On this episode of the Dudes and Dads podcast, we talk with our friend,
Sean McRindle about kids facing significant challenge.
You're listening to the Dudes and Dads podcast, a show dedicated to helping men be better dudes
and dads by building community through meaningful conversation and storytelling.
And now here are your hosts Joel, DeMott and Andy Lehman. Andy Joel.
Dude, I had a fantastic Sunday. I'm glad. I'm glad.
I'm glad to hear. Fantastic Sunday.
For those of you that don't know, we record on Sundays.
You'll hear this on a Tuesday, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because
it's a Sunday now. It's a Sunday now and I need to share a few
year a few joy points with you. Sure. Let's start off with first.
Had a great day. Great day at church today with my friends over at restore church community.
Church was great. It was fantastic. All right. Number two, I went sledding.
That's always a fun, a fun time. Yeah. I love sledding.
Did you stay warm when you were? I did. You guys, we'll put it. We'll have to put a picture.
We'll put a picture up on the socials later of what,
what I did to, to protect myself from the elements. We got a balmy high of 14 degrees
out here today. So you did want to, you did want to bundle up.
Right. I did the full rabbit hair mad bomber hat. Okay.
Which makes me look a little cousin Eddie like out there.
And then all, then my, my hunting bibs and coat.
I was, so I was in full camo out there sledding as also provides a little bit of extra padding
when you wipe out, but the problem was it snow camo or was it tree camo?
No, no, it was tree camo. So my, my camo did the opposite effect.
It made you very visible. I am the most visible out on the snow.
All right. Yeah. I look like a, yeah.
I just, so that was, that was fun. Did some sledding.
And then to really cap off just before heading over to the studio here
to cap off my day, the, the Lions won yet another playoff game.
And we're excited about that. All my Lions fans.
Congratulations. Hey, those down in the 313. Congratulations.
Bob Seeger was at this game.
Really? Yeah.
That's interesting.
Yeah. Who knew?
Who knew?
I didn't know he was a Lions fan.
All the, he's a Detroit guy. It's all the, all the Detroit greats were there.
Jeff Daniels too. Oh, yeah.
Great.
All the, the classics. So anyway, I'm in a, especially good mood today was just filled full
of all kinds of goodness and got a, got a Costco run into today as well, which,
well bless you.
And everyone knows that eight launch at Costco, Costco pizza guys, come on, to feed a family.
I got a Costco pizza for $110.
You, come on.
You can't beat that.
You cannot beat that.
So really in totality, I mean, we're adding all those things up.
That's the, that's a recipe for a fantastic day.
So how are things with you, my friend?
Pretty good. Pretty good.
I was, before we came over, I was watching the chiefs since my eagles are out.
I mean, fly eagles.
Yeah. Fly, yeah.
Yeah. Not fly today.
Not flying. More dying than flying. Sorry.
But that being said, I was watching the chiefs game since my family's chiefs.
Yeah. You're one of those guys like, like me, like I'm a Detroit Tigers fan when baseball
season comes around the rest of my family are a bunch of traders and follow the guardians.
Do you feel similar? Do you feel like the odd man out amongst your family?
I mean, I, yes, because they all hate, they don't, they're like, they're terrible team
or they're terrible people.
Yeah. Yeah. They call the, they're leaving like throw out like the, the morality of the team as well.
Yes. That's what they have done.
That's deep. That's deep.
Yeah. It hurts. It hurts right here. No.
Well guys, we have a, we have an awesome show today with our friend, Sean here. But, but first,
I want to remind you that this show is supported by listeners like you. We could not do this show
without the financial gifts that you guys give to us. It keeps us going, keeps the lights on, keeps
the heat on in this cold day. Yeah. But, but also for all of the technology that we have to feed
all the stuff, all the things that we do to make this show happen
are supported by listeners like you. And if you want to join, you can go to dudesanddadspodcast.com/support.
We will find all the support options available.
Yeah. That's great.
