a bad thing in in many, many
• 20:18
  cases, yeah, like it's our, it's our desire to avoid conflict
• 20:22
  that causes more of our problems than the conflicts themselves.
• 20:25
  So we teach them how to manage conflict and how to resolve
• 20:28
  conflict and how to like deal with it in healthy ways instead
• 20:33
  of the the escapist tendencies that boys have.
• 20:36
  Like, you know, instead of dealing with this conflict with
• 20:39
  my parents or a teacher at school or with a struggle that I
• 20:41
  have, I'm just going to play a video game and just distract
• 20:44
  myself or I'm going to, you know, anger is a secondary
• 20:49
  emotion that we use to distract ourselves from what the real
• 20:52
  problem is. So, and we coach the guys
• 20:55
  through that and we want, we want there to become a conflict.
• 20:59
  In fact, if we ever feel like things are going like like too
• 21:03
  smoothly, like there's a scent. And I don't think it's PTSD from
• 21:06
  working here. I think it's, I think it's a
• 21:08
  legitimate concern that you have to ask yourself if you're
• 21:11
  running a place like like we run, it's like, are we
• 21:15
  sharpening enough? Is there enough friction to
• 21:18
  create that edge that we need these boys to have to have a
• 21:22
  better character? Or are we settling into a kind
• 21:25
  of complacency as an organization where we're afraid
• 21:28
  to poke the bear? You know, like, if you have a
• 21:31
  teenager, you know what I'm talking about?
• 21:33
  Like, you can keep things kind of copacetic and everyone and
• 21:36
  everyone survives, but, you know, there are deeper issues
• 21:38
  that you don't want to deal with.
• 21:39
  And so you just kind of let it lie.
• 21:42
  And that doesn't do anyone any good in the long term.
• 21:45
  Yeah. And it there's just going back
• 21:47
  to the ratios, there's just not a whole lot of time where a boy
• 21:50
  is going to just be able to be alone with another resident for
• 21:57
  any length of time without a staff there.
• 21:59
  And so you can't control all the little things that are said
• 22:04
  behind staff's back and things like that.
• 22:06
  But there's there's rarely any times where there's not staff
• 22:11
  like right there. So if something was going on, is
• 22:14
  my point of another resident really trying to influence
• 22:17
  another one negatively, we're on that pretty quickly and try to
• 22:21
  curb that in the right manner. Yeah.
• 22:25
  And a lot of boys also are here for like education purpose.
• 22:29
  Like their main problem is that they won't go to school.
• 22:31
  And that's another big category of boys that are here.
• 22:36
  Like they're not huge behavior problems.
• 22:37
  They just won't do school. And that is a baby problem.
• 22:43
  So it it you might look from the outside and be like, well,
• 22:46
  what's wrong with this kid? If you meet him or, you know, if
• 22:49
  you're talking with him in general.
• 22:50
  But then when he gets in school, all of these issues and all
• 22:52
  those insecurities and all of the stuff that's happened to him
• 22:56
  tends to kind of come out in his in his attitude towards
• 23:00
  education. So yeah, it's a big part of it.
• 23:03
  Also, I would say like one of the subcategories of this is the
• 23:09
  kind of boys is like, like, what do you do to protect his
• 23:12
  privacy? Like am I going to stigmatize my
• 23:16
  son by sending him to a place like this?
• 23:19
  Like now that that's on his record, is he not going to be
• 23:22
  able to be successful? Is he going to always think of
• 23:24
  himself as a problem child? And so like to that, and I would
• 23:29
  say that we are governed by, you know, HIPAA and FERPA and all of
• 23:33
  the federal regulations that will protect his privacy.
• 23:37
  So we are careful to abide by parents, you know, stipulations
• 23:43
  regarding posting on Facebook. Some, some parents really like
• 23:46
  it. They want to see their son.
• 23:47
  They want to see what's happening.
• 23:48
  Some don't for a variety of reasons.
• 23:50
  So we respect that and we're careful to what we say to the
• 23:56
  other boys, you know, in in counseling and privacy standards
• 24:00
  and things. Yeah.
• 24:03
  So I think that's all a part of his.
