This episode is specifically for dads who have kids or work with kids who have trauma, issues, behavior challenges and attachment issues. If you’re looking for help or guidance in these areas, I’ve brought a guest whose approach is rooted in empathy, understanding, and evidence-based techniques, creating a space where parents can learn and grow together.

Ryan North joins me in this episode. Ryan together with his wife are a team who founded One Big Happy Home, a platform that provides valuable resources and support to parents, churches and schools. They also have a passion for working with foster parents because out of their six children, four joined their family through adoption from the foster care system.

You can learn more about Ryan and Kayla North, One Big Happy Home, get coaching, listen to their podcast or sign up for their parenting boot camp at:

https://www.onebighappyhome.com/

Special thanks to InGenius Prep for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. To learn more about InGenius Prep or to claim your free consultation, visit: htCreate your podcast today! #madeonzencastr

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Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr

Transcription - Wisdom From a Dad of Six

---

This episode is specifically for dads who have kids or work with kids who have trauma issues,

behavioral challenges, and attachment issues.

If you're looking for help or guidance in these areas, I brought a guest whose approach

is rooted in empathy, understanding, and evidence-based techniques.

He will join us in just a moment so don't go anywhere.

Before we begin, I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood

Challenge, Ingenious Prep.

Ingenious Prep is the world's premier admissions consulting firm, proud to be officially recognized

as the country's top college admissions consultants, helping students prepare for admissions

to top schools through individualized educational programs that increase chances of admission

by up to 10 times.

Ingenious Prep students work with former admission officers to differentiate themselves

from other competitive students in three areas colleges evaluate students.

In academics, extracurricular activities, and personal characteristics.

Just this past admission cycle, Ingenious Prep students have secured 110 offers from Ivy

League schools, 268 offers, from top 20 schools, and 904 offers from top 50 schools.

Ingenious Prep students' success lies within the fact that Ingenious Prep is an all-in-one

consulting firm offering every service of family needs, whether it be test prep,

tailored candidacy, building mentorship, academic mentorships, the leadership, and innovation

lab, soft skills courses, writing courses, and other customized programs to develop their

application persona to the most effective and authentic extent to share with colleges.

Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call with one of Ingenious

Prep's College experts.

Greetings everyone.

Thank you so much for joining me.

My guest is Ryan North.

Ryan and Kayla are a husband and wife team who founded one big, happy home, a platform that

provides valuable resources and support to parents, churches, and schools.

They also have a passion for working with foster parents because out of their six children,

four, joined their family through adoption from one foster care system.

Ryan, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.

Thanks for having me.

Okay, so this is one of my favorite parts of the program, and that is our traditional

dad joke.

So Ryan, what is your favorite dad joke?

What is a ninja's favorite drink?

Hmm, I know I haven't heard this one before.

What?

It doesn't get more original than that.

I absolutely love that joke.

Let's start with your story about your journey of educating families and caretakers about

trauma, behavior changes, and attachment issues.

And where did you get your journey as a foster parent?

Where does this all fit into your story?

When my wife and I got married and we started discussing, you know, what our family might

look like in the future, it turns out that both of us had a connection through our families

to adoption, foster care.

She had had a grandparent who'd been a foster parent.

She now actually has a cousin who's a foster parent.

And my dad was raised by his aunt and uncle in what we were today called a kinship, a kinship

placement.

Of course, in the mid-1950s, no such term existed, right?

And so he was raised by his aunt and uncle, the only grandparents I have ever known were

his aunt and uncle.

And so that kind of has always been an undercurrent in both of our families.

And so we were pretty pleased to discover in the other person that they had a connection

to adoption, foster care, and it was something that we had both thought about coming to our

marriage.

Before we grew our family, we decided to take a trip to South Africa that's where I'm from.

And we spent three weeks in the country touring around, you know, having my wife meet the family

and thought, you know, that'd be great to make that international trip without any kids.

And so on our last day in Cape Town, we took a boat ride out to Sea of Ireland.

If you want to know what that is, watch the air, jaws, episode of Shark Week.

It's filmed out there.

And on this boat rides about 30 minutes out, 30 minutes back, there's this group of eight

kids from a local orphanage, and all of them had physical handicaps.

And so some kids in wheelchairs, some kids had crutches, some were walking with assistance,

and they had these two ladies who were taking care of these eight kids.

And we were sitting at the back of the boat by these kids, and on the way back, they were

singing these songs.

And they had so much joy.

And from my perspective, I'm like, you're growing up in an orphanage, you have disabilities.

And so from my perspective, and so I think it's always important to realize that our perspective

isn't necessarily the accurate one, at best, it's just the way we view things.