Dudes and dads. Thank you.
Yes. Supporters.
What should we do? We actually have an official name. We never do some podcast.
Dudes. No, that sounds terrible. Let's not do that. No. We're not calling you dudes.
I've got a, I've got a, a comedian I follow, Dustin Nickerson. Oh, yeah.
He does the podcast, Don't Mean We Come Back There, which the logo is he and his kids. And then
it's like, he and his wife in the front seat and his kids riding in the back. And it's like,
Don't Mean We Come Back There. And then they call their fans, their supporters. I think
back seaters. I think that's what they call them. Yeah. So like back seat drivers or whatever.
Right. Right. I got you. Okay. So we'll have to work on that. If anybody out there has a
recommendation for what we should call the community that supports us and it has to be nice.
It has to be clean. Family clean. And better than duties. Because that's not, that's not,
that's not a good one. Love, we love, we love to hear your recommendations. Well, hey,
uh, yes. Thanks everyone. Um, we're super excited this evening to have our friend,
Sean McCrindle on the show. Sean serves as the president and CEO. Yes. President and CEO.
I didn't get double titles with my job. I feel like I, I feel like I, uh, I missed something
there. But yeah, Sean serves as the president and CEO of bachelor children's home located here
in beautiful Goshen, Indiana. Um, and, uh, he's a friend of mine. He's a colleague. Sean and I
were fortunate enough. We get to spend a fair amount of time together. Actually, we,
we sit on a round table every month together. We talk about CEOE things,
right? Which, which, and I should say we have, we have a lot of, it's not just like business.
It's a lot of personal, we share life together and, and I've gotten to know Sean in that way
and it's been really, really good. So I've, I've just been over this last year. I felt really
fortunate to spend that time. So Sean, thanks for joining us this evening. Good to be here. Yeah.
So Sean, we, uh, you know, when thinking about, um, we, we talk a lot about, obviously this is the
dude, you know, Andy and I being dudes and dads and having kids and you yourself, uh, as a dude and
a dad, uh, we always like to start, start to show off by, uh, asking about the dad stats. So tell us
about your family, your kids, where you grew up, where you went to school, all the stuff that you
want to share with the internet about, uh, you and your family. Yeah. We'd love to hear it. Well,
it's, you know, my family is amazing. Um, you know, I'm obviously I'm biased probably.
You guys are too, but, uh, you know, it starts off with my wife, Shelly. Um, she and I had met up
in college. We actually both went to Goshen High School, but didn't really know each other and
met through mutual friends and, uh, you know, I kept, uh, trying to set her up with my friends
because I thought she was an amazing person. Sure. And then one day I realized why am I
just warming up with anybody but me. That's right. You know, so, um, you know, a mere seven and a
half years later I wore her down and we got engaged and got married and we've, this year will be 25
years. Nice. Awesome. Nice. And we have, uh, two kids both in college at Purdue right now. Uh,
Liam, who's a senior at college and Kara, who is a sophomore and, uh, both of them are. What are
your kids studying down there at Purdue? He's, uh, he's graduating with mechanical engineering.
Yes. He's studying biomedical engineering. Yeah. So I'm glad to know they'll be able to support
you guys in your old age. That's all I know is thank goodness for my wife's genetics.
Cause I know that didn't come from this guy. They were just like, dad, we've seen, we've seen
that what social work has done to you and we're just, we're heading in a different, a different
direction. You know, it's interesting because, uh, fair amounts of times throughout our lives,
silly. And I've looked at each other and said, I don't know what couple got our kids,
but they've got to be going, what went wrong? We're such great smart people. You know, so
yeah, no, they're great family or kids are just amazing. You know, um, I think, well,
everybody's always biased about their kids and it, but, uh, you know, really I can, I can say
there's lots of points in my life where both of my kids have taught me huge life lessons at critical
times. And yeah, till to this day, I mean, we just, you know, when they were home for this,
the Christmas break, we got to do a week's vacation together, climbing around rocks and kayaking and
stuff. And just a great time. And when you have kids that you can actually go like, I like being
around them. Exactly. That's cool. Exactly. Right. Andy and I talk a lot about, you know,
and, and kind of any of our parenting journey, that really what we are is we're raising adults
that we want to hang out with, right? When they get, when they get older. And I think that's
when I see families that are older that have kids about your age and it's like,
they just can't wait to spend time together and they look forward to that and it's life giving.