• 24:05
  And I would say also, like I have always told when I was the
• 24:09
  headmaster, I was like, hey, this, this is something when you
• 24:11
  get to where you're applying to college or a job, if you can
• 24:15
  frame what's happened to you in a, in a way that makes you look
• 24:18
  like you've experienced some stuff.
• 24:20
  You, you're 18 years old, but you're emotionally ahead of most
• 24:23
  other 18 year olds because of what you've dealt with.
• 24:26
  Most of the rest of the kids are going to wait until they're 45
• 24:30
  and their marriage is falling apart and they're, you know,
• 24:33
  filled with anxiety and they're depressed and they're like, oh,
• 24:35
  now maybe I should think about what happened when I was 12.
• 24:38
  Yeah. So.
• 24:40
  Is it like Theo Von when he talks about grapes and and
• 24:44
  raisins? What's that?
• 24:45
  He was he was asked if he likes raisins by Joe Rogan and he's
• 24:50
  just he thought about it. He's like I do.
• 24:53
  I like a grape that's been through something.
• 24:57
  I like that, yeah. You're raising #4 should we go
• 25:03
  there number. 4 but I got 1 fun one funny story to tell before
• 25:06
  we moved to number 4 is sounds good.
• 25:08
  I hear a lot of people when when they talk about West Stone and
• 25:11
  they're they're inquiring about it and they hear about we say
• 25:14
  like, oh, that's great. You know, boys just need to get
• 25:17
  a get away from the negative influences and and you know, get
• 25:21
  out of the the wrong crowd or whatever.
• 25:23
  And I remember one boy got tired of that and he was like, you
• 25:27
  know, I hear people telling me all the time I need to to, you
• 25:31
  know, find a better crowd of people that I'm hanging around
• 25:33
  the wrong crowd. He's like, you know what?
• 25:34
  I am the wrong crowd. So he more just like a a badge
• 25:40
  of honor. And so I say that to say that
• 25:43
  like, we, we have two problems as parents.
• 25:47
  And this is especially true with parents who are, you know,
• 25:50
  dealing with struggling teenagers is we may exaggerate
• 25:54
  their problems or we may not fully understand and
• 25:56
  underestimate the levels to which they're struggling.
• 25:59
  And so in that boy's case, you know, I think his parents, and
• 26:03
  it is true in his case that his parents were like unaware of all
• 26:09
  the stuff that he was really involved in, right?
• 26:11
  And I would say that's that's 80 to 90% of the time the kid is
• 26:16
  doing all kinds of stuff that you're unaware of.
• 26:18
  And that's why he's in the shape he's in.
• 26:21
  But there's another 15 to 20% of parents and families where
• 26:24
  they're just exaggerating. They've everything's all to
• 26:27
  perspective and the kids do and actually, OK, yeah, he just
• 26:30
  needs a little help. Unreal.
• 26:34
  Yeah, expectations. Exactly so and it but it when
• 26:38
  you're in the thick of it, right when you're in the the crap, you
• 26:42
  can't see where where you're at. You can't get that perspective,
• 26:44
  which is what what we're good at doing, helping people and
• 26:48
  parents to. Yeah.
• 26:50
  Well, that yeah, I don't want to belabor it, but that's why that
• 26:52
  space sometimes whetstone provides some space to get when
• 26:56
  you're in the day-to-day stuff and you can get myopic to some
• 27:02
  of that stuff and you can't see things and have a perspective
• 27:06
  that is that maybe is the right perspective.
• 27:09
  And so it helps to have some of that separation, some breathing
• 27:13
  room to help start gaining the right perspective.
• 27:18
  That's that's part of the therapy here.
• 27:20
  Yeah, I would say yeah. All right, and on that note,
• 27:23
  let's talk about #4 how will you communicate with us?
• 27:28
  This is a, this is a red flag. If you're examining a program
• 27:30
  and they're like, yeah, you can't talk to your son for the
• 27:34
  first three months. Yeah, that's not good.
• 27:35
  That's probably not good. Yeah, now I understand why some
• 27:38
  programs would would do something like that.
• 27:41
  Like there's a rationale. So I'm not saying that like an
• 27:43
  adventure program or something like that.
• 27:45
  It might not be possible to if you're out in the wilderness to
• 27:48
  have frequent comp, but you know that going in, that's kind of
• 27:51
  that program. But in our case, we, we
• 27:54
  encourage communication. Oh yeah.
