The Relational Parenting Podcast

In this episode, we are joined by Claudette Osborne, who works with horses, youth and families. We discuss the power of horses as mirrors for our own fears and ego, and how horses can teach us about leadership and trust. We also explore the importance of breaking old parenting patterns and focusing on building trust and communication with children. Claudette shares her coaching practice, which focuses on working with parents and families to improve relationships and create win-win solutions. We also discuss the challenges of busy parenting and the importance of practicing awareness and mindfulness to break repetitive thoughts and beliefs. 
Claudette shares her experience as a surrogate parent and the importance of building relationships with young people. The conversation also delves into the challenges of fostering and adoption, emphasizing the need to manage expectations. The role of responsibility and including children in household chores is explored, along with the importance of setting goals and trusting oneself. 

Claudette Osborne is passionate about the transformational power of coaching and changing limiting beliefs. Growing up, she faced struggles that impacted her relationships early in life, making her feel isolated. She overcame these challenges through self-evaluation, unconditional love, and personal growth and development. Claudette serves and supports Parents with Teenagers and Blended Families by helping
participants discover life-changing shifts in thoughts and perspectives through her signature program, From Troubled to Triumphant For Parents Seeking A Happy Relationship With Their Teens, Spouse, and Blended Family.
Offering Online 1:1 and Group Coaching to meet your needs. Claudette is a certified Master Life Coach, Founder of Power Perspective Coaching, LLC, Co-founder of Osborne Stables Equine Rescue, Inc. 501 (C) 3 Non-Profit, and Facilitator of her Connection Equine-Assisted Skills Development Program, where all proceeds go to the care and needs of the horses. She sees everything as a gift and opportunity.

Takeaways
  • Horses can serve as mirrors for our own fears and ego, teaching us about leadership and trust.
  • Breaking old parenting patterns and focusing on building trust and communication with children is essential.
  • Practicing awareness and mindfulness can help break repetitive thoughts and beliefs.
  • Busy parenting can make it challenging to find time for self-care and reflection, but it is crucial for overall well-being. Seeking the good opinion of others can be draining and may not always lead to fulfillment.
  • Building relationships with young people as a surrogate parent can be rewarding and impactful.
  • Managing expectations is crucial in fostering and adoption, as each child's journey is unique.
  • Including children in household chores can teach them responsibility and life skills.
  • Setting goals and trusting oneself are essential for personal growth and success. Illinois experiences colder weather and snow during winter.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and New Year's Announcement
03:05 Claudette's Work with Horses and Youth
06:03 The Power and Mirror Effect of Horses
11:35 Leadership and Trust with Horses and Children
18:36 Breaking Old Parenting Patterns
19:04 Coaching Parents and Teens
25:18 Overmedicalization and Individual Differences
26:59 The Challenge of Busy Parenting
30:05 Practicing Awareness and Mindfulness
34:21 Breaking Repetitive Thoughts and Beliefs
36:17 The Burden of Seeking Good Opinion
36:52 Surrogate Parenting and Building Relationships
40:03 Expectations in Parenting and Fostering
41:10 Challenges in Fostering and Adoption
42:14 The Danger of Expectations
45:30 Parenting in Different Times
46:15 Including Children in Household Chores
49:30 Setting Goals and Trusting Yourself
53:30 Unconditional Love and Boundaries
56:17 Learning Life Skills and Responsibility
59:33 The Influence of Sibling Order
01:02:25 Programs and Services Offered
01:07:26 The Importance of Experience and Growth
01:10:18 Closing Remarks

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Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!

Creators & Guests

Host
Jennifer Hayes
Host
Rick Hayes
Guest
Claudette Osborne
Claudette Osborne is passionate about the transformational power of coaching and changing limiting beliefs. Growing up, she faced struggles that impacted her relationships early in life, making her feel isolated. She overcame these challenges through self-evaluation, unconditional love, and personal growth and development. Claudette serves and supports Parents with Teenagers and Blended Families by helping participants discover life-changing shifts in thoughts and perspectives through her signature program, From Troubled to Triumphant For Parents Seeking A Happy Relationship With Their Teens, Spouse, and Blended Family. Offering Online 1:1 and Group Coaching to meet your needs. Claudette is a certified Master Life Coach, Founder of Power Perspective Coaching, LLC, Co-founder of Osborne Stables Equine Rescue, Inc. 501 (C) 3 Non-Profit, and Facilitator of her Connection Equine-Assisted Skills Development Program, where all proceeds go to the care and needs of the horses. She sees everything as a gift and opportunity.
Editor
Natalie Long

What is The Relational Parenting Podcast?

Welcome to the Relational Parenting Podcast! I’m Jennifer Hayes – a Parent Coach and 20 year Childcare Veteran. Each week I sit down with my own father (and cohost), Rick Hayes, and discuss the complicated issues that parents face today, as well as some of the oldest questions in the book. From the latest research and the framework of my Relational Parenting Method, we offer thought-provoking solutions to your deepest parenting struggles.
Relational Parenting is an evidence and experience based parenting method created by me - Jennie. After 20 years in the child care world, in every scenario you could possibly imagine, I realized one thing: EVERYONE was prioritizing the behavior and performance of a child over their emotional well-being. This frustrated me to no end and when I re-visited the latest research, I realized there was a better way. I started applying the principles I'd been learning in my own self-work, parent-child relationships, and partnerships, and I started gobbling up all the new research and books I could get my hands on. When I saw the results of putting these practices into play with the children I was taking care of - the difference in myself AND the kids I worked with was ASTOUNDING.
I am SO PROUD to be presenting Relational Parenting to the world. I can't wait to hear about your own journey. From Parents-to-be to the seasoned parenting veteran - there's something here for everyone!

Jennie (00:01.482)
I just, I just exited and pushed record again. I'm like, you're stupid. Shut up. I was like, no, we're not doing that.

Claudette Osbone (00:06.151)
I'm going to go to bed.

Papa Rick (00:07.31)
That can't be us.

Jennie (00:13.074)
Okay, record, record. Everyone has a red dot. All right. Welcome back everybody to the Relational Parenting podcast. Happy New Year. This is our first episode of 2024. And Papa Rick is here with me and we have our first guest of the year, Claudette Osborne. And she is here with us from Texas, right?

Claudette Osbone (00:40.939)
Yes.

Jennie (00:41.65)
Yes, from your equine rescue. Um, and what'd you call where you're at on a ranch?

Claudette Osbone (00:49.391)
Well, it's a 33 acre little piece, so most people anywhere else would call it a ranch. It's, we would call it just a large acreage place. If you're not in Texas, it's probably a small ranch.

Papa Rick (00:59.44)
If you weren't in Texas, yeah.

Jennie (00:59.566)
Okay. Right. Anywhere else? Yeah. So, so we are back. I just want to say for the first of the year, we're, we're back. Um, and I'm going to do a separate intro for, for some more details. So people have probably already heard this. Um, but we're, we're doing some new things. We've got some new things coming up in the podcast. Um, and

And yeah, we've got guests every single week lined up and we're, yeah, we're back to back and we're excited. And I think I announced this on the last episode, but I am also pregnant. So I am 20 weeks and some number of days. And so we're halfway there. And so we're making all of the plans for.

my maternity leave as well. So we'll be recording extra episodes and so that we can release while I'm still, I'm not live recording. So anyway, happy new year everybody. I hope everyone got through their holiday season with as little scarring and trauma as possible hopefully with mostly, mostly enjoyment and fun and connection and

Claudette Osbone (02:19.763)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (02:20.096)
Hahaha.

Jennie (02:27.746)
We're happy to be back. So welcome officially Claudette. Thank you so much for being here. We're so excited to chat with you today.

Claudette Osbone (02:37.203)
Hi, nice to meet you both and thank you so much for having me on your show. I've been so looking forward to this.

Papa Rick (02:38.04)
Hey.

Papa Rick (02:45.548)
Me too.

Jennie (02:45.558)
Awesome, me too. So Claudette, tell us a little bit about what you do. You rescue horses, but you also work with youth and kind of how you came about doing that kind of work.