Like that is the, I think it's just the sweetest thing. I think it's, I think it's a, a win and
chalk it up to a victory in the old parenting category. We're like, I raised, I raised adults
that I want to spend time with. They don't, they don't, uh, you know, drive me up the wall. So
that's, that's good on you. Um, so Sean, you have now, uh, you've obviously been in the,
been the area that we live in here in Goshen, Elkhart County for, for a time. You've worked for
basher children's home for a total of 28 years. Yep. Um, been the CEO for how many years now?
Are you two and a half? Yeah. Two and a half. And, and so prior to that, what sort of roles did you,
I'm guessing Sean's a real, you know, he likes to climb the ladder. Um, probably a clear,
uh, yeah, it was, it was a set out plan from the beginning. I'm sure, I'm sure. But what's,
I mean, what is kind of what, what roles and sort of things have you done while serving at
basher children's home? Yeah. So it's interesting because, um, when I had graduated from my
undergraduate, I was initially planning on going right onto graduate school, but through an internship
realized I was going down the road to being a psychologist, realized that wasn't really the
thing for me. So I thought I needed to pause a little bit. I came back home to this area and,
you know, applied at basher. I told the guy that was interviewing me
that I'd be there about exactly one year. I was going to be moving away. Um,
and he laughed at me there and at all three of his retirement parties, which he finally
fully retired after 50 years. Um, and so I started as a second shift, direct care staff
in one of the residential programs with younger guys and, um, it just got under my into my into
me, you know, like I realized that there's a lot going on with these young guys and most of the kids
that I've worked with, but at heart we're just really not all that different. You know, um,
the thing that happens with kids who've had a lot of crazy things happen in life is at some point,
it becomes really risky for them to believe in their future and have hope for their future.
Yeah. And so acting like a fool is easier than acting like somebody who might believe in yourself
or believe that you can have a chance in life. Yeah. And so they choose that path until they
have an opportunity to see another one. Yeah. Yeah. So when you're going into the residential
situation, you know, um, I think, you know, obviously there's some of the challenges there
that you, that you mentioned. What sort of, if you think about like skill sets that you,
that you needed to succeed, because obviously you stuck with, you stuck, you didn't leave
Bachel, you stayed there, you stuck with it. Yeah. What thinking about skill sets and abilities to
to succeed in that environment, what, what would you, what would you name, what would you say was,
was essential for that? Yeah. So I think, uh, really when it comes down to it, when you're
starting any of this stuff, you know, if you're going to be working with kids, you got to know
where your values lie and, and you got to be strong in those. Um, but you also have to
get to be able to, to be a person who can ask more questions than, than make statements. Um,
I think if you're going to get somewhere with kids, even your own kids, you get a lot farther,
if you're willing to ask them questions about things, rather than tell them about things a lot.
Absolutely. And so I think that that, that's one of the things I think kids have,
have taught me over the years, but I think knowing where my beliefs lie, where my values lie,
was important for two reasons. One was because a lot of times even kids with a lot of trouble,
their values and beliefs matched up with mine a lot more than I would have thought.
Interesting. And then the second thing is, is sometimes my values and beliefs,
if I were, if I wasn't aware of how those came into play with kids,
it caused problems and friction between us. Because say one of my, obviously one of my
values is you treat women right. Well, sometimes our kids don't do that very well.