• 27:57
  There's a two week period, like an adjustment period when a boy
• 28:00
  shows up where just for reasons of like homesickness and also
• 28:04
  like creating boundaries not just with the boy but also with
• 28:08
  the family, right? Where you have to kind of, I
• 28:12
  don't know what's the term like create that distance and and
• 28:16
  deal with those emotions without having an emotional crutch of
• 28:19
  like a phone call. Right.
• 28:22
  And so we have that two week period, but after that a guy on
• 28:25
  level 1 gets a 10 minute phone call every week, Level 2 he gets
• 28:29
  15 and Level 3 he gets 20 minutes.
• 28:32
  Parents are being communicated with every week.
• 28:35
  For. You know, an hour up to an hour
• 28:38
  by a staff member. Sometimes it's a counselor,
• 28:40
  sometimes it's program director, sometimes it's an education
• 28:43
  specialist or the headmaster, an assistant or someone who works
• 28:46
  in the house or house parent or someone who's in charge of the
• 28:49
  work day. But every week, every boy is
• 28:51
  getting some communication from a staff member.
• 28:53
  Yeah. And we tell parents, all of
• 28:56
  them, when they drop their son off, if you have any questions
• 28:59
  or concerns whenever, before, you know, the first phone call
• 29:04
  or, I mean, they're free to call staff or Mr. Thompson or myself
• 29:09
  or, you know, whoever we use. I mean, we have those people.
• 29:13
  It's probably Mr. Collins, Mr. Thompson initially.
• 29:18
  But if there's just something that comes up that so that they
• 29:21
  didn't know about or had a question about, or sometimes
• 29:25
  it's just like, hey, as a mom, how did my son settle in for the
• 29:29
  first night? So we filled those phone calls.
• 29:32
  And it's not like just a for their son.
• 29:35
  Yes, there's that two week period, but they still can write
• 29:37
  letters. You know, they, the son can
• 29:39
  write letters and they can receive letters, but the first
• 29:42
  phone call is within a couple of weeks.
• 29:44
  And, and just from the outset, we really try to vet our
• 29:48
  families as good as we can because we want them to
• 29:51
  communicate with us and the boys and work together as a team.
• 29:56
  Like we're all working together to create a better foundation
• 30:00
  for them to go home and succeed. And that can't happen if we're
• 30:05
  not all communicating regularly and kind of working together.
• 30:10
  Yeah. And and another question that
• 30:13
  comes up is visits like can I visit my son?
• 30:17
  Will he be able to visit me during the course of his stay?
• 30:19
  The answer to both of those is yes, we do allow parents if
• 30:22
  they're in the area to drop in and, and, and see their son if,
• 30:26
  if they feel it's appropriate. Most of our families from out of
• 30:32
  state. So that's not very frequent, but
• 30:36
  there are certain circumstances where there are like weddings or
• 30:40
  certain family events. Now we're probably not going to
• 30:43
  let you pull in because you had a cruise planned and you know,
• 30:47
  and wants to go on it. And that's, that's a bummer.
• 30:50
  That's too bad. But if that cruise falls during
• 30:54
  one of the adventure weeks, maybe, and he's already been on
• 30:57
  one. Yeah.
• 30:58
  So boys go home for once a quarter, they get to go home for
• 31:03
  a week. Yeah.
• 31:04
  As long as they've had been on one adventure week.
• 31:07
  Right. So sometimes a boy will go home
• 31:09
  after he's been here for a couple months.
• 31:12
  Sometimes it'll have to be like four or five months before he's
• 31:16
  able to return home. It finds him when he's enrolled
• 31:19
  and where that is in relation to the quarterly adventure weeks.
• 31:22
  Yeah, I will say those phone calls too from staff, they do
• 31:27
  change depending upon where the boys in the program.
• 31:29
  Early on, you're going to get a variety of phone calls to
• 31:32
  hopefully get a perspective on where he's at with the different
• 31:36
  parts of the program. Later on, you're going to get
• 31:39
  more phone calls from the counselor as you move towards
• 31:42
  transitioning home as you start family therapy, which doesn't
• 31:45
  really begin until level 2. So you can have a lot more
• 31:48
  conversations with the counseling and the therapy
• 31:51
  representatives of the program as the boy progresses through
• 31:54
  the program. Yeah #22 is interesting.