From my perspective, I'm like, if I was in that position, I don't know if I'd be singing,

but these kids have folded some old joy, it moved us so much that actually took out the

camcorder because back then, there were no smartphones.

We got the camcorder and video, these kids singing.

And we got in the car, my wife and I looked at each other and we said, I think we're supposed

to adopt first.

So we came back, got licensed as foster parents, with foster parents about 10 years, at 30

kids throughout home in the 10 years, we have six children, four of those were adopted from

the foster care system and two biome.

So that's our foster care journey.

In the midst early on in that, a book called The Connected Child was published by a Karen

Purvis and Debate Cross.

And TCU had just started developing its TBR protocols.

And so these protocols within transferred and organized and presented in a way that moms

and dads could learn them and do them at home.

When they piloted that program, Kaelin and I were invited to be part of that.

And we got to meet Karen Purvis in the midst of all of that and get to know her and work

with her a little bit.

Our now almost 20 year old daughter was part of a neurotransmitter study.

And so the reason I point that out because we learned these things, they tested all the

chemicals, everything good was too low, everything bad is too high.

And so they asked us to parent her exclusively with these principles in mind for a year.

And we did.

We tested and everything was back in balance.

And so I've seen the data.

I can see on a chemical level, a person changes if you interact with them as a, wow, with

the building, every strong relationship as the primary filter through which you interact

with them.

I've seen that.

So that was really helpful for us to see the data on that.

And so, you know, whether you came to our family through adoption, foster care, or

biologically, everybody's parent are the same at our house.

And so we've seen it work.

And now that the kids are in high school, got it, got one is working, one who just started

college and then a couple in high school, then a couple in middle school.

But the high schoolers recently, and then my 19 year old, both of them recently told

my wife, you know, I'm starting to realize that you guys aren't like other people's parents.

And my wife said, okay, well, what do you mean?

And she said, yeah, my friends' parents are really punitive with them.

They're not really involved.

They're not very interested in them.

So but you guys are different.

And so, you know, if you want to just bless my heart and my wife's heart, tell us that

one because after doing this faithfully for, you know, the last 16 or 17 years now to hear

that our kids say, hey, we feel like our lived experience is different and a better one than

our peers really blesses us because in the midst of all of that, there's no permissive

parenting.

You know, there are boundaries.

There are, there's everything that you might imagine.

But even all of those things are set in the best interests of my child.

And it kind of consequence that is imposed upon them.

So a logical consequence is set with this isn't meant to harm them.

This isn't meant to teach them I mean charge.

This is meant for their formation and growth into the adults they were always supposed

to be.

Most dads, including myself, have been guilty of yelling at their kids because well, our

kids aren't listening.

Are there better ways to get their attention other than yelling?

Yes.

My wife and I, one of the things we tell parents when we were parents is this is one of

our mantras, you have to be the world's leading expert in your children.

And what I mean by that secondarily is you have to be the world's leading experts in each

one of your children because they're individuals, they're different people.

And particularly for for families who are, who have adopted or are currently fostering

or are in the midst of kinship placements, kinships may be a little bit different because,

presumably, a some percentage of the time those kids are biological relatives of yours,

not all the time, but, but a lot of times it is grandma racing, raising your grandkids.

That's a pretty common scenario in kinship.

So there is a little bit of that biological connection.

So you have some insight into their tendencies, but if you're raising kids who were not born

to your family, then, then, then their biological tendencies will not be as obvious as a parent.

So you have to pay attention to your kids like we, we, we teach courses and we have these

parent detective logs that we walk people through.

I think you should have notebooks on your children, you should know, are they mourning

people, are they evening people?

What, what unsettles them?

What, what helps them regulate?

What kind of foods they like?

What are the tendencies in relationship?

All those kinds of things because you have to parent the child you have, not the child you

want.

So that's the basic framework, how, how we approach, how we approach things.

So does that mean that there's some sort of a epigenetic or generational component to

that tendency?

So there's this verse in the gospel, John, so you mentioned epigenetics, right?

So this is verse, so this is verse in the gospel of John, where Jesus says, the son can

do nothing.

He has not yet seen the father did.

Now, now while parenting is not mentioned in that verse, I will tell you that it is the

most condemning piece of parenting I've ever read in the scriptures.

No, it's getting, yes.

Right, I mean, like, let's, let's, let's extrapolate.

The daughter can do nothing.

She has not seen her mother do first.

Right.

And so, so that's, that's troubled me for a long time, that idea.

And so I come from Yellers.

My dad's Yellers, he's for brothers, Yellers, my mother's Yellers, all of her 11 siblings,

Yellers, they married people, Yelled and side-grip in a very loud environment.

