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Zach and Chloe Matthews provide an interesting mentoring insights from their lines of work and as adoptive parents. He is a police officer. She is a social worker for CK Family Services. From mountain hikes with inner-city kids, to training families in how to help children find their voice, Zach and Chloe give a practical look into how mentoring will change a child's life forever.
Show Notes
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WELCOME
You Can Mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others.
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SHOW NOTES
- CK Family Services
- The Connected Child
- Karyn Purvis Institute
- The Whole Brain Child
- The Body Keeps the Score
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the You Can Mentor podcast. My name is Steven, and I have some very, very special guests. I feel like I say special guest every time. There's always a guest, but you guys are extra special. It is Chloe and Zach Matthews.
Speaker 2:How the heck are you guys?
Speaker 3:We're here. We're doing it. Wonderful. Doing it live. Doing it live.
Speaker 2:So excited to have you guys on the podcast to share your story, to share your work. You guys have some pretty intense jobs, I would say in the scale of 1 to intense, you guys probably have intense jobs. Zach, you are a police officer.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:What what does a police officer actually do?
Speaker 3:It depends. It really depends day to day, minute to minute. It's always something new, something different. No 2 days are ever the same. And if you take taking a report for somebody's car got broken into or telling someone their loved ones passed away in a crash, it it just it's always revolving.
Speaker 2:Chloe, you're a caseworker with CK Family Services. What does that mean?
Speaker 4:I do a lot of different things. I train families on, the stuff they need to know to be foster parents. I have a caseload of families that are currently foster parents. I oversee their home, make sure they have the support that they need, act as a liaison between the families and CPS, and over really just oversee their home and make sure that they have everything they need to be successful foster parents.
Speaker 2:Many of our listeners wake up in the morning, and they they think about the opportunity to ask a police officer questions that they would never get to ask. So here are some questions our listeners, came in with. They're actually just mine. So what's your record on catching front porch thieves? Do you have do you have a record?
Speaker 2:How many have you caught? Maybe one.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They're pretty tough.
Speaker 2:What's what's so tough about catching these guys? You have all that footage from Nest and from like, what's going on there, man?
Speaker 3:I mean, I just take the reports early for those because we're so busy all the time doing other things. Jumping from call to call that I don't get to investigate them as much as I'd like. Saving people's lives. Yeah. I'm not a detective.
Speaker 3:I just work the streets mainly. So
Speaker 2:The Nextdoor app, do you do you love what happens on the Nextdoor app? What do cops think about what's going on in those apps?
Speaker 3:I think there's a fine line with, what goes on in those apps, where it's mainly, like, complaining about small minute things that really aren't a plea police matter to actually things that, like, we need to know about. It's often that the things that we don't need to know about or we really don't care for what get told
Speaker 2:to us. Like coyotes, you don't necessarily care about, you know, whether someone's dog is a coyote or is that is it actually a dog? Yeah.
Speaker 3:And and those animal calls never make sense to me. It's like, we had one the other day where it was, this lady's chickens had been attacked by a bobcat, and the bobcat was carrying the chicken around the neighborhood. Are you supposed to be able to get out there and shoot the thing, or do you, like, you want me to hit with my baton or, like, tell it nicely, give the chicken back? And she calls back before we could get there and said, oh, y'all can disregard. I think the chicken's too far gone.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah. Normally, when they're attacked by a bobcat, they're pretty they're pretty gone. Done pretty well. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome. Okay. What's the best excuse you've ever heard from someone who has just committed a crime?
Speaker 3:Is there ever a good excuse
Speaker 4:to commit a crime?
Speaker 3:Sometimes I'll ask questions to see how honest you're gonna be, and that sets it up for, can I trust what else you're about to tell me? Because a lot of times I already know the answer to the question I'm gonna ask. I just wanna hear it from your mouth to see how credible you're gonna be.
Speaker 2:What's the update on that iPad that was stolen from me back about 5 years ago? I don't know if that case ever made it to your tape your your, your desk, but
Speaker 3:did it happen in my city?
Speaker 2:I figured that I don't know. You you all you police officers, you work together to solve these crimes. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We just sit in a room like this and collaborate and go through cases together.
Speaker 4:It's cute.
Speaker 3:I guarantee that was, like, probably never assigned to a detective. Did they even come out and like print the car and like do fingerprints or anything?
Speaker 2:Nothing.
Speaker 3:No. Did you have the serial number for the iPad?
Speaker 2:I all I have is a case number, but I don't even know like if they just auto generate that on Google or where that comes from. So what was the hardest part of your training?
Speaker 3:The hardest part, I would say, was probably being able to know what to ask on every call, because things are, like, so dynamic. Like like, no two calls for me are ever the same. And sometimes what what works for somebody doesn't work for somebody else when you're trying to investigate. It's hard. I came out college not having just a ton of life experience.
Speaker 3:But now, you know, the things that I've been through and the things that I've seen, I have a lot more. My college was a small Christian college. We live basically in a bubble. Everybody was basically the same. And then I got out on the streets and, like, hey, these people came from hard places.
Speaker 3:They're tough. They've had to fight for everything they've owned or they live paycheck to paycheck or they don't know where the next meal is coming from. And here I am, this, you know, 20 something year old kid that I haven't had everything handed to me, but I've lived a pretty good life and my parents are always great to me. How do I relate to them? What questions do I need to ask?
Speaker 3:Or, you know, how can I use life experiences that I've had to get where I need to be with them to build a rapport? You gotta build it pretty quick with people. I mean, I gotta make a decision pretty quick on their character. Outside of work, I'm kind of a normal guy. I mean, I wear chocolates for crying out loud.
Speaker 3:I'm a cop. You know? So I'm pretty laid back. But people don't see us that way. They see us in a uniform with a badge and a gun, and they think we're there just to get them.
Speaker 3:I'm just there to make sure and keep the peace.
Speaker 4:I thought for sure the answer would be pepper spray. I really did.
Speaker 3:Pepper spray is pretty miserable. It was really miserable. But
Speaker 4:that was much deeper answer. Yeah. I like that. That one better.