• 31:59
  We don't deal with this a whole lot, but what if there are
• 32:03
  custody or divorce complications and how do we handle those
• 32:09
  situations? Yeah, I mean, it just depends,
• 32:14
  it depends on what the court has decided in the, in the official
• 32:18
  documents. Sometimes there's it's joint
• 32:22
  custody and it's the equal level of involvement and both parents
• 32:27
  are are working together and they're on the same page and
• 32:30
  have a good relationship. Sometimes it can be kind of a
• 32:36
  tempestuous right? Yeah, nice word.
• 32:40
  Yeah, tempestuous. But that's that's kind of why
• 32:42
  he's here is, is probably some of that stuff that's happened
• 32:45
  in, in your marriage or in previous relationships with step
• 32:49
  parents and step kids and all that.
• 32:51
  So that's all a part of the the ball of yarn that has to be
• 32:55
  unwound. So, yeah, and that's going back
• 32:59
  to vetting the families. We've had some situations where
• 33:06
  my parents were divorced and they both had equal custody 1
• 33:12
  was actually in jail and was not didn't even really know what was
• 33:17
  going on but did not agree with his son being here and anyway
• 33:23
  ended up being a bad deal and he came and pulled his son out of
• 33:27
  the program. And that was early, early days
• 33:29
  Whetstone. And, but from that instance, we,
• 33:35
  you know, we basically made the policy that unless both, if it's
• 33:40
  in that situation, both parents have to be 100% on the same page
• 33:44
  that Whetstone is what they feel is best.
• 33:47
  And they both, you know, sign the contract and it's an equal
• 33:51
  thing for both of them. And we can get a sense if
• 33:55
  they're amicable and able to, to work together and share the
• 34:00
  load. And in that case, they would
• 34:01
  both be getting communicated with equally.
• 34:04
  And so that's like I said, that's a fairly rare situation.
• 34:08
  We don't deal with that a whole lot, but it happens.
• 34:11
  Obviously there's a lot of divorced families out there and
• 34:16
  it's never that's always A cause of some of the behaviors just
• 34:21
  because of a broken I would. Say, in most cases, I mean there
• 34:24
  we do deal with the families where there has been a divorce,
• 34:26
  but usually one of the parents is it's out of the picture, yes.
• 34:32
  Yeah, it's kind of removed and they've remarried and it's a
• 34:36
  step situation that so that that is more of an issue.
• 34:41
  Yep. Or more of the families we work
• 34:43
  with. Last one in this category is
• 34:45
  like what happens in the communication category of what
• 34:49
  happens if we like disagree with, you know, how the program,
• 34:54
  you know, is working for our son or if we're not satisfied with
• 34:57
  the progress that we're seeing. That kind of thing that comes up
• 35:00
  frequently, as you can imagine, like it's understandable.
• 35:03
  Parents are a long way away. They don't not 100% familiar
• 35:06
  with everything that's happening.
• 35:08
  Doubt can creep in, anxiety, you know, people can hear things,
• 35:13
  you know, about therapeutic boarding schools, or they can
• 35:17
  make assumptions and that little voice in your head that wants
• 35:23
  you to worry and everything. I mean, I would say you're more
• 35:26
  than free to share any of those concerns or complaints that you
• 35:30
  have. Jeremy's always as executive
• 35:32
  director and Scott as a program director, Good listeners, you
• 35:35
  know, willing to take your feelings and opinions into
• 35:38
  consideration. Having said that, like people
• 35:42
  pay us to do our job. And so if you're going to pay
• 35:48
  the tuition for us to do what we think is right, you kind of on
• 35:51
  some level have to say that's kind of what I'm trusting you to
• 35:54
  tell me. And so the second guessing is,
• 35:56
  is usually not helpful and usually gets communicated to the
• 36:00
  boy in some way, whether it's unintentional or just kind of
• 36:05
  letting something slip. And then he uses that to divide
• 36:08
  everyone here and it it really. Well, yeah, or that first phone
• 36:13
  call, the boys always trying to manipulate, not always, but a
• 36:17
  lot of them try to get their parents to to pull them and talk
• 36:22
  about all the ways that Whetstone's not what you said it
• 36:25
  was or they're doing this and that and being able to to cause
• 36:29
  doubt and to sow doubt into an already kind of emotional and
• 36:35
  stressful situation. Especially from a mom's
• 36:37
  standpoint. It's just she hears those things
• 36:40
  and it's easy for her to question those policies or
• 36:45
  question those occurrences or things that may be happening
• 36:49
  that her son's telling her about so.