My programed response is to, to, to, to Yell.

Well, so a couple of things happened, happened in, um, to help break that habit in me.

Number one is that I reckon that's my, I can recognize that's my condition, response

from my childhood in the family I grew up in.

Number two, my wife and I, um, are believers in the couples should have mentors and

the couples should on occasion go and visit a counselor.

You like, you know, in the same way that you'll take your call for an oil change, I think

you have to think about your relational health in the same way.

We're sitting with this counselor one time and he says to us, Hey, do either of you ever

Yell when the other, like, raise your volume when the other one's talking?

Yes.

Do either of you, uh, interrupt the other one?

Yes.

He said, you know why you do?

And I'm like, um, I mean, I thought because I was just tired of listening or I had

just heard enough that I felt like I had enough information from her that I could counter

it.

And he said, it's because you're trying to assert your dominance.

Right.

That's why you yell over people.

It's an aggressive, um, it's an aggressive way to assert your dominance.

So, so one of the things that we believe in our family is that is that a lot of parenting

is compliance driven.

But, but I don't want compliance.

I mean, I'd like compliance, but, but compliance isn't the goal.

Connections the goal, relationships the goal.

And if we work on that part and people know that the, the, the Jew are kind and welcoming,

like our kids will come and talk to us about stuff that will make, make a lot of people

just freak out.

And we've trained ourselves to, does ourselves to respond with, um, with calmness whenever

anything unsettling is told to us because we recognize that if we don't respond with calmness,

they're not going to come to us.

Well, if you yell, they're pretty quickly going to learn that's not a safe person for me to

speak to.

And so, and so we have trained ourselves because I'm not trying to assert dominance over my

children.

I want my children to know that I'm always on their side and I'm always working for their

good.

And yes, do I raise my voice?

Absolutely.

Would they say, I'll sometimes absolutely.

I'm not trying to tell you I'm betting a thousand.

My betting average is higher than it used to be once I realized why I did that, how it was

impacting my children and then I chose to do it less.

So, so I would assume that some percentage of the people listening to this conversation

have coached sports.

It's whether it would it be, you know, little league youth sports, um, everything, right?

So I coach, I coached a lot of youth soccer in my life, but I also spent eight seasons

as a high school varsity coach, which coach coaching high school boys was one of my favorite

things I ever did because they actually have the physical ability to do the things you're

asking them to do while at the same time having the cognitive ability to understand what you're

asking them to do, right?

In middle school, some of that's colliding, but, but in high school, particularly with the,

you know, the 11th and 12th grade boys, they really are able and as such, their performance

is greatly improved and they're also, uh, the, the games is more fun to watch.

But one thing I learned with coaching high school boys is you have to now back to become

in the league world's leading expert in your child.

You have to become an expert in your players because some kids respond when the coach yells

at them in front of others on the sidelines.

Some kids respond when the coach yells at them in private, some kids respond when coach

looks them in the eye and is calm with his instructions and correction.

Some prefer it if you stand next to them and don't make eye contact.

And so as a coach, I had to learn these things in order to get the best out of my players

or set another way in order to help them reach their potential.

And I think that parenting is a lot of things and one of the things that I firmly believe

it is is helping your kids reach their God-given potential.

And so if, if I can keep my eye on the prize because that's different than I need you to

comply with my wishes and demands in the moment, that will always be that no matter what's

happening in this moment, I always have what's best for you in the future in mind.

Let's talk about attachment issues.

First, what does that even mean?

And what are the signs that somebody or a child has attachment issues?

And what should a dad do to respond to it?

There is a clinical definition of attachment.

But the Ryan definition of attachment is it's a measure of the strength of relationship

between two people.

So there are adult attachment interviews that you can do a full adult attachment interview

that I think is like kind of $3,000 to do that.

Or there are some adult attachment quizzes you can take online and they'll give you some

sort of makeup of your styles.

They're securely attached.

And so we have infant attachment styles and then we have adult attachment styles.

There's one secure style and three insecure styles.

The reason we don't have teen attachment styles is because teenagers based on the enormous

hormonal changes that they're all experiencing going through puberty and then just the years

after puberty.

And then being around people who have the same hormonal things going on at the same time,

they all tend to present with insecure attachment styles because of that.

So we don't measure, we don't measure teen attachment.

But adult attachment is secure means that you are, that's the gift of your childhood or

there is earn secure which means that's the result of the work he did as an adult.

And then there's dismissing entangled which are tied for second place.

There's not, I wouldn't say there's one of those that's better than the other.