Claudette Osbone (03:05.931)
Well, I've worked with children most of my life and ended up somewhat raising or helping to assist to raise my siblings. But kids have been my life off and on and horses have been in my life most of my life. The work that I do here, one is partnering with the horses through the equine rescue. These horses were high risk, their last chance of survival.

It's all veterinary referral and law enforcement referral. So we're not getting healthy horses So rehabbing and getting them back some of them go back to riding status, but that usually is short-lived Their injuries catch up with them But as we started the rescue What I found was as many people that came to help or were aware of the rescue Came there to get their me needs met

and they needed that rescue as much as the horses did. The training with the horses, also having a trauma-focused training, how the horses act, react, behave, how they react to stimuli, people's emotions, their thoughts, their actions. They're a good barometer. I can watch the horse and...

Papa Rick (04:09.374)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (04:32.415)
pretty much tell where the person is. And that way help them see where they were, maybe were at that moment. The programs we do partnering with the horse all go directly to the Equine Rescue for their care and needs. And the coaching piece that is virtual one-on-one and group coaching, that is a separate company. So Osborne Staples Equine Rescue is the charity and nonprofit that we co-founded, my husband and I.

Jennie (04:35.061)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (04:36.268)
Cool.

Papa Rick (05:02.732)
Gotcha.

Claudette Osbone (05:03.039)
and powerful perspective coaching is the coaching business which reaching outside of the horse realm I still use a lot of horse analogies because it's easy to paint the pictures and get that emotion because they're big animals they you know a lot of people have been grained in their head what they think they are like and when they find out how they actually work and think they start to look at how they work and think.

Papa Rick (05:14.538)
Hahaha.

Jennie (05:15.24)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (05:17.633)
Sure.

Jennie (05:21.691)
Ahem.

Claudette Osbone (05:34.387)
Pretty neat.

Jennie (05:35.742)
I think horses are such, I mean, horses have been used therapeutically for decades and something like I grew up, you know, I went to horse camp, I was around horses. My husband and I periodically like for fun, we'll go ride horses. We do have a dream someday to own horses, but you know, I have never worked with a horse

Papa Rick (05:37.051)
Thank you.

Jennie (06:03.85)
Every time I'm around one, I recognize, it's like forces me to see how small I am. When you're around, you know, I have dogs, I've had cats, I've had pets, and I'm very well versed in animals and things like that. When you approach an animal that is that big and powerful and unmoving,

You really don't have a choice other than to respect it and treat it like you don't have power over it. And there's a fine line because with horses, you still, I mean, there's like to break a horse or to ride a horse, you have to kind of like be in charge. You have to be confident. You have to be in charge. You have to know where you want the horse to go, et cetera, so that they listen to you, so that they respect you.

But I think that a horse is such a massive animal that it is the perfect mirror for our own fears or sense of ego or whatever, because it all just goes away. When you walk up to an animal that could kill you with one kick or throw you off or any of these things, it just changes how you approach.

Claudette Osbone (07:12.633)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (07:27.114)
them.

Claudette Osbone (07:28.029)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (07:28.052)
changes the dynamic.

Claudette Osbone (07:32.323)
Several things she just said, you know, how I can take that alone. Yes, they're powerful and they can kick and they can do these things. But the way they act, react and think, they don't see us as anything but a two-legged animal. They're a four-legged animal. They want to know who's higher in the pecking order, them or us. And where's the leadership, where's the herd leadership coming from?

Jennie (07:52.854)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (08:02.028)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (08:02.155)
And the old school beat-em-up training was to break the horse as well. Where if you're looking at how they operate and you are going to partner with them and get them to trust and not be fearful that you are that predator animal. Eyes in front of the head were the predator animal. Their the prey animal eyes were in the sides. So their visions are looking for that. It's kind of like the person who's the hypervigilant waiting for the next shoe to fall sometimes.

Papa Rick (08:24.149)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (08:32.315)
their little radar dishes are on all the time. So they're always scanning. They're not necessarily, you're there and you think they're with you. And I can look at the horse and he's escaped. He's over there with his herd listening to them while the person is, oh, pretty horse and this is wonderful. And the horse has checked out on them. But, you know, a lot of times they're not truly really present or that fear, that little anxiety that's there. The horse instantly doesn't quite feel as safe.

Jennie (08:32.321)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (08:33.073)
Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah.

Papa Rick (08:48.12)
Hahaha.

Papa Rick (08:51.468)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (09:02.151)
So its attention's gonna go somewhere else. It's fun to watch. We've got one 2,000 pound percheron that we did a pilot program with the alternative school. And some of the ones that have been the aggressor are bullies. And I put them with specific horses and stuff. The horse moved just a little bit to the side. This one kid, he leaped over the panel.

Jennie (09:02.222)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (09:05.189)
Interesting, interesting.

Papa Rick (09:12.271)
Oh my lord.

Claudette Osbone (09:32.107)
to get on the other side, it scared the jeebers out of it. And, you know, you're not wanting to crack up, but you do smile and say, well, what just happened? And they give you the feelings of what just happened with them and why that was so frightening. Is it okay? So have you ever been in a position where you think somebody else would have maybe felt the same way? Oh my God.

Papa Rick (09:35.052)
Hahaha!

Papa Rick (09:41.312)
Yeah.

Jennie (09:48.587)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (09:58.069)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (10:02.067)
It's fun to watch. I mean, I shouldn't say fun, but it brings things to life that are hard to get people to see. They've got to experience and feel this for themselves. That's why they call it experiential learning.

Papa Rick (10:03.636)
Interesting.

Jennie (10:10.495)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (10:10.497)
Yeah.

Jennie (10:16.8)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (10:17.727)
Um, yeah, and being hands on, usually when you're around them is, Jenny was saying when you're around it, you feel a little calmer and at peace, their heart rate is slower. That magnetic field of the heart rate is going to affect ours, just like ours when that anxiety comes up and we get a little fearful and our heart rate goes up, is going to affect ours.

Papa Rick (10:17.812)
experiential learning.

Jennie (10:34.05)
Ah.

Papa Rick (10:34.804)
Yeah, man.

Papa Rick (10:40.801)
Yeah.

Jennie (10:43.135)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (10:43.5)
Very interesting. I wrote a little bit as a kid, but this is really interesting stuff. I was too young to understand that. That's really interesting. And the different perspective. When you're dealing with other people, you kind of have expectations, but you'd be able to learn things from a horse because it's different, but have somebody draw the parallels. That's really interesting.

Claudette Osbone (10:44.612)
It's so.

Claudette Osbone (11:08.127)
They can't plot, they can't plan, they can't think it out, they can act or react, they can feel safe or not. You know, it's a very simplistic, they don't have the frontal neocortex, they don't have the frontal processing that we do. They live in the brain stem, they live in the trauma brain.

Papa Rick (11:11.788)
Yeah.

Jennie (11:15.767)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (11:27.532)
get rid of some of the complexity that you anticipate.

Jennie (11:33.044)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (11:34.06)
Huh.

Jennie (11:35.426)
Just, I can't resist drawing this line to children. You said a few minutes ago, you were talking about the old school way of breaking a horse was to break its will. And a lot of parenting is teaching the child who's in charge and a lot of old school parenting. And the new

Claudette Osbone (11:46.507)
Mm-hmm, just like the old parenting.

Papa Rick (11:49.73)
Raising children too, yeah.

Claudette Osbone (11:51.513)
What's...

Papa Rick (11:56.364)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (11:56.599)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (12:05.718)
with new research, new information, you said two words, you create trust with the horse and you lead the horse. And all I can think about is what we talk about on the show with how to parent your children is that you're a team, you're creating trust, that you're not the threat to your child and you're not using harsh mechanisms, fear.

shame, guilt, to break their will, to just obey, but you're actually leaning in and working together and earning each other's trust. And then you're also stepping into a leadership role where you're not afraid and where you are capable of handling big emotions or whatever else may come along that children might.

Papa Rick (12:48.993)
leading. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (12:49.189)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (13:00.706)
have because they do live in the brainstem. Until they're fully developed or more developed as they grow in their prefrontal cortex, they are reactive creatures. All they do is live in action and reaction. What is my environment doing? Am I safe? Am I safe? Yeah.