• 36:52
  I would say we're pretty transparent as a program though,
• 36:55
  so we have very few instances where there is a significant
• 37:00
  conflict where a parent feels like, you know, they have to
• 37:03
  pull their boy from the program. Most parents have done their
• 37:07
  homework, they know what's what the program is.
• 37:09
  Most parents are totally able to to to believe that their son is
• 37:15
  trying to split them and not tell them the truth.
• 37:17
  So it's it's not really a hard sell on our part to to convince
• 37:21
  them that that's what he's doing.
• 37:22
  Yeah, he's been doing the same that to them.
• 37:24
  In fact, I would say the opposite is more often true.
• 37:27
  Parents are more concerned when they hear things are going too
• 37:31
  well. Yeah.
• 37:32
  They're like, well, what? Why are you not seeing the
• 37:34
  things that I'm saying? Is there something you're not
• 37:36
  doing? Yeah.
• 37:37
  To to elicit that behavior. It's a good point.
• 37:40
  Yeah. So and, and those are the
• 37:42
  legitimate concerns. And so we want to know if we're
• 37:45
  not getting the full picture. And like we said earlier, we may
• 37:49
  have to poke the bear a little bit to see what they're seeing.
• 37:52
  Yeah. Got to put them in uncomfortable
• 37:54
  situations. Yep.
• 37:55
  All right. I think we got time for for one
• 37:58
  more, maybe, maybe 2. Brandon 5.
• 38:01
  What exactly will you do to help him change?
• 38:04
  All right. It's kind of a big question.
• 38:07
  Yeah, big question. We're not going to try to, I'll
• 38:09
  talk about all the things with this, but that is a that is a
• 38:12
  big question that people ask when they're thinking about
• 38:14
  sending Boy Whitestone is like, how do I know you're going to be
• 38:17
  able to make a difference? I haven't been able to make a
• 38:18
  difference. No one in his life has been able
• 38:20
  to make a difference. What makes you guys different?
• 38:22
  Yeah. Well, I would kind of what we
• 38:24
  just ended on is a good segue putting them in an uncomfortable
• 38:28
  situations. We do that through just a lot of
• 38:34
  structure and so between the school room, therapy, adventure
• 38:41
  work program, house duties, and just life skill training, all of
• 38:47
  those things are very structured elements of the program, but
• 38:53
  they also are designed to put kids in, just get them out of
• 38:57
  their comfort zone. Just being in this environment a
• 39:00
  lot of times is out of their comfort zone.
• 39:01
  Not that they're away from the house, that's obvious, but we're
• 39:05
  on a 285 acre campus in a rural setting that's in an
• 39:10
  uncomfortable situation for a lot of the boys.
• 39:13
  I remember we had a boy from New Jersey and on always remember
• 39:18
  the first morning he woke up, just a sour look on his face and
• 39:21
  we had this beautiful room and just beautiful scenery out of
• 39:24
  his window. And he just had the sour look on
• 39:26
  his face and I'm just like, man, what's going on?
• 39:29
  He's like, I'm actually really mad right now that I cannot see
• 39:32
  another house or building right now.
• 39:35
  All I see is trees. It's like, wow man, that's the
• 39:39
  next lover. Big, big stuff.
• 39:41
  I think the same resident was shocked when the pavement ended
• 39:46
  and it turned to dirt. He was like, I did not know this
• 39:48
  still existed in America. Yeah, I thought everything had
• 39:51
  turned to pavement by now. And the same boy was shocked
• 39:55
  that we swam in. Rivers swam in rivers.
• 39:57
  He was like, I would rather swim in a toxic infested, you know,
• 40:02
  seawater off, off New Jersey. And the same boy thought a dead
• 40:08
  skunk on the road was possibly a panda.
• 40:11
  So, so anyways, so yes, getting boys out of their comfort zones
• 40:16
  and environments that they're not used to.