Speaker 2:That was that's a great answer. Is that is that just like a calendar day on there? It's just like pepper spray day. You you're looking forward to it. It's Friday.
Speaker 3:Yep. Yep. Pretty much.
Speaker 4:And taser. Taser day too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. When we have a taser day. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 2:To tase or not to tase?
Speaker 3:I have a huge background in wrestling. I grew up grew up doing it high school, college. I rather, like, wrestle you and like grapple with you because 1, like, I don't have to do use of force report, and 2, the taser doesn't always work. And I've only ever shot my taser like one time at a guy twice, and it was ineffective. And I was just like, now I have to do all this paperwork, and I didn't get the results I wanted.
Speaker 3:I still had to wrestle him to the ground. So I'm more of a hands on guy if it comes to that, but a lot of times it's how you speak to people, how you talk to them, and they call it de escalation in our line of work. Normally, you can get people to calm down and comply, but sometimes you can't. There
Speaker 2:are
Speaker 3:people like that. But that's rare. It's once in a blue moon if that happens. So
Speaker 2:What's your favorite TV show about cops? Is it cops?
Speaker 3:I'd say live PD right now.
Speaker 2:Live PD?
Speaker 3:Cops is like kind of on the down and out. I feel like after live PD started up. I mean, I'm not, I live Life PD. I don't watch it all the time. I live it.
Speaker 3:Right? It's my job. There's some YouTube channels that, like, review police shootings and, like, that's a big thing in our line of work of, like, what's justified and what's not justified. If you make a bad shoot, you're getting prosecuted for murder, manslaughter. So it's a good training for me to, like, realize to take notes from those guys that have been in those situations or, like, put it, you know, put it back in my brain that if this were to happen, would this be a good shoot or not a good shoot?
Speaker 3:And we talk about those in briefing before we go out on our shift that, you know, what do you guys think about that? Was it a good one? We use it as a learning, so that's why I watch them.
Speaker 2:Do you see an increase of calls during times like this where just things are crazy?
Speaker 3:We we really haven't yet, but I think if this continues like it is, we're gonna see a lot more suicide calls. Really? Yeah. I think that's gonna start getting to people being cooped up in the house. We'll also see a lot more family violence calls.
Speaker 3:Again, like cabin fever, people are having to stay home. They can't get away from other people that they live with. Those kind of things normally happen too during, like, the colder months. We see a lot of increase of that. I think violent crimes are gonna increase as far as robberies, people are starting desperate, as well as DWIs.
Speaker 3:Those are probably gonna go through the roof too.
Speaker 2:Well, you did great in the lightning round, Zach. Thank you.
Speaker 3:It's Chloe Stern.
Speaker 2:Who has been the funniest kid that has come through CK Family Services? Has there been any kids that you're just like, this guy's gonna be big. He's gonna be a comedian. He's gonna be most likely to become famous. I don't know if there's a kid that stands out to you
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That you've met.
Speaker 4:Yeah. No. I can I can think of that person right now? Some kids you, like, super connect with and you get to hang out with them for some time and really connect with them, and then some kids are just kind of like, whatever. But yeah.
Speaker 4:I have a couple kids who are absolutely hilarious. I and and I'll, like, schedule more time at those people's homes so so that I can, like, be there longer, because I know I'm gonna have a good time there.
Speaker 2:Are there any vegan foster families or just families with interesting quirks?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Yep. Yes. Yeah. I have family I have had a family that, like, only, like, only has, like, one house cleaner, like, product that they'll use on, like, everything, and they're, like, super, like, sustainable.
Speaker 4:And, I mean, it's it can be good. Like, some of the kids that come in have a have a lot of, like, severe allergies and stuff.
Speaker 3:And, I
Speaker 4:mean, some of the kids that have come through their home have had those things, like, completely clear up. And so it's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing at all.
Speaker 2:Why be a social worker?
Speaker 4:I mean, most social workers do their job because they love it or because that they want they wanna make a difference or that they love they love people and they want to have a positive impact in the world. Nobody does my job for anything else.
Speaker 2:Can you can you just tell our listeners how you guys met? Because I love your story.
Speaker 4:Yes. Yes. We were wilderness guides. We led week long backpacking trips.
Speaker 3:We both worked at Sky Ranch
Speaker 4:Shout out.
Speaker 3:Christian Camp in the most remote, county in the lower forty eight in Colorado, and, I was a 2nd year guide. I was senior to Chloe. She's a 1st year guide, and Chloe can tell you, I mean, that she didn't really know know much. But
Speaker 4:I didn't even own a pair of hiking boots when I got this job.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:I bought a pair.
Speaker 3:Our boss, Austin So to, he now, works at Clemson, and does a recreation program. Really great guy. Huge mentor in my life. He would hire guides that were hard guys that knew, like, the skills, and they hire what he called soft guides.
Speaker 4:That's me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Like Chloe. So we we we go, like, go very well together. And Chloe and I weren't really planned to have any any trips together that summer, but as it turned out, we'd we spent most of our trips together. They teach you how to improvise.
Speaker 3:We would, have, like, practical scenarios and then you'd, like, save people and
Speaker 4:We did a hypothermia scenario actually.
Speaker 3:Yep. They had to bring them back. And they're pretty mildly hypothermic. They weren't, like, all the way there yet, but they're pretty close. And we we did that.
Speaker 3:But what we do, the whole basis of our trips were to guide, people in the wilderness and make sure they didn't die. And the cool thing about the wilderness is, like, any major biblical character you can think of probably spent time in the wilderness, And what it does is, like, resets people, and they have to learn to socialize and, like, not be on their phones. And they're totally reliant upon, like, us as guides to make sure they're okay. First aid, teach them how to use the bathroom properly in the wilderness, which is always a fun teaching.
Speaker 4:Some don't listen. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Some don't listen. But so we take these kids out and, you know, we'd cook for them and everything and there'd be times where you do we call them trail talks. Cool thing is, like, aspens are, like, one of the largest living organisms in the world because they're all interconnected through the root system. So if one is hurting, the other will just come and help lift it up and supply it with water. And how do we apply that to our lives?