Papa Rick (13:21.228)
They make that distinction sometimes in the military, the difference between being a leader and a boss or a manager or something more authoritarian. Being a leader is a different thing.

Claudette Osbone (13:21.488)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (13:34.239)
The new studies on that have come out too with the corporate as far as how the handling of things, knowing where the responses are coming from, you know, why corporate teams fail often, and where they're putting the pressure and is that coming from where.

Papa Rick (13:50.853)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (13:50.86)
Hmm.

Claudette Osbone (13:57.067)
the judge of what they think the situation is are not involving those team members or you know developing that Relationship just like you're trying to do with raising the kids. You're trying to develop them into People who are going to be responsible parents as they get older but I know by Watching and knowing how like my dad was raised You know definitely didn't know and only worked off of

Papa Rick (14:06.464)
with kids.

Claudette Osbone (14:27.443)
how they were, how he was raised. And plus when you don't learn to handle those pressures, you end up dishing out the same thing you grew up with right away. It's just a followed, it's a known pattern. It's what you know. It's a default. That's crazy amygdala just hijacked your brain.

Papa Rick (14:40.32)
Yep. Yeah.

Papa Rick (14:51.363)
If you don't recognize it as unhealthy or undesirable for some reason, then it becomes your model too, you know.

Claudette Osbone (15:00.527)
Your view of the world is 90% of who you are hanging out with and that's who you're forced to be around. So you learn a lot of things that you sometimes have to be and done. But as coaches we're definitely not looking back at that. I mean you may just there may be a mention or somebody says something about that is okay now today what's going on today how does that you know affect

Jennie (15:08.118)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (15:27.936)
Hmm.

Claudette Osbone (15:29.203)
Now and how do we move forward from here and working on those building block pieces? Being a first show here at the New Year everybody made resolutions the resolutions just the end big picture the intention comes with steps and paths to get you there and Making the adjustments when things don't work out. They're not failures there adjust pieces that are

Jennie (15:45.055)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (15:57.995)
cause you to adjust. Most people are, oh, well, they quit, they give up on the goal, or they give up because it failed. No, you had a bend in the road and you just took a different road, so you may have to find your way back with a different path. But looking at the big picture, too soon without a pathway, it's kind of hard to get there. So those goals fail.

Jennie (16:05.518)
Hmm.

Jennie (16:14.224)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (16:22.26)
Yep, gets in the way. So you kind of have to just recognize, be aware. Is that a mindfulness thing? To be aware when something's not working. And then work on techniques to do it different and not spend too much time ruminating or psychotherapy. Don't go back and worry about your mother's upbringing and let's just figure out, okay, that's not good and let's go forward from here. Let's try something different.

Claudette Osbone (16:51.819)
We're not here to medicalize things. You know, coaches are not professional counselors. They are not psychologists. That when you see that need in someone, you refer out. But you can give, yes, the awareness, that mindfulness and awareness. It's hard to make change in your life if you're not aware of what's amiss or why you're doing what you're doing. You just have done it that way all your life.

Papa Rick (16:58.438)
Okay.

Jennie (17:04.342)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (17:04.846)
Okay.

Claudette Osbone (17:19.964)
was it still serving you?

Papa Rick (17:22.636)
That horse scared me. That big horse scared me and I yelled at him and he still didn't do what I wanted him to do. Maybe I need to try another tack.

Jennie (17:23.287)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (17:33.303)
Or maybe they need to also step back and get control of their emotions before they ask that horse to be a partner. And is yeah, you know, the horse is going to take off and you're going to spend your time ticked off and chasing them. And all that's going to happen is you're going to stay ticked off and the horse is going to say, Hey, I'm out of here. That that human's a scary animal.

Papa Rick (17:35.692)
Hehehe

Jennie (17:37.794)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (17:40.96)
There you go. Avoid the curve. Don't go into the curve too fast.

Papa Rick (17:51.58)
Hehehehehehe

Papa Rick (17:58.1)
I can outrun you all day. Two-legged person.

Claudette Osbone (18:00.447)
right.

Jennie (18:01.75)
When I, and in that situation, often the horse gets blamed by that person, right? Like this horse just doesn't listen. This horse just has issues. This horse just wants to be a pain in the ass. And it's like, well, no, you yelled at it. A natural response to being yelled at is to get away from that person. So, but yeah, there's a lot of people who grow up.

Papa Rick (18:06.284)
Thanks man.

Papa Rick (18:13.504)
Yeah. Hmm.

Jennie (18:29.446)
learning to blame the circumstance instead of take responsibility for their response to the circumstance.

Papa Rick (18:36.344)
you

Claudette Osbone (18:37.803)
Absolutely.

Jennie (18:41.416)
And we do that to our kids.

But so Claudette, so you in your coaching practice, are you directly coach, I know that you've worked with at risk youth a lot in your history. Are you working directly with youth right now or is your coaching more geared towards parents and families? Okay.

Claudette Osbone (19:04.827)
It's family. It's the parents and the teenagers because a lot of people have already written the teenagers off. The behavior has, the parents have thrown their hands up. They want specific things and specific behaviors from the teen. And like I said, there's no pathway. The frustration has taken over. The communication has shut down.

How do you get the communication back open? How do you get that trust back into play whether it's lack of trust on either end? Learning how to actively listen

Claudette Osbone (19:47.551)
how to seek compromise instead of a hard line. You have to do what I say or else. Is there a win-win? Is a win-win, you know, such a hard thing. And, you know, there are a lot of things that play. You've got professional parents working that have their jobs, their stresses, their things, they wanna excel at that. I don't feel like a good parent. I don't feel like I'm making any headway.

Papa Rick (19:54.124)
Yeah.

Jennie (19:54.318)
That one always works.

Claudette Osbone (20:17.147)
I don't know where they're coming from. And they won't talk to me.

Okay, well then how do we get them, how do we do this? And by giving them a little focus exercises, but it starts, they want to fix the child.

Jennie (20:36.414)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Claudette Osbone (20:38.507)
It's hard to fix anybody without taking a hard look at where you are. So they'll tell me the stories and you need to not get caught up in the story because it's not so much about the story as it is about the story.

Jennie (20:52.034)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (20:56.399)
Why is that important that happened that way?

and get them to where they're working and happy with where they're at. Get the teen working and understanding to be more independent. Find their voice again.

Papa Rick (21:16.616)
Yeah. Make it an actual team where everybody's moving in the same direction. And instead of corralling everybody and forcing them to do things, that's a, that's kind of a new paradigm. I hate to use that word. Um, from, I, I remember when I was raising kids, seeing ads for courses where they would, they would teach you how to fix your kids.

Jennie (21:17.634)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (21:44.832)
You know, are they having trouble at school? Right. It was really like, you know, well, there's, it comes with a baseball bat and a, you know, I remember even marveling at that point about the authoritarian kind of thing, as opposed to what you're talking about, Claudette, which is building. I'm sure it's out. There's everything out there. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (21:45.823)
Thank you.

Jennie (21:52.317)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (21:58.843)
It's still in play today. It's very much in play. Most of the biggest problems is they won't do this, they won't do that, I can't get them to do this. And it's...

Jennie (22:01.774)
That's still very prevalent.

Yeah.

Papa Rick (22:08.11)
Uh.

Claudette Osbone (22:16.203)
some control, some ego, some hypervigilance, some hyper-excel, some hyper, you know, those became our protection devices. They can be our best friend and our worst enemy, but unless you can identify when it pops in, is that my voice of wisdom, is that my voice of judgment, before they pop off to what and how things are supposed to happen.

Papa Rick (22:37.656)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (22:46.494)
It can make a big difference in communication.

Papa Rick (22:46.528)
Be good.

Papa Rick (22:49.96)
got to listen to that third person. We've got a friend that she's a grandmother. She's raising her five grandkids and trying to make a living working two or three jobs. And you know, her mind is just, we were just talking, I was just talking with her with my partner this morning and it's, she's just so busy just trying to get through the days. You know, she had, there's very little mind share for, was that the right thing to do? Because the next day,

thing comes along, you know, before you get to it. And so sometimes that's a real challenge. It would, I'm gonna have to send her to equine therapy. That sounds like a real, Texas is a little far away, but to get her out of her own house and environment and give her a chance, even with the kids. You do families? Did I read that right? You have whole families show up?