Although if you're an entangled person, is it living with a dismissive person, you might

suggest the dismissive is worse and vice versa, but it's not.

And then there is disorganized which is as bad as it sounds.

So what happens is if you have a caregiver that meets your needs, baby cries, adult response,

needs, baby learns that they can adults can be trusted, baby learns that they have, the

voice has power, that's really good.

But there are a lot of kids who are just left in their curbs who are left to cry it out,

which is likely some of the worst parenting advice of the last 50 years in my humble opinion.

Because what it does is it creates an insecure attachment style in the child because the child

learns when I cry for help, nobody comes to help me.

And so what that means is that over time they will not ask for help.

Now here's why that's important because when let's just pretend I have a teenage son, he's

16 years old.

He goes to a party, there is alcohol at this party and he chooses to drink, he chooses to

drink, slash the peer pressure, whatever you want to say, right?

I need him to call me and tell me, Dad, I need you to come get me, I can't drive.

Instead of saying, I can't ask anybody for help, I'm going to drive home intoxicated because

the ramifications for yourself and others is potentially enormous if you get behind

the wheel drunk.

This is why you want to secure attachment style with your child, but I would say that the

easiest way to build that strong secure attachment is just to be kind and meet your children's

needs when they have them.

And so, you know, we learn to, we teach people to say, look, you're a couple of choices, we

got to move forward, you can do A or B. We teach people to say, hey, train your children

to say, I know you asked me for something, but can I ask for something different?

Now at our house, we, we do say, I can't always say yes, but I can't always listen and I will

entertain what you have asked me.

And even in that, they, they feel valued because you listened to their words, right?

In our home, what we have done is we've created an environment where our children know that

their thoughts and feelings matter to their mother and father.

And as a result, they've had enormous positive gains, right?

We can talk about clinical things, we can talk about bubbly, we can talk about all that

stuff, but at the end of the day, the practical application of the things we've learned has

been the most important because they've made positive change in our family.

And so when we speak to any kind of audience, whether it be parents, churches, schools, child

placing, agency, leadership, any of that, you know, we do this confluence of the things

we've learned, the practical application of those things and how we've seen it.

And so we've seen positive change as a result of them.

It really sounds like we're back to the basics of where we started with this conversation.

And that is the relational element, the importance of the relationship.

So if the kids are doing something wrong and they know it's wrong, they know that they

messed up, but they are okay calling you anyway for help.

That is the win.

That is the ultimate win.

What can I give you an example of that?

Yes, yes, please.

So our now 16 year old daughter, when among us was like the trendy game for kids to play

three or four years ago, she was probably a 12 or 13 when this happened.

And so we were not wise in this, in that she, we gave her an iPhone when she was 12.

You know, you can get more lockdown versions of phones for teenagers now.

And this event sort of opened our eyes to that.

So she's playing among us.

And so my wife says, okay, you guys can play that because you know, she's read some of the

things that moms are saying online, online about some of the dangers of it.

And so she says, okay, we can form like a closed group with, with, with our kids, your siblings,

your friends in the neighborhood and some of your cousins.

And so they all agree they set up this group.

They're playing among us together.

Well, that's not good enough for her.

So she wanders off into like the free play internet version of this thing.

And she's a really empathetic person.

And the worst thing that my daughter can imagine is anybody feeling left out.

So she gets a message from a young, I'm going to say young man in air quotes, a middle school

Tina, a middle school girl, having anxiety about feeling left out is likely one of the

most common anxiety triggers in middle school girls, right?

And so, and so he plays in that and he says, well, you know, he's an artist and he doesn't

have any friends.

And so she kind of bites us, oh, I'm so sorry.

And she's really empathetic.

And now she's given him a response.

And this goes back and forth.

And then he asks, well, can they, can they email each other instead of just messaging while

they're playing the game?

She consents to this.

Then he says, can I have your phone number?

I'd like to text you.

And at this point, she now knows that maybe this is a little dodgy, but because of the relationship

we've built, because we have acted in her best interest always.

She comes to me and she says, dad, I need to tell you something I did that I wasn't supposed

to.

I said, all right, baby, what's up?

And she tells the story.

And so I don't chastise her for disobeying us because for me, the one is that she came to

us.

And so I said, okay, baby, give me your phone.

And I go through the phone.

I read the text messages from this person.

I call a friend of mine who lives in New Jersey.

She had worked with an anti-trafficking organization up in the Northeast.

And I said, I said, we need to tell you a story.

And so also our friend Allison.

So we tell her the story and she says to my daughter, that is following the script of grooming young

women to meet so they can be taken and trafficked.

And so this freaks my daughter out rightfully so.