Speaker 3:Pretty simply. A lot of the groups we took out, not all of them, but some of them were like inner city kids. Some in West Dallas would come out every year and we had groups,
Speaker 4:They were wild. It was so fun.
Speaker 3:Great time. It was always the most fun trips.
Speaker 4:They did the things that they because these kids have never seen these kids have never been out of Texas. They've never seen mountains, and now they're, like, in the most massive mountains in the United States, some of them. And, I mean, the things that they would say and do are just so wild and so fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's awesome.
Speaker 3:And I would always pack in a 2 liter of Mountain Dew.
Speaker 2:Come on, Zach.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Breaking my back for the people. You know? I'd so I carried in, and we'd we'd
Speaker 4:do tell the kids had no idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the week's kinda structured, like, the first couple days are, like, hiking uphill. About midway through the week or towards the end of the week, you do what's called a peak day. So you'd find a mountain and you'd wake up super early 3, 4 in the morning, and you'd go and hike to the top of it by by the time the sun was rising. And you'd break out that Mountain Dew, and everybody, like, we pass it around and waterfall it.
Speaker 4:You've been packing this the whole week.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But it's funny because the kids have been complaining all week that their packs are heavy, and then you just, like, randomly pull out a Mountain Dew, like, a 2 liter, and they're, like, what? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we'd all pass it around and say things we're thankful for and, like, what we're what we're happy or glad for, and we pass it around till it was empty. But the main the main ministry that we had was a telling of life stories and, like, there's so much power in some of these kids' life stories of, like, what they've gone through. I remember taking a group out my first summer, Future Men. They're based out of, like, the Branson, Missouri area, and each of these kids were pretty pretty tough. All men obviously, and they put on this persona of, like, this, like, hard exterior of, like, all the things they've been through.
Speaker 3:But what's really cool and neat that week was that each and every single one of them when they gave their life story, that, like, shell that they were wearing dissolved, and they, like, every single one of them cried. Every single one of them were broken down that week, and that's the cool thing about that ministry is that you're out there and you're probably gonna break, and I've been broken by the wilderness. Like like I was saying my mentor, Austin, I remember right right before my first trip ever, we were driving down the highway, and I looked over at him. I said, you know, these woods will never break me. I will never be broken.
Speaker 3:He looks at me, and, like, it was, like, straight wisdom. He's like, sometimes you have to be broken to grow.
Speaker 4:That's
Speaker 3:good. That's good stuff right there. You definitely one lined me. So, I mean, I've been broken out in the wilderness, and there's a ton of value there. And it's cool to hear someone's life story and have an understanding where they come from because we're all different.
Speaker 3:We all have things that influenced and shaped our lives, and it shapes us forever. Decisions we make, the things that we do, how we interact with people, our careers, that all shapes us, and a lot of these kids that we dealt with just want someone to listen and they want someone to ask good questions and they wanna feel heard. And I remember I was listening to the podcast one time, and it's like they don't remember what you said or what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And every time when we were done with someone sharing, we'd always say, thank you for sharing, and it makes them feel heard, it makes them feel loved and cared about, and that's that's our that was our ministry. So we did backpacking, rock climbing, and kayaking, and then Chloe and I met there and we had a lot of great talks.
Speaker 3:After my 2nd summer, we dated long distance for was it a year or so? And she ended up moving here and got a job being a cop, and here we are ever since.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I I feel like a lot of people find rest and just healing in in the wilderness. And I wonder, I mean, because you're taking kids that have never experienced that before, and it makes so much sense that that experience would be transformative even more so for them. I wonder if you have thoughts.
Speaker 4:I think there's, like, such a sense of awe in these kids, particularly, like, we had one kid who came who was actually, like, blind, which is insane to think about, like, this kid scaling mountains. He would just, like, hang on to the back of our packs and we would, like, talk him through where he was stepping. There's just an awe. Like, they've never experienced this before. Like, for this kid, I mean, he doesn't have his eyes to see, so he's experiencing new senses, new smells.
Speaker 4:And I'm sure that those things are much more heightened than than what ours is. Even, like, peaks that we would take them on that are, like, that to us, because we've hiked bigger and better, if you will, like, they're just, like, this is amazing. And you're, like, this is I could tell like, we we took Jay on a trip to Robert's Cave, and he's, like, this is a trip of a lifetime. And we're like, we're in Oklahoma, dude. Like so it's I mean, it's fun because it's like a first.
Speaker 4:It's like the first experience. Like, I mean, think about, like, the first time you fall in love. Like, that experience is is so wild and so new. I will say that I think that the wilderness can have those impacts on anybody, whether you've been there a 1000000 times or not. And I I like to say that, like, God created the earth with his voice.
Speaker 4:And I think when we're in his creation, we hear his voice more easily because there is no other distractions. And there's just so much power in the outdoors. I mean, I think I don't I think we'll go we'll go back to that kind of work eventually in our lives because it's so powerful for both of us, and we know how how much the Lord works through the wilderness in in all all of scripture and in our lives too. So I I don't think the Lord's quite done with that portion of our lives. So
Speaker 3:It would be one of my dreams to start something here in Dallas where we take maybe inner city kids or kids that are being mentored to places that are close by and give them that experience. It doesn't have to be something grand or huge, or, like, they're, like, 30 miles from the nearest road. Yeah. But something as small as, like, taking away somebody's cell phone or their ability to tell time or know what time it is does a lot. It's all about creating that space for them to encounter and meet Jesus, and we did what was called a tag time, which is time alone with God.
Speaker 3:Time. Yeah. They would get time by themselves to sit and reflect without any sort of distractions because I think it's so easy here in the city to be distracted by everything that's going on that you lose it's easy to lose focus. It's easy to I'm sitting there trying to have time with God, but it's like there's somebody across the table or somebody across, like, the coffee shop doing something that draws my attention to them, and it's all about creating that space.
Speaker 4:Get outside.