Claudette Osbone (23:41.271)
Yeah, families, corporate, absolutely. And ours, it's, it's equine assisted learning, not therapy here. Mrs. That's okay. Sorry. I just had to buzz in on that. I know, but see, that's one of our problems. Um, everything. My child has anxiety. My child has the, my, I have anxiety. Are we anxious about this or that? Are we stressed over it? Or is it has.

Papa Rick (23:49.148)
I'm sorry, a coin I assisted learning. I medicalize everything, yes, yes.

Jennie (23:49.737)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (23:56.576)
Very good, very good, yeah, teach me.

Jennie (24:02.882)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (24:09.959)
the world becomes so medicalized that everything has to run to the doctor and get a medication to try to do a quick fix buzz over my life will be good as long as or it'll be good when I get to this point or when let's get that joy and happiness in as being good right now with that little finding the pieces now that we can look at.

Jennie (24:12.854)
Yes.

Papa Rick (24:13.334)
It has.

Jennie (24:20.802)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (24:26.998)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (24:33.088)
right now.

Jennie (24:39.072)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (24:39.355)
I mean, go outside, listen to the leaves blowing and the birds, something to get out of our heads.

Papa Rick (24:45.9)
Get out of it, change your environment a little bit.

Jennie (24:50.518)
Well, I think that two things, the over medicalization is, I mean, there's just so many parts of children that it's just their personality. And I think we walk into parenting like with these expectations of how children should be or should behave or should excel or should reach milestones. And it's like every...

Every human on earth is a completely different human being. Like no one is, we're all on a spectrum in every facet of our lives, emotionally, mentally. Like we are all going to develop at different rates at different times and just because your kid isn't doing the same things that your other kid is or that other kids their age are doing doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them.

Jennie (25:49.603)
Yeah, everything is just hyper diagnosed as something as a, as a problem to be fixed. And so, so that, but then the other thing, dad, that you were saying about, um,

Claudette Osbone (25:52.779)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (26:04.35)
about the difficulty of the grandma who's raising her grandchildren, which in and of itself is a less common situation. But I think there's a lot of parents, single parents, partnered parents, blended families, whoever it is, everyone is busy. Everyone has a million things they're trying to get done in a day. And

Papa Rick (26:15.469)
Oh, she's a superhero.

Jennie (26:32.67)
And when you add kids to the mix, especially multiple children who have different schedules and different needs and different personalities and different dietary restrictions and all of these different things, like I think a lot of people are in survival mode because there is no downtime, there is no pause, there is no like, let's just walk around outside with no purpose other than to be, breathe fresh air and be together.

Papa Rick (26:42.316)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (26:47.069)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (26:59.83)
Like that is so lacking in today's society and structure. And everything is so go, go all of the time. And if, I mean, if you're a single person working multiple jobs to feed your kids, I mean, there, there's no time for you. There's probably not enough time for you to get a good night's sleep, let alone eat a good meal and think about your life. It's just like got onto the next thing because I have to.

Papa Rick (27:20.113)
self-care, yeah.

Jennie (27:29.378)
We have to survive.

Papa Rick (27:31.512)
Yeah. Busyness and agendas. I think, I think, um, the word just popping out of all this to me is, is parents have agendas, right? We've got to beat a church on time. We got to, we got to do this and the busy, and the busyness, you know, so you can only cram so much of that in there. There's no, there's only so much time for just walking around and smelling the roses too, so that's, you know, we got to find a way to get a balance on that.

Claudette Osbone (27:41.039)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (27:58.629)
When you don't have that time, that's the techniques of taking three minutes, four times a day, spaced out. Whether it's the breathing or awareness or a sense of hearing touch, whatever it is to refocus yourself before you...

Papa Rick (28:18.648)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (28:21.923)
If you don't, that's part of self-care too. People think you say, people say self-care all the time. And I think a lot of people misread that is, and everybody should be going to get a facial massage. I know, no, not everybody has a life of luxury and leisure, but your alarm can go off at six o'clock in the morning, and you can set a secondary alarm for 15 minutes later.

Papa Rick (28:26.936)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (28:33.143)
Yeah?

Papa Rick (28:33.368)
Hahaha.

Claudette Osbone (28:49.263)
spend that whole 15 minutes doing nothing but purposefully breathing or hearing and not you know just

Papa Rick (28:49.291)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (28:54.688)
Yeah, do a little meditation or something. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (29:01.619)
that you take that this I don't have time to do this. Well, everybody eats and everyone goes to the restroom and let's see, focus on the taste of the food as you're chewing it. Those are our senses. Focus on the crunchy. You can get those times in to get yourself re-centered.

my you know very small it seems insignificant but most people are going to barrel through the meals because i don't have time so they shove down the food um i can't do this because okay can you rub your fingers together and feel your fingertips can you actually focus on something short of what's in your head just focus on a feel a few times a day is going to at least get you

Jennie (29:55.019)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (29:58.003)
how to head get your rebalanced and give you a way to start to look at things a little differently.

Papa Rick (30:05.845)
So is that, can you describe that, could I describe that as being like going internal kind of, you know, becoming, focusing on your sense or awareness?

Claudette Osbone (30:12.243)
Yeah, awareness. Awareness. It's kind of like the person comes out of them. Teach us with the kids and the girls. They come out of the mall. They've got their phone in one hand, and their keys are in their bag. And they are obliviously walking through life. And they don't know what's around them, if anyone's around them. Their little world gets so narrow and boxed in.

Papa Rick (30:25.833)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (30:36.27)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (30:41.619)
they can't see outside of that. So when some problem comes up, they're still looking in that little box because they haven't been taught to look outside of things. But it starts with being aware.

Papa Rick (30:41.633)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (30:55.315)
No.

Papa Rick (30:57.172)
levels of awareness. That's my, that's what I'm.

Jennie (30:58.29)
I almost think it's more external, because I feel like we all live in here. And yeah.

Claudette Osbone (31:04.431)
that's to get you out of your head these exercises actually get you out of thinking and more out of actually have a feel to things versus thinking about it it's in it yeah it's a hands-on awareness but when you can do that then what that leads into is being conscious of our thoughts when they pop into our head well that was kind of a negative thought

Jennie (31:16.75)
Feeling, yeah.

Papa Rick (31:17.672)
experience things.

Claudette Osbone (31:34.323)
there goes the judge and once you realize that's what you've done then you can look at it differently but all of a sudden if that's a habit that has been formed that every time you turn around judging this at the other it that can habits going to get stronger

Jennie (31:51.18)
Yeah.

Jennie (31:54.711)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (31:56.615)
ways to break habits.

Papa Rick (31:56.696)
That's probably one of the most... Yeah, yeah, having habits and self-talk, you know, that voice, your own voice in your head, that's gotta be one of the hardest ones to break, you know, because it's so calm and it's so pervasive right there. You really do have to be aware, become aware of the thoughts as they go by and say, yeah, that was not the most desirable thought. I can think of a better thought.

Jennie (32:23.566)
Well, I'm believing your thoughts. There's having thoughts, there's labeling the thoughts, and then there's do I believe this thought that as the thought comes into my head or as the story about the situation that I was in starts to wind itself through my brain, can you catch that and go,

Claudette Osbone (32:27.134)
True.

Papa Rick (32:27.201)
Mmm.

Jennie (32:52.802)
Do I actually believe that that's what happened? Or is it reality that that's what happened? Or, you know, can, there's, there's a, we have what? I think over 60,000 thoughts a day or something like that. And like, if you're, is that what it was? I forget what the number was. But then there's a certain percentage of those thoughts that are repetitive. So you're not having any new thoughts.

You're having some new thoughts every day, but most, the majority, and I forget the percent, I'll have to look up the number. But the majority of our thoughts that we have every day are the same. They're repetitive. And so there are stories that we have come to believe through repetition based on our environment and our experience. And to be capable of pausing.