• 40:19
  And we just we push them, we push them to, we raise the bar
• 40:24
  and our expectation levels of them are probably higher than
• 40:29
  they have been at home. And just quite frankly, we have
• 40:34
  a structure that we can provide here that parents can't
• 40:36
  replicate at home. And so that is putting boys in,
• 40:42
  in those situations to grow, to exceed and to have some
• 40:47
  progress. I would say to answer that
• 40:49
  question, how, how you help them change, we help them
• 40:53
  incrementally, incrementally progress in those different
• 40:58
  areas. You know, and eventually you'll
• 41:00
  have more of a real honest conversation with your
• 41:06
  therapist, which would lead to an honest conversation with mom
• 41:09
  and dad. You'll begin to be a little more
• 41:11
  honest in your dealings. You won't be as because of the
• 41:15
  structure of what you don't get, you know, the consequences of
• 41:18
  being on privilege restrictions and just some of the the things
• 41:21
  that we're able to change the environments around here to
• 41:26
  motivate boys to make that progress in positive ways.
• 41:30
  Yeah, yeah. My answer to that question would
• 41:34
  be #1 we can't make him change. We can't guarantee change.
• 41:39
  He has to be the one to decide to change.
• 41:41
  But we're going to give him as many opportunities as as he can,
• 41:45
  yeah, to make that choice. And we're going to give him a
• 41:48
  lot of reasons to make that choice.
• 41:50
  Yeah. And we're going to invest in him
• 41:53
  on a personal level. And we're going to do life on
• 41:56
  life ministry. And we're going to, we're going
• 41:59
  to investigate like why is he acting out the way he's acting
• 42:04
  out? Is it school related?
• 42:05
  Is it there's just some trauma with the counselling and
• 42:08
  therapeutic aspect of it? Is it he's just never done
• 42:11
  something hard and he needs to know that he can run 2 miles to
• 42:15
  develop some self-confidence. It's, it's any number of factors
• 42:20
  that could be causing him to behave the way that he's going
• 42:22
  to behave. And so that's why our program is
• 42:24
  effective because we come at it from so many different ways.
• 42:27
  A lot of facilities, you know, they focus on the counseling or
• 42:30
  they focus on the school or they focus on the outdoors.
• 42:33
  Ours does all of them. And so I think that's the that
• 42:37
  diversity and that broad based approach is it makes us
• 42:41
  effective at what we do and in in getting to the heart of the
• 42:44
  program. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 42:47
  Part of the problems, them being the one that has to make the
• 42:52
  decision, I kind of the analogy that popped into my brain was
• 42:55
  actually like grass fed cattle and you're not really a cattle
• 43:00
  farmer, you're a grass farmer. OK.
• 43:02
  So if you get your grass and your pastures in a a good
• 43:08
  healthy setting where you're growing good healthy grass, the
• 43:13
  idea is the cows still have to go and eat that grass, right?
• 43:16
  They have to be the ones. But you're trying to entice them
• 43:19
  to make that choice. And when you, when they do make
• 43:22
  that choice, then everything else, they're healthier, they're
• 43:24
  better, they're stronger, and things begin to take care of
• 43:28
  themselves. And so it's a little bit like
• 43:30
  that. We try to create a program that
• 43:31
  boys are going to want to partake in, exposed to things
• 43:34
  that maybe they hadn't been exposed to before.
• 43:37
  And then once they start getting a little taste of that and they
• 43:41
  start seeing some progress, they're like, man, actually this
• 43:43
  feels pretty good. I haven't experienced this.
• 43:45
  Before and we use have a series of of what we call carrots and
• 43:50
  sticks in order to move them to that pasture because they often
• 43:53
  times don't want to do it on their own.
• 43:55
  But once they are and they experience the benefits of
• 43:58
  making that choice, they can now have more incentive because of
• 44:02
  the external and because of the internal hopefully, you know,
• 44:05
  motivation that they have to to grow and to become better.
• 44:12
  Yeah. So I think that's a pretty good
• 44:15
  general answer to that question that is really at the heart of
• 44:19
  almost every episode that we do. So please listen to other
• 44:24
  episodes if you have more questions about specific things
• 44:26
  that we do. Number six, let's just kind of
• 44:29
  put a bow on it here by saying that we've already talked about
• 44:33
  6 in terms of counseling and clinical care, but there are
• 44:36
  some things that we didn't talk about when we were talking about
• 44:39
  professionalism that I want to make sure that we hit.