Speaker 3:And even if it was, like, to go to a park and, like, walk in somewhere, like, kind of off the beaten path and just, like, chill and hang out and, like, have a good talk where you're surrounded by the woods or whether that is, like, a weekend trip with your mentor. That's something that I'm interested in seeing is, like, start running that out of our garage at the house, like, doing weekend trips with kids again. Hey, this house. Even on, like, small scale. Like, I'd be always down for that.
Speaker 3:I'd, like, take time off work in a heartbeat to do that.
Speaker 4:This is a trip of a lifetime.
Speaker 3:Yep. He did say that. He did say that.
Speaker 4:It was really cute. Yep.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love hearing stories of you guys leading wilderness trips with kids from hard places, and it makes me just think about the need for these kids to have those kind of guides here in the city, whether it's a counselor, a mentor, a teacher, a parent, all of the above. Like, having a team surround them and help them navigate their emotions and their development and their trauma and and all of those things. You guys recently adopted a boy, Jay, and, I wonder if you could share more about your experience of guiding him through those issues, his development, his trauma, and and what you guys have learned.
Speaker 4:I think that we really underestimate what actually happens in kids who are from hard places. For our son, we don't even know the full extent of the things that he's been through. Like, I, I really can't even begin to imagine the pain that happened in the 1st 5 years of his life. Even just the fact that like his, his parents had substance abuse issues. Like Jay probably spent a lot of time alone in his crib by himself.
Speaker 4:And to think about the lack of attention that he really got and to know that, like, the 1st year of your life, like, you're learning so much about connection, about trust. And I think we can minimize that. I think we minimize, like, how severe those things can really impact children. And and, truthfully, I think when we start to understand trauma and how it affects the brain, we can have a heart of more compassion because we're not just looking at behaviors anymore. We're seeing there's a reason why these behaviors are happening, and I want I want to to meet the need that's there.
Speaker 4:I mean, I I I really it hurts my heart to think about the things that our son has been through. And and even that doesn't even, like, include the abuse that he's experienced, the the neglect that he's experienced. And to think about that happening for a child, like, that's that's setting them up. Like, they're already being set up for a really difficult life because they have they're they're not being set up to have positive coping skills, to have positive connections with people, to be able to relate emotionally to people. And it all comes back to that.
Speaker 4:And it can that I think we lose I mean, we lose sight of that frequently because we're we're human, but we have to remind ourselves, like, this is he behaves this way because he doesn't know how to do something different. And really, I think and, and as you get into like older kids, a lot of their only coping strategies are playing things like video games. Like they've never known anything different. Like when they're upset or when they're angry, like that's just what they go to and they just do that. And then to bring it back to the wilderness, when you take them out of what typically works for them, they have to find something different that works for them.
Speaker 4:And that's what turns them to the Lord. That's what turns them to something else of realizing, like, getting time away with the Lord can be something positive over playing video games and kind of numbing myself to this. That if I allow myself to start feeling this, then I can, like, work through it and get something positive out of it versus just numbing it and pushing it under.
Speaker 2:A child's development process requires compassion from adults, plain and simple, to help dig them out of those unhealthy or unconstructive ways of numbing your pain like you said. That support is so crucial for kids while they're learning to self regulate and navigate life's decisions in a world that's constantly demanding more and more of young people with consistently less guides for their journey.
Speaker 3:If I were to do a survey at work on the people that we arrest of what their home life was like, it's probably fatherless. I think it's important that dads are in homes and they're not just there, but they're engaging with their children. And if we wanted to see changes in the nation, if we wanna see crime rates go down, if we wanna see kids be able to you know, our kids grow up to love their wives well, love their families well, then dads need to be in homes. If Chloe and I were always fighting and bickering all the time and I was in and out, then what does that show my son about how he should treat a woman or how he should interact with his children? Because they're ultimately the real victims.
Speaker 3:Like, Chloe and I could if we were to get a divorce or or whatever, it has to be civil, and we see that all the time in my line of work on, like, welfare checks. It's a civil issue. And I always tell people, the only people that are getting hurt here is not you, it's the kids, because they're looking at everything you do. And a lot of times we think of, kids as sponges, which I think is ridiculous because sponges are in inanimate. They don't they don't have any say.
Speaker 3:But a child, when you teach them that they have a voice and they have an opinion and their their value they have value in that. And I think so oftentimes, they they get shoved down and pushed to the side.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna throw you off by this question, but I think it is interesting, like, thinking about fatherlessness, particularly when it comes to incarceration being like a huge part of that in our society. I wonder if you have thoughts as a police officer looking at fatherlessness, how you feel about that because that's that's definitely I'm not blaming you for arresting people, but I mean, I think that that is something that goes through your head every time you're making an arrest. You're thinking on one level is society better if this person is arrested. While on the other hand, is it more healthy for this dad to be in prison or with their kids?
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah. I I I hear what you're saying. For me, when we talk about incarceration, when we talk about sending people to jail for, like, prison for, like, a long time, not, like, just county jail for a couple months, the thought is is, like, for me is, like, how often has this happened before? How what what's their criminal history like?
Speaker 3:They show a pattern, and oftentimes that's what it's based on when it gets gets to the point where the, you know, the sentencing occurs, whether or not they're gonna go to prison for a while or probation or whatever it may be. I mean, you can see the brokenness in a family even if the dad is not doing anything wrong and he's working just so his family can survive. You can think of the trauma there that a kid might go through of not having that male figure. I mean, even moms, single moms working all the time, not having that there because they have to they have to do it to survive. It's the kid gets a little less or hardly any at all interaction time.
Speaker 3:It's tough being a cop, much more than like a lot of people think. They think that just because the law says something that's how it's always gonna be, we get officer discretion, and you gotta play into all that. You gotta think about it. There's some things that are out of my control that you have to go to jail on. There's other things that we get a little bit of leniency on.
Speaker 3:Jay's family was a train wreck before he was removed. I mean, he's seen his dad throw toolboxes at his mom. That's one that he commonly brings up, and when I see things like that happen in my line of work, the only people you're here you're hurting is your is your child because they see their dad acting in that way, and they think that it's okay for another man to treat them that way. So when they start dating, they're gonna think it's okay that they get a toolbox thrown at them, and if we wanna see change in people's lives, then we have to be the catalyst for that.