Papa Rick (33:38.463)
Hmm.

Jennie (33:52.166)
and reflecting and choosing our thought, like that takes practice. And even like you said, you can take three minutes a few times a day, right when you wake up, when you eat lunch, when you eat dinner and right before bed. If you can set a timer for three minutes and just reflect or pause and breathe or whatever, do a feeling. My therapist would tell me to

put both of my feet flat on the ground. She's like, sit in a chair, stand up, whatever it is, but just for three minutes, all you're gonna think about is how the ground feels against your feet.

Claudette Osbone (34:24.512)
Thank you.

Papa Rick (34:31.596)
get grounded, yeah.

Jennie (34:33.762)
That's it. And so it was like an external feeling to focus on. And it would pull me out of the hamster wheel, right? But yeah, it takes, it's not just going to happen. You have to want to do it and work on it.

Claudette Osbone (34:42.345)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (34:49.268)
You have to want it and a little bit of discipline to keep it going.

Claudette Osbone (34:53.035)
Building mental muscle here. We are back to the first of the year. Everybody's hitting the gym You think you're gonna go to the gym once or twice and come out the way you want to be The same mental muscle building doing exercises like this to strengthen that is going to give you that ability to recognize the thoughts to recognize the things and make changes is it Said is it still?

Papa Rick (34:56.299)
Ahem.

Jennie (34:58.327)
Yep.

Jennie (35:03.371)
Mm-mm.

Claudette Osbone (35:21.797)
relevant today.

Is it holding me back?

Jennie (35:25.657)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, is this a belief from when I was seven that I still carry today? And do I wanna still believe this? Or like you said, does this serve me anymore? No? Okay, let's change that story.

Claudette Osbone (35:42.091)
call it goop, the good opinion of other people. We wait around in it and it'll suck the boots right off of you. And the goop, good opinion of other people. And sometimes it becomes our opinion, and it was someone else's, we stalled it. We need to not be little brain thieves, you know. Just, you know, form.

Papa Rick (35:47.453)
I like that.

Jennie (35:48.558)
Goop.

Jennie (35:52.354)
Good.

Papa Rick (35:52.576)
Hang on while we all rate that down.

Jennie (36:06.003)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (36:07.882)
Now, I love little acronyms like that. It makes it easy to retain a more complicated, you know, a reminder of a more complicated thought, useful thought.

Claudette Osbone (36:17.373)
How often have you, has it rained outside and you've walked out in the mud and it almost pulled your shoes off?

Jennie (36:23.406)
Mmm.

Claudette Osbone (36:24.359)
And the same feel with playing in the good opinion of other people. Sometimes it just sucks the energy right out of you.

Papa Rick (36:28.5)
Yeah.

Jennie (36:33.675)
Yeah.

Jennie (36:37.758)
love it. So let's see.

Jennie (36:46.126)
because you, did you, you adopted, how many children did you adopt Claudette?

Claudette Osbone (36:52.143)
Well, they weren't my adopted children. My husband's daughter was adopted, and she came to live with us shortly after he and I were married. And so I have been what I call a surrogate parent, which, you know, having not been there, but I've had the privilege of having a lot of young people in my life. But no, they're not my adopted children, but...

Jennie (36:54.914)
Okay.

Jennie (37:02.807)
Okay.

Papa Rick (37:18.328)
Well, if you raise kids.

Claudette Osbone (37:21.831)
I and even some of our volunteers that have been with us for a very long time, you know, I consider them mine as well. You know, they're not, but you know, when things happen in their lives, they call. Um, I've had a couple of the boys then even once that have come through community service that have called me. Can I come by? I've got a friend I want you to meet. And, and that was like, Oh, you know, cause you were there during a hard part of their life.

Papa Rick (37:29.848)
Shit.

Jennie (37:30.155)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (37:44.7)
Oh boy. Yeah.

Jennie (37:47.507)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (37:51.487)
and when they come in here I don't care where they've been I don't care what they've done and it's a clean slate and here we are let's go and taking time and just letting them be heard

and feel comfortable, you know.

Jennie (38:10.133)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (38:11.642)
That's a good application of good opinion of other people. You just have to be careful who the people are, right? Bringing somebody by to see, that's a great compliment.

Claudette Osbone (38:17.971)
Yeah, I mean, you need to be wise.

Claudette Osbone (38:24.635)
Yeah, you need to be wise to, you know, know who, who is who. But at the same time, again, if we let our judge rule our brain, people are going to cook up in their head what they think somebody is or isn't. And we don't know that. You know, they've been in a different place. I use the analogy of the glasses. You know,

Jennie (38:47.096)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (38:52.487)
Your daughter's not going to be able to take your glasses and look at them, look through them and see the same way you do. You know, we're not of us going to be able to look at a situation the same way.

Papa Rick (38:58.752)
Right. Exactly.

Jennie (38:59.128)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (39:06.944)
Yeah, most of us are not qualified to judge other people.

Claudette Osbone (39:10.778)
Well, we really, I mean, it's...

empathize, but judging that situation.

Now, you're not, people say I'll walk a mile in their shoes, but you're not walking in their shoes as they don't.

Papa Rick (39:22.264)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (39:25.848)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (39:31.379)
Yeah, it's tough.

Claudette Osbone (39:34.763)
So at least give them that space. If they mess up, they've got their own things they'll have to work through if they mess that up. The door is clean, slight and is open. They mess that up, the accountability piece comes in.

Papa Rick (39:38.188)
Well, so it sounds like you.

Papa Rick (39:50.424)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (39:54.016)
So it sounds like you seem careful about calling yourself a parent, but it sounds like you've parented a lot of different kids in some capacity or another. I mean, that's a real broad experience. And I remember seeing you fostered too, right? I mean, formally fostered. What can you tell us about that in parenting?

Claudette Osbone (40:03.467)
Come on.

Claudette Osbone (40:11.999)
Yes, we did.

Claudette Osbone (40:20.443)
Well, I think a lot of parents have big expectations of what they think they can bring in. Everyone that wants to do well and wants to do the right thing and give these children the best chance, the best home, the best opportunity, the better school from where they've been, give them. But a lot of the same parents have expectations that person's going to be able to excel to that level.

Jennie (40:46.894)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (40:47.391)
Not, you know, knowing, not again, knowing where they've been. Um, also there are some awarenesses that you blindly don't want to see. That you know where they are. And it's not that you build walls, but again, you have to be wise and know how to handle what, where they've been. Helping them move forward, not backwards.

Papa Rick (41:10.677)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (41:15.359)
But some of the kids are going to be challenged with those things for a very long time. And just because they come into someone's house as a foster or a late life adoption or something, expect that it can cause some upheaval in the family. It's not gonna always be any more than your biological children. You're going to have that. And just, you can't expect,

Jennie (41:34.402)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (41:35.54)
No, boring.

Claudette Osbone (41:45.267)
given them this and this and they should be grateful and they should be happy and they should be should shoulds. Who's should was that? You know, it is a big step and it it's good and it's wonderful to do. Just know that you help them be a more productive person to go out on their own and make their way and not with the expectation that

Jennie (41:51.565)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (41:52.252)
Expectations. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (42:14.695)
I'm going to give them this and they're going to love me for life. Going into things with big expectations.

Papa Rick (42:18.869)
Yeah.

Jennie (42:19.895)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (42:25.031)
can set up a lot of heartache.

Papa Rick (42:27.154)
expectation of control.

Jennie (42:27.606)
Well, in giving with the expectation of return is also...

Claudette Osbone (42:31.051)
Yeah, you don't do this for love. I mean not to receive it back. If you are doing it to receive it back, then you're not truly giving that gift.

Jennie (42:36.075)
Right.

Papa Rick (42:41.504)
Yeah.

Jennie (42:43.038)
Yeah, it's strings attached and it's the same in any partnership, friendship, parent to child relationship, whether it's biological or fostered or adopted or any situation. You are...

Papa Rick (42:44.812)
Transactional, yeah.