• 44:41
  One would be the family intensives.
• 44:43
  That's one thing that we do to involve families.
• 44:44
  It's a part of our therapeutic milieu is that we bring boys,
• 44:49
  families on campus for a 2 day session near, you know, the end
• 44:54
  of the, the, their time here. But you know, I guess it's, I
• 44:59
  think it's at the end of level 2 now or the beginning of Level 3.
• 45:02
  It might depend on the dates, but they're going to spend
• 45:08
  basically 2 full days with counselors getting to the heart
• 45:11
  of right what the marriage and family therapy issues are.
• 45:15
  And that's really kind of the the heart of our approach is God
• 45:19
  established the family as like the plan for raising children.
• 45:25
  And it's interesting in the Bible, there's no Plan B Yeah,
• 45:28
  right. It's like this way works.
• 45:31
  The other ways don't work. So if, if, if you can't repair
• 45:35
  that relationship, you're, I mean, you're not going to find
• 45:37
  anything better. You can, you can hobble through,
• 45:41
  you know, and you can survive, but you're never going to thrive
• 45:44
  unless you try to repair that basic unit that God has created
• 45:48
  for, for developing young men and young women.
• 45:51
  And so that's what Aaron is passionate about.
• 45:54
  It's like restoring families is like teaching young men how to
• 45:57
  be men as they are raised by their parents, their parents
• 46:01
  modeling those things and their parents communicating and their
• 46:03
  parents beings beside them to guide them and walk them through
• 46:06
  a very difficult time in their life.
• 46:09
  So we also have father son weekends, right, Twice a year.
• 46:13
  You want to comment on those? Yeah, that we got 1 coming up,
• 46:19
  not too long down down the line. But yeah, we the, the goal with
• 46:23
  those is just to really allow an environment, different
• 46:28
  environment than they're used to it, but to just hang out, right,
• 46:32
  spend time and be able to do that in a structured setting as
• 46:37
  well. We have people that we bring in
• 46:39
  to kind of facilitate, facilitate the discussions or
• 46:43
  the some of the breakout sessions or really kind of steer
• 46:47
  the weekends. But those that's really there's
• 46:50
  not a lot of that as much as there is to just help was
• 46:54
  spurring the some of the conversations when you do go and
• 46:57
  spend time together. That's that's a big key and we
• 47:02
  talked about before and it's not the quantity of time, it's it's
• 47:06
  or or quality time is quantity, right.
• 47:11
  So it's not like you have to get everything set up.
• 47:13
  And sometimes we just have this misnomer of everything's got to
• 47:16
  be perfect. It's like just be intentional
• 47:18
  with I. Think we have a podcast about
• 47:19
  that spending time, the myth of quality time.
• 47:21
  Yeah, something like that. I'd ask to I'd add to that too,
• 47:25
  that, that we participate in those a lot of times with our
• 47:27
  own sons. So we like to be out there on
• 47:31
  the canoe trip or out there at the cabin or participating in
• 47:34
  the activity and and helping to grow and develop our son's
• 47:37
  relationship alongside the families that we work with.
• 47:41
  And then something I'm kind of that I'm passionate about and
• 47:45
  it's been a part of mine, mine transition and my role here at
• 47:47
  the ranch is going out and visiting with families who our
• 47:51
  past residents, past graduates and continuing that
• 47:54
  relationship. And I think that's a huge part
• 47:56
  of the success of the program is like keeping touch with them and
• 48:00
  letting them know that we still care and love and we're praying
• 48:04
  for them. And you know, sometimes the
• 48:06
  change that you see while a boy is here is minimal or a boy can
• 48:11
  move backwards. It does happen, but in in many
• 48:15
  of those instances, even though the time that we spent here or
• 48:19
  that they spent here on paper may have looked like a failure,
• 48:22
  that relationship was maintained.
• 48:24
  And then when they were 17181920252630 years old, even
• 48:31
  they come back and, and you kind of kept in contact and they're
• 48:35
  like, you know, I really appreciate what you guys did for
• 48:38
  me and so. Yeah.