Speaker 2:How can mentors help kids who are stuck in fear, stuck in bad decision making, unhealthy behaviors? What what does that look like?
Speaker 4:I think I'm I'm I'm super passionate about giving kids voice. And and to empower a child is to teach them how to use their voice in an appropriate way, And that also means that you're gonna get a lot of them using their voice in an inappropriate way and having to redirect that. So we do we do a lot of, like, redos in our home of, like, I wanna hear your voice, but let's let's try that again. Let's try it again with respect and kind of shift it and move it around and and remember that, like, the root of the word discipline is is disciple, which means to teach. And so when you're discipling kids, you're teaching them, And that means that you're gonna have some of the ugly come out because these kids haven't walked through life and the life that they have walked through has probably been quite ugly.
Speaker 4:And so it takes it takes a lot of give and take of of those things. But I think there's a lot of little ways to empower kids to use their voice and to give them choices to let them know that, like, their voice matters and what they have to say and their opinions matter. Whether that's, Sometimes, we'll ask Jay, oh, where do you want to go to dinner? But in the back of my mind, I know where I want to go to dinner. It's Chick Fil A.
Speaker 4:And when he doesn't say Chick Fil A and he says Sonic, I'm like, well, what about Chick Fil A? You want to go to Chick Fil A? And we try to convince him. I think that like, when we give kids choices, we have to make sure that, like or if we say you wanna go here or here that we, like, follow whatever they're saying. If we're if we're giving them choice, give that to them freely and not try to convince them out of that.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Or even, like, one thing that I like to do with Jay is, like, I'm gonna give you 10 minutes of my time, which seems little. It does seem little, but I'm gonna give you 10 minutes. That means I set a timer. I'm not on my phone at all.
Speaker 4:There's no other distractions. What activity would you like to do for the next 10 minutes? And we pick an activity like coloring or playing with Legos. And so giving them, like, I'm going to give you my full undivided attention for this amount of time and and saying that at the beginning and then at the end, I loved spending time with you. That was so much fun.
Speaker 4:You can still spend time together after that, but they just have this idea of that being molded of this is this is 10 minutes for only me and nobody else. In that time, you're not correcting, you're not redirecting, you're kind of you're just playing. You're just playing with kids, which kids learn through play. It takes, like, 400 plus times of doing something for a child to learn. But if you do that through play, it takes, like, up to 12.
Speaker 4:And so I think
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's that's huge. Right? I would rather say something 12 times than 400, but I think I'd we probably do a bit of both at our house. But, yeah, playing playing with kids.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think that that that is one of the most empowering ways to give kids voice, to give kids an environment that's positive is is through play because they're probably like, I even think about us as intentional as we try to be. We send Jay away a lot of, like, hey. Especially now when we're like, I'm working and we're, you know, all on lockdown. Like, you need to go to your room and play. You need to go find something to do.
Speaker 4:And so when we, as a mentor, when you can give them that undivided attention to play and they can lead that, I think that's really empowering for a child to be able to just be a kid and play and not have not have those distractions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If a 2 parent household has the inclination to, like, turn on Lego Ninjago and give their child something that would give them attention, how much more so is that difficult for a single parent?
Speaker 4:I can't imagine.
Speaker 3:I mean, you you single basically, single parent 4 days out of the week.
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's true.
Speaker 3:4 days out of the week, I'm I'm at work, and I don't see Chloe except when I come home and get into the bed. So you can speak a lot more to that than I think you can. At least you that you think you can.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean, shout out to single parents, though. I I don't because then on those other 3 days of the week, I I can get a break. I mean, I just think about single parents not really having that space to even really have a break. Because you need breaks.
Speaker 4:You really do. You have to have them to be successful. I can't imagine. I'm feeling stressed just thinking about not having a break. But yeah.
Speaker 4:Kids need play. I mean, our our son is 11. Given developmentally, he's more like a 7 or 8 year old. But even even at 11, he wants to play and he's he's gonna learn through play. Even when we when we try to teach things, if we're working on things, we we try to do them through play.
Speaker 4:So we we have, like, puppets and it's really funny because Jay will be, like, can we play with the puppets? And we'll we play this game called Wrong Way, Right Way, and so we'll practice with the puppets of, like, how to do something the wrong way and they think it's hilarious. When Jay gets in trouble, he'll often go, like, what? And so we'll do that with the puppets and it's like he's doing that with the puppets and he thinks it's so funny. We're like, okay, good job.
Speaker 4:Now let's do it the right way. And then it's like, go brush your teeth. And he's like, yes, ma'am, with the puppet. And so he's learning that through play and then we'll switch roles and we'll be the kid and he'll be the parent. I know people who do that with teens and and they they find it funny too because the things they will make the puppets do are just funny.
Speaker 4:Like, play is is critical in a mentor role or even a parent role in finding that space. Even if it is just 10 minutes, like, Jay will say, like, can we have our can we have special alone time? And that's what I call. I say, I'm gonna spend special alone time with you for 10 minutes. You can pick whatever you, like, you can pick whatever you wanna do that's an activity that doesn't require a rule.
Speaker 4:So that means, like, we're not sitting down playing a game where, like, I have to correct him or teach him those. And so whether that's, like, coloring, like I said, coloring Legos, those kind of things where we can just build and play and then that timer goes off. And we can still keep playing, but it's just not special alone time anymore. It's critical to find that. As a parent, I think when you, like, you can really think about, like, 10 minutes is really not that much.
Speaker 4:Like, that's that's nothing to be able to just say 10 minutes. I think any any amount of time that you can get in there is is important to get in.
Speaker 2:But just being intentional. Even I tell our mentors, you can feel weird about saying, hey, I really enjoyed spending time with you. But saying that to a kid means something. Yeah. And it's more than just we can let them 20 years from now be appreciative of the time we spent with them, but if we say it, I think it's gonna be ingrained within them to a greater level.