And so I take her phone and I do something that in retrospect, probably was too soon in

this.

I text back and I say, you know, I just, I just feel really lonely.

At home, is there any way we could meet?

And so the communication goes silent.

And so I tell that to my friend Allison and she said, yeah, that's a pretty typical parent

response.

And when they get that, they cut bait and they're done.

But the point of that whole story is that she was being groomed by somebody who, if we had

not found out when she told us, likely in a couple of more communications, he would

have suggested that they meet in the park.

But because we'd worked so hard on the relationship with her and had parented her in a way that she

understood was in her best interest, she came to us when she realized that this was getting

south.

And so I always tell that story as a great reminder of that in the moment, you might not see

the progress that you'd like to see.

And in the moment, the moment may last longer than you want because you're working on

connecting rather than compliance.

But in the long term, you're going to see the results because parenting is some version

of oceans 11.

It's you have to play the long game.

And the moment is not as important as the future.

On your Facebook page, you said that when you welcomed your children that from that day

till their last, you were in this together with them.

Tell me that story of the first time you said that and the scripture reference that inspired

what you said.

So I wrote a book, right?

A devotional.

And so this is actually covered in devotional number one.

When I realized that was a friend of ours who was in a car accident, he was he was T-bone

in an intersection and the force to say, in fact, well, he was actually hospitalized for

several weeks and was in physical therapy for many, many months as a result of this car

accident.

But in the midst of this, before the paramedic survive, he's trapped in the car.

So he's in pain and then the adrenaline is kind of wearing obviously, realizing his pain.

He's feeling claustrophobic.

And on top of that, he can smell fuel.

And so because there is a place in the world called Hollywood, we think that every time there's

a car accident, the car explodes, right?

That's what happens in movies and TV shows.

So he's freaking out.

And the paramedics get there and they're using the jaws of life to pry the car open so they

can extract him.

And one of the five fighters, smashes, was left of the glass in the other door and climbs

into the car with him.

And he says to him, look, I know you're scared.

He said, "Well, those people out there are doing the best they can and they're good at what

they do.

But here's my, here's my promise to you.

I'm not leaving this car until you've left this car."

So we're getting out of this together or we're dying together.

But what happens next will happen to both of us.

And my friend said that he, he was a friend/mentor really because he's probably about 20 years

older than me.

And he said, "When I heard him say that, calmness washed over my spirit.

Because we can do amazing, lead difficult things if we are doing them together."

So I started thinking about that and in the book of Ruth, Naomi says to Ruth, "I will go,

you go, your people are my people, your God is my God and she links their lives together

and that their destiny is now the same from this day forward."

And so we have shift our perspective at this point when this happened to our friend and

he told me the story from, "We didn't welcome our kids into our home.

We climbed into the car with our kids.

We're the firefighter who chose to climb into the car."

And so now that changes my perspective about everything because it means I am here to help

you not that you have to adapt to fit into our home.

How can dads listening learn more about what you're doing, get coaching or listen to

your podcast?

So if you go to onebighappyhome.com and just scroll just a little bit down on the homepage is

a picture of me and Kayla with our tagline.

But just below that, there you can get to the podcast, you can get your coaching, their

stuff working with churches, working with agencies.

And then we also have a dad's group called Foundations in Fatherhood and we run them a couple

of times a year.

So if you scroll down a little bit past those major categories of work you do, there's

like a featured article thing and you can click on that and you can join.

And so we advertise it as a parenting bootcamp meaning that we cover a lot of ground in a

short amount of time.

I'm going to post all of the links in the episode description for your convenience.

So if you go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com, go to this

episode, look right below the episode description and all of the links mentioned will be posted

there for your convenience.

Well Ryan, as we close, what is your final challenge to dad's listening now?

Number one, be more involved.

Do not reduce yourself to provider, protector and chauffeur like some of us do.

Be present.

Let your wife know that you are her co-parent if you're married.

And let your kids know that you are there for them.

And in the midst of all of that, do the work to figure out why you react the way you

do.

And all of our work, one of our goals is to try to help parents move from reacting to respond.

Instead of being triggered by your reflexes and emotions rather to cognitively respond

from your prefrontal cortex.

But in order to do that, you have to figure out why you do things the way you do.

So ask yourself the hard questions because I promise you, there is great freedom and

growth on the other side of doing the work.

Ryan, I have learned so much from you.

I know the audience has as well.

It's been an honor having you on the Fatherhood Challenge.

Thank you so much for coming on the program.

Well, thanks for reaching out Jonathan.

There's a lot of fun visiting with you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.

If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned

in this program or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.

Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com

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