Claudette Osbone (42:45.224)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (43:06.53)
gifting life to biological children. You're gifting safety and a different kind of life to foster and adopted children. You're gifting your love and trust and faith to a partner or a friend, because you see in them something that you value. But if you're only, like you said, if you're only giving those things

get it back, like that's still just you meeting your own needs. You're not in relationship, you're not in healthy relationship with any of those people. And I see all the time, I see parents.

Claudette Osbone (43:36.752)
work.

Jennie (43:54.682)
reaching this image comes this doing this to their kids like i've loved them i've fed them i've clothed them they like almost like they owe me kind of thing um

Claudette Osbone (44:09.407)
I've heard that even said out loud, but you owe me.

Jennie (44:12.15)
Yeah. Ugh.

Papa Rick (44:13.839)
Unabashedly, say it out loud. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (44:16.471)
I have heard it said out loud that they love me.

Papa Rick (44:21.28)
You owe me.

Jennie (44:24.162)
That's not why we have kids. That's why some people have kids. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (44:25.701)
No, well, conscious choice, well, unfortunately, I think they pop in and think they need something to love them back.

Papa Rick (44:35.688)
I'm flashing back on the greatest generation of where I'm flashing back on I'm a farmer. My wife and I rode a Conestoga wagon out to the west and started a horse ranch and I am having kids to have farm hands by golly. You know, I'm in the old fashioned. I don't know how stereotypical or how accurate that is.

Claudette Osbone (44:58.098)
Uh.

Papa Rick (45:01.728)
But then it's like, I need you to perform, youngin'. Go, go clean out the stalls. I ain't got time for this kind of stuff. And then I fed you, and I housed you, and I clothed you. And to have an expectation of your kids, that's kind of a frame of mind kind of thing. Because it is a gift to parent kids is a gift to the planet, kind of. But that...

If I was struggling to survive out in the middle of the prairie in the 1800s, that might be a little hard to look at it that way, you know, the way we do now. Times are different.

Claudette Osbone (45:41.555)
Well, the world was different. The needs were different and survival was different. That was, you've had to do a lot of that to survive then. We've got a lot of creature comforts now and that is not today's survival. Yeah.

Papa Rick (45:44.072)
Yeah, we're a little gentler. Yeah, yeah.

Jennie (45:44.438)
Yeah.

Jennie (45:52.077)
Yeah.

Jennie (46:01.517)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (46:01.64)
Yeah, yeah, things are different. It's not quite a, you know, we're not just out in the, in the environment with a spear trying to fend off the mountain lions, you know, it's time to, uh, for parenting to evolve a little bit too.

Jennie (46:15.47)
But I also think that there's an element of that that's missing where kids are participating in the building of the life and the maintaining of the home. Just because we're not all farmers in the middle of nowhere anymore, I think that because of the creature comforts, we send our children into the living room to watch TV while we cook dinner or while we clean the house, we clean during nap time. Or you know, we...

Papa Rick (46:38.38)
Yeah.

Jennie (46:45.518)
put our children, we other our children, instead of pulling them into, I mean, I've watched one year olds help unload a dishwasher and they love it because they think they're playing with you. They think they get to do this big kid thing with mommy or daddy. They, I've watched children choose to do laundry over play a game. I have watched, like,

Papa Rick (46:58.483)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (47:10.466)
They want to be part of life. They don't want to be othered. They don't want to be, you go do this while I do this. And I'm not saying that there's not a time or place for that, but when children, you know, I imagine back then it was a lot about survival, but the kids participated in the life of the family. And I think that's missing in a lot of homes these days is that kids are not given the chance to help and assist because it's...

It feels like a burden to have to teach constantly or to have to do something over again if they spill something while they're cooking or they break a plate or whatever. We're trying so hard to avoid messiness that we end up excluding our children from the household and the chores and things like that.

Papa Rick (48:03.465)
imperfection.

Claudette Osbone (48:03.643)
Yeah, well they need that. That is, too much has been given in today's society. And you're not teaching, a lot of these young girls have been taken care of, and boys too, but how many of these boys are gonna grow up and be able to take care of these girls in the fashion they were raised in today's world? And haven't had to make a bed or do chores. And it shouldn't all be given.

Papa Rick (48:24.995)
It's a concern. It's a concern.

Claudette Osbone (48:33.587)
That earned respect is not just in respect, it's in teaching them how to take care of them, build their own lives. And they're not gonna pop out and be able to go higher made when they leave. They're gonna have to have some life skills.

Papa Rick (48:51.812)
or they'll expect to be able to hire a maid and find out they don't have the money and then they're unhappy, right? Now we're chasing the dollar. That's all aspects of team building. America, since the industrial, since post-World War II, we all think we're like identical little cogs in a machine and we're not. Teams are made up of different people with complementary skills and the trick, especially of the leader of the team, is to figure out.

Claudette Osbone (49:00.606)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (49:19.556)
Okay, are you ready to pull the cups? The plastic, you can unload the plastic stuff out of the dishwasher. Duh, leave the china, leave the stemware. I'll do the stemware. You know, but you have to fight, you have to develop them and, and let them do what they can do, you know, figure out what's, what's appropriate. But, but you have to be, you have to be focused on developing them, growing them to, to do that. You can't just be in a hurry and worried about.

Jennie (49:30.798)
Hmm.

Jennie (49:42.262)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (49:47.704)
how long it takes to unload the dishwasher. That's not the point. If you're doing this the way we're talking about doing it.

Jennie (49:52.671)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (49:57.772)
The Give Me Society hasn't helped anyone.

Papa Rick (50:00.849)
No.

Claudette Osbone (50:03.607)
We're not supposed to work so hard though that we think that love's wrapped around what we earn. So that little line of, yes, you have to definitely grow through the work, through the chores. But unconditionally love in between.

Papa Rick (50:08.744)
Yeah!

Papa Rick (50:19.384)
So fostering, I can hardly, yes, the love, that's where the wanting to give, wanting comes from, is that unconditional love, you know, with boundaries, of course, you know, but people misunderstand that unconditional thing, too.

Jennie (50:23.422)
Yes.

Claudette Osbone (50:34.472)
No, absolutely.

Claudette Osbone (50:38.823)
No, you have to sometimes not. You've got to be able to not play where others play when it's detrimental.

Jennie (50:38.839)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (50:44.834)
Yeah.

Yeah. So fostering that's I, I considered fostering after my kids grew up and left home. I really miss raising kids. I really enjoyed raising kids and not doing it perfectly, but, but trying and. But fostering kids out of horrible circumstances, potentially, you know, and bringing them into your family and doing this with them that.

Jennie (50:47.916)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (51:08.277)
It's tough.

Papa Rick (51:14.208)
That strikes me as that could be an enormous they come and go, you know, as the system may dictate. And that just strikes me as an enormous challenge. I have so much respect for people who foster and you seem like you've done a lot of you fostered a lot of kids. A few. Okay.

Claudette Osbone (51:31.399)
Well, we did a few, just a couple that we did that actually we were going to adopt. And had to be willing and ready when they had a different vision of how they wanted their life to be, whether they were prepared or ready or not to let go.

Papa Rick (51:51.092)
Okay.

Claudette Osbone (51:57.031)
that's when you again when you want better for people but you've got to understand they're still going to make choices and skin some knees and some take a harder path than others and again then that you have to be willing to step back when that ends

Papa Rick (52:00.632)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (52:07.393)
Yeah.

Jennie (52:14.03)
Do you mean that they were they didn't want to be adopted?

Claudette Osbone (52:18.223)
Oh, they wanted, as they're older, a lot of people have learned the system so well that they want out of the system. And they want a path to independent living on their own. And you're a stepping stone to that in a lot of cases. So, you know.

Jennie (52:22.339)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (52:28.541)
Yeah.

Jennie (52:34.252)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (52:36.713)
Yeah.

Jennie (52:38.506)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (52:42.583)
it appears, you know, everybody gets really good at saying what they want and what other people, they think other people want to hear.

Papa Rick (52:52.823)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (52:54.607)
So you have to be prepared to not, you know, still be kind-hearted and know that there can be some bruises along the way. You know, there are times where that may have worked out into an adoptive situation and it may not have depending if you're considering fostering. It is a wonderful thing to do. Just know that the bowl of cherries that you've

Papa Rick (53:05.996)
That's gotta be tough, yeah.