Speaker 2:If you ask, hey, can I spend 10 minutes with you, like, to to have fun with you? Whatever you wanna do, I wanna do it. You create this opportunity for the kid to realize, oh my gosh. This person wants to spend time with me. They wanna do what I wanna do, and I get to choose, and I have control, and, like, that creates a safety, a belonging that you don't necessarily have if you don't give them the choice, if you don't give them the ask, and that's huge.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And the more you do it, the more comfortable it becomes because it is weird. Like, it feels unnatural. The more you do it, the more it becomes more like kind of a ritual. I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4:I think when we say those things, you're you're put you're planting a seed. Like, there's kids who walk out of their childhood and they say, like, my parents never even told me that they love me. They they might be able to feel that their parents love them, but they still, if they've never been told that, can have a hard time relating to their emotions. And so I think our voice has a lot of power in being able to say those things. And I think it has I think it has a lot more power than than what we really what we really give it, honestly.
Speaker 3:And it works on adults too. Yeah. It works really well. It works well for our son when he's upset. Just verbalizing saying, I can see you're upset.
Speaker 3:What's going on? We're acknowledging his feelings without him having to say how he feels because sometimes he has a hard time doing that. Even as adults, we do do that. I mean, it works on calls that I go on when I see people, hey, I see you're really upset. What's going on?
Speaker 3:And then they're like, oh, wow, like, this guy can read me. He knows me. He wants to, like, engage in this, like, conversation with me about how I'm feeling, And a lot of times, even when it's over, it's like, I'm really sorry, this happened to you. I'm really sorry that your house is broken into. And they're like, wow, this guy's being genuine.
Speaker 3:This works. Because everybody wants to feel heard. Everybody wants to feel like someone knows them, and when we verbalize that to other people, they get that recognition. I know I like it when people notice that I'm upset or tell me that I'm doing a good job or that they're sorry that something happened in my life or wanna know more about me. That makes me feel loved, and that's what those kids want too.
Speaker 3:They just want someone to know them.
Speaker 2:For some of us, play is like this meaningless kind of time. I have mentors tell me all the time. They're like, we we just played tag. That that was what we did, and I can kinda sense that they feel like they're let down. Like, they're they want their mentor relationship to be like, I'm teaching my kid how to do taxes, like or, I don't know, how to change a tire or do something that's like, this will benefit them in manhood or their future family like and playing tag doesn't seem productive.
Speaker 2:When you share well actually if you play, kids pick up on things that you're teaching them. Even if it feels like meaningless, it's actually meaningful.
Speaker 4:I think the most meaningful thing that we can give them is connection. And connection for kids comes through play. That that's how like, you're not gonna get a kid in an office to, like, sit down and, like, have a serious conversation with you. Like, there's this in in the trainings that we do, there's this picture of, like, the the right brain and the left brain, and one is, like, this colorful artistic, and then the other side is, like, this, like, logistical office. And it's, like, kids are operating in this colorful world.
Speaker 4:We were there once, but now we're on a much more logistical side of things. We kind of have this idea of, like, I'm gonna like, we need to pull these kids into this. Whereas with with children, you have to meet them exactly where they're at. So we have to adjust ourselves to be able to enter into that world and be okay with that and be okay with the silliness of it. Another thing, too, to remember is that play disarms fear.
Speaker 4:So like when kids are playing, they're not full of fear. When it comes to trauma, everything in trauma is kind of wrapped up around fear. When kids feel fear, they can't feel safety, they can't feel connected, they can't feel valued or important, they just feel fear and that emotion takes over everything. And that's when we see behaviors and that's when we see a disconnection from those children. But when fear is disarmed through play, none of that's there.
Speaker 4:Kids just get to be kids. If you are connecting through a game of tag, the point is that you're connecting. It is critical when working with kids from hard places to have an understanding of trauma. There are a lot of resources on trauma. One one book that we commonly recommend is The Body Keeps the Score.
Speaker 4:It's a very, like, scientific book, but it's also not it's not too too hard of a read. It's long. But that kind of brings in the brain and how trauma affects it. I would say, like, if you're really committed to mentoring kids from hard places, invest invest in your own time in reading things like that because it's critical that we understand trauma, because these all kids from my places have gone through trauma. And if we understand how that affects their brain, we can love them better.
Speaker 4:And so typically when kids come into care, you can expect them to be developmentally half their age, which is very true. I mean, if you're working with a 6 year old, it's very likely that they are having behaviors like a 3 year old and they are, you know, having big tantrums and having big outbursts because emotionally they're behind because of the trauma that they've experienced. Trauma can also affect your prefrontal cortex, which we know now, like, really isn't developed even in adults until, like, age 30 something. And so to think about, like, how high of Kids who have experienced trauma are used to being in what is called the downstairs part of the brain. This is like a super low, low scientific level of it.
Speaker 4:So the downstairs brain hosts, like, the amygdala, which keeps your fear response. So that's the part of your brain that keeps you alive, that keeps you that keeps you safe. So, like, if you think about, like, if you're hiking we'll go back to our our wilderness stuff. If you're hiking and you, like, run into a bear, like the situation that Zach and I talked about, like, my immediate response is, like, bye. Like, I'm gone.
Speaker 4:I want to flee. Like, that's my downstairs brain reacting to the situation versus, like, my upstairs brain would would be able my prefrontal cortex would be able to say, like, it's okay. This bear is like 30 feet away from me. I wonder what this bear is thinking. Yes.
Speaker 4:As adults, we should be able to pass through that a little bit more freely of the downstairs and upstairs. But for kids, think about that staircase being cluttered. Like if you're, if you're going, if you're in a house and like somebody threw their shoes all over the staircase, like it's a little bit more difficult to maneuver. And those kids are used to having are used to being in their downstairs brains. Their downstairs brain is really strong.
Speaker 4:It's used to keeping them alive. It's used to keeping them safe. That's where they're used to operating. And to move them upstairs is really difficult and hard for them. One, because it's underdeveloped.
Speaker 4:That's like me saying putting your phone on airplane mode and then telling you to look up a restaurant for us to go to. You can't do it. It's not there. And then I'd be like, why can't you do this? Look up this restaurant.