• 48:40
  I mean, we just were, Jeremy and I were talking to another
• 48:42
  director of a program a couple days ago about that very thing.
• 48:46
  And we've talked about Mr. Heston and the thawed words and
• 48:52
  how frozen words and how they thaw at different times.
• 48:55
  And we just as especially as boys in our logic and reasoning
• 49:01
  capabilities don't fully develop, you know, until we're
• 49:05
  in our early 20s sometimes. And so sometimes it takes a
• 49:10
  while to really just let those words that have been given to be
• 49:18
  digested and understand a life experience happens for some of
• 49:21
  those words to really hit home. And so, and God works through
• 49:24
  all that and that it just has to be.
• 49:27
  The point is, as parents out there, we try to help them
• 49:30
  understand the journey. That's part of the journey.
• 49:33
  And it is a long one sometimes. And you do get frustrated by the
• 49:37
  investment of time and, and money and resources and
• 49:41
  emotional capital and all of that stuff.
• 49:44
  It, it can be weary, but but God works through all that works
• 49:48
  through the experience and it's his.
• 49:50
  His word doesn't return void. Yeah, that was our very first
• 49:53
  podcast, Bred upon the Waters. I just used it as the basis for
• 49:57
  a blog. I now have access to the
• 50:00
  website, Brandon. I can, I can go and I can add
• 50:03
  blog posts and do some minor editing.
• 50:05
  So I'm, I'm looking forward to, to working with Victor marketing
• 50:08
  and all that. But I just posted that one along
• 50:11
  with a link to the podcast. So gonna be working through all
• 50:13
  seventy of those. So yeah, pay attention, pick,
• 50:18
  follow the blog. If, if, if you like that kind of
• 50:20
  thing, if you're still into that kind of thing.
• 50:22
  And you know, like share, subscribe, follow all the things
• 50:27
  with podcast to spread the word about what's happening out here.
• 50:30
  We need that as we grow, we need for word to get out there and we
• 50:34
  need for Pam families to to be exposed to what what we have to
• 50:39
  offer. Yeah, 'cause we have to build
• 50:41
  this new house, Brandon, with 1516 boys within the next year,
• 50:46
  I would say. Yes, Sir.
• 50:49
  So please, please keep that in your prayers.
• 50:53
  All right, Well, thank you all for listening.
• 50:55
  Thank you to Thomas Brown for helping to to edit this podcast
• 50:59
  and to make it sound good. Another thing I was thinking
• 51:03
  about why we're successful or how we make an impact is we have
• 51:07
  these level ceremonies and Thomas does an amazing job of
• 51:11
  putting together slideshows with his Bad Kitty Productions, which
• 51:15
  is his his film company and. So he's.
• 51:18
  Got a different along with honey locust.
• 51:20
  I take a lot of pictures and contribute to those as well, but
• 51:23
  he has two of them that that we're going to be showing this
• 51:26
  afternoon as we have two guys moving to level.
• 51:28
  Three. Yeah, that's exciting.
• 51:29
  Yeah, So I'm looking forward to seeing those.
• 51:31
  So thank you, Thomas, for staying up until actually for
• 51:34
  maybe sometimes not even going to maybe to put those together.
• 51:38
  They're great. And they make us laugh.
• 51:40
  They make us cry. Yeah.
• 51:42
  And they, they have a huge impact on the boys and they can
• 51:46
  see their progress. It's undeniable.
• 51:48
  Yeah. That they're that they're
• 51:49
  getting better and that they're moving closer to home.
• 51:52
  So. Yep.
• 51:53
  Thank you, Thomas, and thank you everyone again for listening.
• 51:57
  And as always, we'll catch you next time on a time to.
• 52:02
  See you Whetstone Boys Ranch is a therapeutic boarding school
• 52:14
  located in the scenic Ozarks of southern Missouri.
• 52:17
  It was founded in 2011 to serve families from around the country
• 52:22
  who are struggling with challenging behaviors from their
• 52:24
  12 to 16 year old sons. Our mission is to sharpen the
• 52:28
  character of young men. Please visit
• 52:31
  whetstoneboysranch.com if you want to learn more about our
• 52:34
  program or about how to contact us for help.
• 52:37
  Thanks for listening and we hope to catch you next time on A Time
• 52:40
  to Sharpen.