Claudette Osbone (53:23.591)
set on the table that you're going to provide may not feed them in the way you think it's going to.

Jennie (53:30.05)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (53:30.229)
Mm-hmm. Expectations again. Yeah, that's hard work.

Claudette Osbone (53:34.503)
Yeah, we get things set into your head how you think that you can take and mold that person's life. No, you can give them the tools to help mold their lives. We can't do that for them.

Jennie (53:47.81)
Yeah.

Jennie (53:52.35)
Well, that's true with any kid, any person.

Claudette Osbone (53:54.575)
No, that's anybody.

Papa Rick (53:56.588)
can't fix people.

Claudette Osbone (53:58.595)
But that's one of the reasons I chose to work with families and teenagers and blended families. Because you've got a lot of dynamics coming in. You've got multi-households and people are going in different directions. The communication is shot.

Jennie (54:14.188)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (54:14.815)
Find ways that you can open those doors and build communication back. And there are many, many tools to do it.

Papa Rick (54:15.16)
story.

Papa Rick (54:18.956)
What a challenge.

Jennie (54:19.074)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (54:23.468)
So did you learn them along the way? Did you go to college for 15 years? How'd you learn these schools, Claudette? Okay.

Claudette Osbone (54:29.557)
Now.

Some of them went through the horses, some of them went through coaching programs. Yeah, there have been, I've had some good, some of them are working with these at-risk kids and figuring out how to work through some of the, the mock. I mean, yeah, Life 101 teaches a lot. And, you know, I had my ways, I didn't realize as a kid, you know, the horse thing.

Papa Rick (54:48.381)
Hard one experience.

Claudette Osbone (54:58.911)
how I could leave the house and go ride for a couple hours and come back and feel like I could conquer the world. Yeah, that was the rhythmic motion of the horse. That was the getting out and being able to be in the outdoors. It was to be, you had a non-judgmental listener there that you could actually talk to that wasn't going to give any opinions. And we can work it out.

Papa Rick (55:03.927)
Oh, there you go. That is a great way to get out. Yeah.

Papa Rick (55:20.824)
Sure.

Yeah, you could talk to you for two hours straight and they never get tired. Yeah, that'd be great.

Jennie (55:23.687)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (55:28.211)
But most of it was just being quiet and the writing. And I didn't know as far as, I didn't grow up with knowing anything about any of this. And the trauma focused training, when I went through that, that was like, huh, how about that? Oh, that's why that worked. Huh, that's cool. You know, I was like, oh goodness, okay. So I was like a giddy kid, you know, at this training going, huh, how about that?

Papa Rick (55:44.62)
You get to, you learn new words to put on it. Yeah.

Papa Rick (55:56.414)
Hahaha!

Claudette Osbone (55:56.591)
you know, everything that's made sense, you know, the things that you knew brought that peace or that you knew brought the ability to handle the tough things that were going on around you without you losing your cool or turning into something that, you know, I could have been a really not so good kid if I'd wanted to be.

Papa Rick (56:00.024)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (56:09.088)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (56:17.996)
Yeah, yeah, it gives you the tools to go, you know, choose good or evil kind of thing. That's how to, how to, how to be in a situation and how to, how to, how to handle it. I don't want to say manipulate it, but how to, how to handle it. So that to the benefit of everybody without taking it, without getting upset yourself, without taking it inside. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (56:22.293)
Absolutely.

Jennie (56:22.487)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (56:38.651)
Yeah, having a goal and a path, because that was something I planned pretty young age too, was where I wanted to go, how was I going to get there, how I was going to afford to get there. And got really creative and was able to achieve whatever I chose to do.

Papa Rick (56:51.148)
Good for you. Yeah.

Papa Rick (57:00.204)
That's the real secret, isn't it? I wish I'd have been more targeted in my goals younger, sometimes. Not always. But it makes it easier. If you've got a plan and then you're just clever in how you get it done, that's good advice for almost anybody, especially young people. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (57:21.351)
Necessity creates a lot of things.

It's whether you choose to play pity party and stay in your group or whether you are going to follow that and take a risk and say okay if it doesn't work it doesn't work but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to see if this works out. Take the risk on yourself, you know, with yourself. Trust yourself.

Jennie (57:26.39)
I was gonna say, I think...

Papa Rick (57:32.896)
Hahaha.

Papa Rick (57:37.492)
Yeah.

Jennie (57:46.01)
I think you were forced into that a little bit Claudette, because you, my dad was the youngest of five and I believe you were the oldest sibling in your house. And so I imagine that your upbringing and sibling order placement being so different shaped a lot of your... Because you ended up...

Papa Rick (57:56.361)
Oh, okay.

Papa Rick (58:08.472)
Hmm.

Jennie (58:13.058)
pretty much raising your youngest sister, is that right?

Papa Rick (58:15.458)
Yeah.

Claudette Osbone (58:17.479)
I took care of her until I left the house. We were 17 years apart, the youngest one. And she and I are more like, we think more like, she's like a oldest only all over again and had a lot of chiefs in her life, not Indians. Very successful, wonderful. She's a corporate business consultant and has a thriving business and is also getting ready to defend her.

Jennie (58:23.007)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (58:23.764)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (58:34.581)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (58:42.524)
Oh nice.

Claudette Osbone (58:46.931)
dissertation. So she's getting her PhD. Very proud of her. When she was a little bitty. Yeah, she if people hadn't known us in this town we lived in they would have sworn she was mine.

Papa Rick (58:49.016)
Cool. Nice.

Jennie (59:03.031)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (59:05.08)
Well, you raised her. More or less, yeah.

Claudette Osbone (59:06.671)
Well, therefore, but then, you know, but it was only a year and a half later that I was then in and out because I three days after high school, I moved 100 miles away from home and never moved back. We visited, but I, I did put my plan into play. So.

Jennie (59:07.72)
started to.

Papa Rick (59:15.16)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (59:18.635)
Okay, okay, well.

Papa Rick (59:24.896)
Yep, understandably so, yeah.

Interesting. Good for you.

Jennie (59:33.134)
But I think that there is almost an unavoidable sense of responsibility that older kids end up having. Typically, not always, but as the oldest sibling, the expectations end up being higher for you as the younger children come along. And you learn, you know, just through default, how...

Claudette Osbone (59:33.256)
So.

Claudette Osbone (59:50.579)
Thank you.

Jennie (01:00:01.306)
you learn a different level of responsibility just because like, oh, I'm five and they're a baby and I can change a diaper. So, and a lot of times older kids want to, they want to help with the younger kids. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. But I think that older siblings end up coming out of childhood with a slightly or significantly higher level of understanding about responsibility than younger or young guests who

Claudette Osbone (01:00:13.963)
You know.

Jennie (01:00:29.726)
who never really had to like care for anyone else below them. Um, yeah, it's just interesting. It's just sibling order fascinates me. It's one of the most fascinating things for me to observe. Um, and, and see, so it's, but yeah.

Papa Rick (01:00:33.797)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:00:40.642)
Good luck.

Papa Rick (01:00:48.812)
It changes your perspective. I mean, anything you do, whether it's parenting or foster parenting, you go in with expectations. I mean, you have thoughts before you've done it once. And then the education starts, you start doing it. And, you know, so first children always have, always get that, get all of that on them. Yeah, you know, by the time my parents got to me,

Claudette Osbone (01:00:59.464)
Mm-hmm.

Claudette Osbone (01:01:10.271)
on the job training for parents.

Jennie (01:01:12.058)
Right?

Papa Rick (01:01:16.108)
I would disappear in the morning and I was expected to be within whistle shot. My dad had a high pitched, you know, could whistle loud and we would come home at the evening. You know, the first kids are, or at least in my family were pretty tightly, tightly rained. And I just disappeared and ran around, did what I want all day and came back. They were fairly confident I wasn't going to die or back in those days be abducted. Like, you know, I mean, all the fears we have now is different time, but yeah, it's.

Claudette Osbone (01:01:22.958)
Mm.

Jennie (01:01:34.562)
Right?