Speaker 4:It's not that hard. And that's how we're thinking because we have that upstairs brain. But kids, and especially kids who have experienced trauma, they don't have access to that. They haven't spent a lot of time up there, so it's not strong. And so that's one of the really big reasons why I say we need to disarm fear and we can do that through play is because when that amygdala, that downstairs brain is is feeling safe, then we can move upstairs where where we have emotions and feelings and we have rationale and can be reasonable.
Speaker 4:And so when we understand trauma that that those kids' downstairs brain is really strong, we can relate to them a lot better, and we understand how important it is to disarm fear because a lot of so, like, one thing with our son is, like, he's super afraid of the dark. And to us, we're, like, you're 11 years old. You shouldn't have to have a nightlight. And it's really easy for us to think that because we like, that's most 11 year olds. You don't need a nightlight, like, but he's not there yet.
Speaker 4:And so to provide those things that are gonna help him feel safe, even when it's not that big of a deal, like, it's really easy to be like, that shouldn't make you afraid. Don't be afraid. And it's not like any kid's going to be like, oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm not afraid now. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4:So when we understand that fear complex and provide them with safety, and not just physical safety, but felt safety so they feel safe, they not just are safe, but they feel safe, then we can access some of those upstairs brain portions and interact with them on a more, like, normal, quote, unquote, experience for them. And so yeah, I I mean, I'll I'll preach trauma all day long because it really is critical. And even even there's even adults who I think are very much stay in that reactive zone and can't really get up to that functioning of being able to to process things in a rational way when they're afraid or angry. And so, you know, I I always say, like, keep the bar really low to where they can meet it and and keep your expectations in check. Because for a lot of these kids, they they don't have access to that.
Speaker 4:They've never had somebody intentionally work with them to be able to access that. And so, when we keep that in mind and have that in the back of our heads, it takes I think it takes out making those responses about us or, you know, we can help them more than we would if we were if we were ignorant to what trauma can really do to kids. Yeah. So I will say I think that every everyone ever, like, literally everybody has trauma in their life, and, like, that affects the way that we cope with things. And even for myself, like, I had a 2 parent household, a pretty normal childhood, and, like, there were I feel like I still had traumatic experiences even though I didn't experience any sort of abuse or severe neglect.
Speaker 4:And so that really impacted the way that I could personally cope with things and even pushed me to go get help and to spend time in therapy working on those things and getting better coping skills. And so everybody that we meet has trauma. Every single person that we know has been through something hard. And so that affects us. That makes us different people.
Speaker 4:It affects our brain. When we don't deal with it, we can get stuck there. And so we have to remember too that trauma is a very personal experience. So for me in my particular particular life, like, both of my siblings went through really big traumatic experiences. And therefore, like, my parents' attention was very much shifted and focused on them because it had to be, but that created a traumatic experience in my life because I felt like I had to put on a show for my family, that I had to be the one to carry us through a hard time, and that nobody was really paying attention to me.
Speaker 4:But, like, if I got really good grades and if I did really good in sports and if I was, like, a really good person, then, like, I would get the love that I wanted. Even that is a traumatic experience. And so you have a range of things. But for me, that impacted me deeply. I might sit next to somebody who has had sexual abuse in their life and physical abuse in their life, but we both have experienced something that impacted us.
Speaker 4:And so I think we have to remember that trauma is very specific to one person and that one person might go through an experience and another person go through the exact same thing and they could come out very different. There's kids who are in the system who have gone through similar things as our son and are very normal. And while our son does not have that same level of resilience and unfortunately has experienced severe impacts of that trauma, one person might go through it and come out very strong and resilient and another person might not be able to fight that same fight. And so when it comes to trauma, it's a very individual thing. Everybody experiences it different.
Speaker 4:And I think that it's really, really, really, really important to never minimize somebody's trauma. And that when somebody is willing to share that and share how something has affected them, that we validate that, whether it seems really big or not, because those things have impacted them. And so whether your kid is in Highland Park and has 2 parents in a really nice fancy house, or whether you're living in government housing and there's only one parent, like, both kids are experiencing trauma and both kids have difficult experiences and are gonna carry those things through their life. And so I think trauma becomes a really big word, like this buzzword, but really, like, all of us have been through hard things.
Speaker 2:And just acknowledging that those things really do affect who we're becoming, who we are, our sense of identity, our sense of safety.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Good mentors help create a place of safety and relationship and belonging to then engage this new part of the the brain, which I I love what you said earlier of, like, helping Jay find his voice and being okay if it's off. And whether that's language or his emotions are, like, going crazy and he doesn't know how to communicate something, like, having compassion because you're engaging a part of your brain that you're not, like, you don't have very many reps up here. Yeah. And so for every mentor to to acknowledge, like, we're giving our kids reps in areas that they've never had before that not only helps address places of trauma as we create a place of safety in a relationship that they can trust, but, also, we help them develop areas of their brain that they have just not not had many reps in. So I love it, Chloe.
Speaker 4:I don't know if you'll put, like, like, notes with your thing, but I can give you some other resources too. Dan Siegel has a book called The Whole Brain Child, which is actually, like, not a trauma perspective. So, it's really interesting how he talks about experiences in the brain. I I would that one's much easier to read than The Body Keeps the Score. So that's another good good resource too.
Speaker 2:It's awesome.
Speaker 4:Another another good example too is, like, there's foster parents who, like, take babies and have this, like, idea, like, okay. Well, if I have a baby in my home, like, I got this baby at 6 months and, like, they really didn't experience a lot of trauma. Yeah. Yeah. But that book that I'm saying, like, the body keeps the score, the body will remember.
Speaker 4:And so, like, while our son Jay might not remember being hungry, When he feels hunger, his body remembers that and then puts him into a tailspin. And so, you know, there are situations where, like, some of the most difficult kids that that seek post adoption help were kids that were adopted at birth because these parents have this idea that they well, they didn't really experience trauma or they didn't really experience these things when in fact, like, they can be experiencing trauma even in utero. Like, there there's a statistic that says anytime a mom even craves a cigarette, that's increasing the cortisol level that's delivered to the baby, which is a stress hormone. So that puts the baby in distress, even just craving a cigarette. That's not even, like, that's not even, like, having a cigarette.
Speaker 4:That's just the mere craving for for a cigarette. And so remembering that even if these kids are, like, even if these kids, like, are adopted and in stable homes, that doesn't mean the impacts of in utero trauma or the trauma, like the loss of a caregiver, the loss that kids in care experience of not having their biological parents, that is a huge loss. And I think there's a lot of foster parents who really underestimate that loss because they want adoption to be this really happy and awesome thing, which it is. But at the same time, that means that this child has experienced extreme loss. Like, they will never get to meet their biological cousins.
Speaker 4:They'll never get to be around their family and have a healthy and safe family that that they're biologically related to. And I think we really don't we underestimate how severe that is of of trauma and an attachment for that child. Even if they even if that child doesn't even know that they're adopted, that's, like, innately in them and occurring within their brain. Like, it it really I think we underestimate what what can really be going on in that kiddo's kiddo's head.
Speaker 2:Some people who listen to this may see you guys as the bad guys, like, honestly. Like, they look at a foster care agency and think you're trying to take my kids away.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I'm gonna do everything I can to, like, make sure that doesn't happen. Or they look at you, Zach, and they're, like, they think of every every YouTube video that's gone up. They think about police brutality and they hate cops. And, obviously, I'm speaking in generalities, but there's somebody listening to this that thinks that.
Speaker 4:For sure.
Speaker 2:And I obviously, hearing from you guys, your perspective, like, you have so much compassion in your work. Like, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing if you didn't care about our community, you didn't care about these families, but what what would you like to say to that person who experiences that or feels that way? I'd say I'm sorry
Speaker 3:that you've ever felt disrespected or not cared for by by the police. My motto of police work has always been the same since I started. I'm gonna treat you like I want my mom to be treated by a police officer until it's time not to treat you that way. I arrested a guy this past week for DWI, and he literally said to me, why are you doing this to me? And I said, sir, did I put that bottle of alcohol up to your lips?
Speaker 3:No. Did I make you get in that car and drive? No. Well, I'm just going home. Okay.
Speaker 3:Well, I've worked head on collisions where I've held the victim in my arms as he died. That's traumatic for me. Yeah. Messed me up for, like, 3 or 4 weeks before I was, like, normal again, holding someone as they take their last breaths. I think we have to each give responsibility and acknowledge where that's due, but I'm sorry if you ever felt that someone's been disrespectful, especially an officer to you.
Speaker 3:That's it's not how I want our profession portrayed, and, unfortunately, social media has played such a big role in the snippets of what people see. It's no different than the Bible. I can go read the Bible and take stuff out of context and manipulate however I want it to fit an agenda, and people can do the same thing with videos that they post online. You might not get the full story, so I think it's important if you are retching videos on YouTube or Facebook or whatever that you educate yourself and dig a little deeper than just watching the video. And there are times when we have bad days.
Speaker 3:We may have just seen a a dead child or been in a very stressful situation, but that's no excuse. I hope that we hold ourselves to a higher standard as a community in in law enforcement, and most guys do. The guys 95% of the guys or even higher that I work with are incredible people, but there are those bad apples, and they're everywhere. It's not just isolated to Texas. It's not isolated to any state or city in particular.
Speaker 3:It's all over, but for the most part, we all have the same agenda. I'm not trying to separate you from your family. Most of the calls that we go on are civil in nature and we're there just to keep the peace, and a lot of guys don't want to spend the time, especially once you do this long enough, they don't want to spend the time, the extra few minutes to dig a little deeper than they need to, and that happens, but I'm all about equipping families. I mean, I've recommended the Whole Brain Child to families before that were struggling with their kid. I've spent the time, the talk with the kid for an extended period of time that was thinking about suicide.
Speaker 3:And that's not to make me any, you know, build me up and say that I'm the greatest officer ever because I'm not. But
Speaker 4:I think you are.
Speaker 3:Well, there's one of us around here that does. At the end of the day, I'm just doing my job.
Speaker 4:In both of our professions, there are people that don't do their job well. To say that police brutality doesn't exist or to say that there aren't terrible social workers. That's not the truth, unfortunately. And so first and foremost, I think it's important to validate that and say, you're right. Like that does exist.
Speaker 4:And truthfully, when you do these jobs for a really long time, you can easily lose sight of why you do it. For myself, it's my hope that, one, I never lose sight of that. If I do, then I need to find a new job. But even with foster families, I think a lot of bio parents have that connotation of, like, they just want my kids. And that can be true and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 4:But there are a lot of people who are good too. There are a lot of foster parents who cheer on bio parents and who want reunification. And truthfully, when that's healthy and when that's positive, but that's what we need to root for because we want kids to be with their biological family if it's safe for them to do so. And so, one, we're not all bad to remember that is that we're and we're human too. Just like any job like, you could go to a bank and there's people that love their job there and there's people that absolutely hate their job there.
Speaker 4:Like, that's anywhere you go. So it's not just our profession. I mean, Zach and I are in the process of becoming foster parents ourselves for a second time. And my passion behind it is I want I want to be a foster parent who who can be a cheerleader for Byle parents and who doesn't have my own interest in mind of keeping these kids, you know, a lot of foster parents will say, like, well, it's the kid it's in the kid's best interest. And really, like, they're just throwing that around because of something that they want.
Speaker 4:And I want to be a catalyst for change. I wanna be in somebody's life and and not not be selfish.
Speaker 2:I get a front row seat to watch you guys live your life, love your son, and, serve our city and our communities. And I I think mentors can learn a lot from people like you guys who are, or maybe put in situations of traumatic childhood experiences and difficulties that kids from our places go through. So thank you guys so much for sharing today.
Speaker 4:My pleasure.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I will leave Chloe and Zach's information in the show notes so you can connect with them if you have any questions. And if there's one thing you picked up from today's podcast, let it be this. You can mentor.