Claudette Osbone (01:01:40.427)
today's world.

Jennie (01:01:41.099)
Yeah.

Well, it's, I mean, it's not, it's real though. The human trafficking is, is outrageous. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:01:49.456)
Unbelievable, yeah. And so expectations are huge, are huge in ourselves. We have to watch this.

Claudette Osbone (01:01:49.835)
frightening.

Claudette Osbone (01:01:59.542)
I'm proud of all my siblings, you know, everyone is very good people, very good.

Jennie (01:02:09.026)
Ditto.

Claudette Osbone (01:02:09.431)
And I don't know if I had a piece in, you know, we think we did a lot, which we did, but they're their own individuals and they've grown very much into themselves and very proud of them.

Papa Rick (01:02:11.66)
Good.

Papa Rick (01:02:20.8)
Yeah, yeah, good, good.

Jennie (01:02:25.442)
Well, Claudette, tell us where, tell everybody where they can find you, the programs and services that you're currently offering, and then we'll link all of that stuff in the show notes as well.

Claudette Osbone (01:02:47.093)
Okay well my website is powe I do have several courses that are listed up there. I do one-on-one, 12, 6, 3 week programs and offer a gratitude challenge that's free. Another also for your group I would like to do a special little workshop like a two hour

Papa Rick (01:03:05.217)
No.

Jennie (01:03:11.889)
Oh yeah, yeah.

Claudette Osbone (01:03:12.231)
little workshop for anyone interested. But if you go to my website, look up at the program, see what's available. That is the coaching end. On the on-premise site, the Equine Assisted Learning is a leadership and skills development program. And we partner with those horses doing obstacle. It is from the ground. It is not a writing. It's not a control. It is a partnership training.

And that is Osborne Staples Equine Rescue dot org. And you can take a look at the programs we offer, which are everything from corporate, family, at risk. And those proceeds do go directly to the horses.

Papa Rick (01:04:03.244)
Well, but that's educational, running all that.

Jennie (01:04:03.371)
Awesome.

Claudette Osbone (01:04:07.955)
Yeah, it's a neat program. I have one other facilitator that I had trained and it is a program where, you know, you don't use volunteers in this program. They need to know how to watch the horse and the body language and how to get people to parallel that back to what's going on with them, how that's working with their teams. Whether it's an individual person that you're working with or a...

a team which I like to do groups and teams on this.

because you know the disconnect sometimes in the team you know it brings out the families it's wonderful because there's one it's kind of a take and give and an obstacle course that's really unique it they get in there they look at it and they this is a piece of cake and they start to do this and they're going

Papa Rick (01:04:39.434)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:04:44.029)
especially

Claudette Osbone (01:05:04.127)
What? You know, it's totally stopped. I mean, dead silence looking in bewilderment. And there are 11 ways to do that exercise. But some of the little station cards that say what they can and can't do or the horse can or can't do, like weaving through the cones and picking the horse can't pick the flowers. You know, it kind of silly, but they're great programs.

Papa Rick (01:05:05.344)
Hahaha.

Papa Rick (01:05:23.232)
Oh, okay.

Papa Rick (01:05:28.809)
Hahaha.

Claudette Osbone (01:05:33.379)
and it is to help people excel, move forward, bring that joy back into life.

so that you can live the life you want to live when you were cut out to be and born to be.

Papa Rick (01:05:50.957)
Yeah, learning about yourself is often not easy, but it's very rewarding, you know, once you're past it. You say you don't take volunteers. You can't use volunteers.

Claudette Osbone (01:06:01.263)
Oh, only in the, now only in the equine assisted learnings course work. Now the volunteers otherwise, oh yes, the rescue needs stall cleaners and people to scrub water buckets and you know, yes, always with volunteers. But there's a difference between the programs and having a trained facilitator work that.

Papa Rick (01:06:08.82)
Well, so I was going to.

Papa Rick (01:06:17.772)
Uh huh.

Papa Rick (01:06:20.952)
So there's a lot of room for people to learn. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Claudette Osbone (01:06:30.775)
Yes, the rescue needs volunteers all the time.

Papa Rick (01:06:34.044)
Outstanding, outstanding, good. I may have to come look you up sometime when I'm down in Texas.

Claudette Osbone (01:06:42.695)
Great do so. Introduce you to that 2,000 pound Pertron. You'll love it. His hooves are as big as, a little smaller than dinner plates.

Papa Rick (01:06:44.056)
Check the place out. That sounds great. Oh my golly. Be like standing next to a truck. Ha ha ha.

Papa Rick (01:06:58.016)
Like a dinner plate. I'll bet. Yeah. Oh my goodness. That sounds like fun.

Claudette Osbone (01:07:03.048)
Yeah, it is.

Well, this has been so much fun and just I've loved visiting. I love the way that you and Jennifer work together. I that's when I was listening to your podcast, I just absolutely love the interaction between the two of you. You can.

Papa Rick (01:07:15.129)
Oh, thank you. That's good.

Papa Rick (01:07:23.77)
Good.

Claudette Osbone (01:07:26.283)
It's great.

Papa Rick (01:07:27.676)
Yeah, we've been through some wars and I think that's part of what fostering or not therapy, but these coachings that you do, it comes of some experience. That's when you see people getting along together. Well, then that's good experience. That's a growth experience. We lost.

Claudette Osbone (01:07:54.195)
Well, without having done that, would you be in the place you are today?

Papa Rick (01:07:58.992)
Oh no, that very much was my purpose in life, was trying to figure out kids, however imperfectly and still love working with kids. I don't know what it is, you know, the giving, you have to watch your expectations, you know, you have to do it because you want to do it. It's a challenge.

It's not for everybody, I suppose. It should be. Can be for everybody, seems like. I don't know.

Claudette Osbone (01:08:32.686)
Maybe. Some are going to be terminal children all their lives. You know, may not quite fit. Don't know.

Papa Rick (01:08:34.424)
I dunno.

Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:08:42.932)
Well, I thank you for coming. I don't know, did we lose Jennifer? I can't see Jennifer anymore. Okay, I don't know.

Claudette Osbone (01:08:47.155)
I can't either, so I didn't know if the camera just stepped out for a few minutes.

Papa Rick (01:08:53.184)
Well, we may just be chatting here then, but it's really been great to meet you and get to know you. And I hope we get to meet in person sometime. What you're doing sounds really, really worthwhile.

Claudette Osbone (01:09:00.521)
Oh, me too.

Claudette Osbone (01:09:04.728)
What area of California are you in?

Papa Rick (01:09:07.94)
I'm in Illinois. I'm in central Illinois. How close? How... It's supposed to snow tomorrow, I think. But we're supposed to actually like get an inch. So, yeah, it's getting there. You're in Texas. Are you south or north Texas?

Claudette Osbone (01:09:09.632)
Ah, nice and cold there.

Claudette Osbone (01:09:23.481)
Yeah, so south we are now we're from San Antonio.

Papa Rick (01:09:28.344)
Okay, so you're still where it's still pretty warm down there. I think I saw 70 the other day in Dallas.

Claudette Osbone (01:09:32.021)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, that one. The last few days we had a hard time getting out of the 50s and it was overcast and kind of dreary cool. But other than that, we don't get excessively cold when we do. Of course, this area is not exactly equipped to handle what we had with the snow a couple of years ago.

Papa Rick (01:09:41.335)
Okay, okay

Papa Rick (01:09:47.488)
Yeah, that's nice.

Papa Rick (01:09:55.027)
They don't even, the municipalities don't even get the trucks. They sand them. Okay.

Claudette Osbone (01:09:59.752)
they sand the roads, or sand or salt, and try to keep the bridges from freezing. There are a lot of bridges.

Papa Rick (01:10:08.512)
Well I hope you make it through the winter good, in good shape, and no accidents, no sliding off. And it's just been really good talking to you. Thank you, Clodette.

Claudette Osbone (01:10:18.699)
What was nice visiting with you both. I hope you have a absolutely wonderful start to your new year.

Papa Rick (01:10:25.825)
Thank you.

Bye bye.

Claudette Osbone (01:10:29.904)
Bye.