And, and I would jump in too harshly early on. And I had a great, uh, female co-worker who said,
"Hey, maybe let me fight my own battles." Oh yeah. You know, and it was a great lesson for me because,
one, she needed to, to gain that credibility. But the other thing was, is I wasn't going to
change that kid's feeling by jumping in there. And so I, I think that, and then I actually think
a fair level of ignorance is the beginning of it. Not knowing that you're, you know,
you're going to go through a lot of roller coasters, both emotionally and, and, and in other ways.
And just not knowing how tough it's going to be to get close to kids that you see
horrible things sometimes happen to, you know, um, that ignorance can be really a blessing at times.
When you think about, um,
the, the kids that you guys serve at Bashar, and I guess let me first ask this,
kind of paint a picture for us for, uh, the, the types of services that Bashar offer,
because they are, they are varied at various levels.
And you had mentioned your children's home, but what, what else do you guys do? Because, yeah,
you guys, it's a, it's a varied thing. Yeah. And so, you know, I want to encapsulate it,
because if I went into that stuff, we could be here for hours and hours. I mean, so,
quite frankly, Bashar serves over a thousand kids a year and our residential side is the most
intensive, but it's actually the fewest number of kids. And so, you know, I think if you think of
like a hospital, Bashar, that the residential kind side would be that intensive emergency
room and critical care unit, a lot of intensive work, that sort of thing. But then we have
services where we help kids who are in our, in our community schools and struggling there,
not, not making it there, who, who the schools can refer to our alternative school. They come in
for the day, they're actually going back home at night. And the goal is to keep them connected
to their school and get them back into their school. We also have a very small foster care
program, basically just for our kids who come out of residential. And we have our community-based
services, which has a huge array. I mean, this is everything from one-time classes to outpatient
therapy. We have programs to keep kids from getting into the system, like stop skipping,
which is for kids who are having trouble missing school, stop lifting for kids who shop lift too
much, or our shoplifting. And then we have a Teg Court program, which is all run by teens,
everything from the prosecuting attorney all the way through. Huge success right there.
And then one of the other things that we have that I think is really good in our community-based
services is for every family who is going through divorce in Elkhart County and has kids under the
age of 18, they go through our Transparenting and Seasons class. And the whole goal of that thing
is whatever is going on, you both care about your kids. Let's help you focus on them.
I wish more people knew about that service right there. I think that, right, because that hits so
many families in a very significant way. Can I tell you a quick story about it?
So years ago, when we were first starting this, I got to run some of those classes. And one of the
things I would do is while the parents are in the Transparenting class, their kids are in Seasons.
So, you know, we'd have some of the kids who are younger. And a lot of times what we'd do is,
that was big for them because they got to realize I'm not the only kid going through this. That's
pretty big. But I would always have the people who are working with the young kids take them out
while I'm doing some classes with the parents. Heather kids do sidewalk chalk art. And they
would tell them, don't put any names down, just draw how it is for you right now with your family.
And then they would come in and I would tell the parents, hey, we're going to go on break.
We're going to go out and walk down the sidewalk. Every parent knows their kid's drawing.
Wow. Wow. And so there were parents in there who were terrified that they were doing horrible by
their kids who would see pictures that their kids drew that actually were pretty normal.
Families holding hands, things like that. And they would break down and cry. Because for them,
it let them know for the first time, I'm not doing as bad as I thought. And there are other parents
who were so much in their own hurt that they didn't realize what they were doing to their kids.
And they'd walk out and they see their kids with a heart that's being pulled apart and they would
break down. And those families would come in and be like, we need more help. And so to me,
I look at that and I say, that's a very critical time for families and for kids. And if we can do
things the right way, the direction those kids go from there can be hugely impacted,
but also just their connection to their family again can really be drawn together.
So you've talked about the residential and that's kind of a smaller group. And they're
on the Basher campus. You have houses that are individual houses that are dedicated to that
service. Yeah. So we have an emergency shelter care, which is really designed for kids who are in
transition. But also if there are kids who've been kicked out of their house or they've run away from
home, they can check in and there's no cost for that. We just have to work with their parents to
make sure that they're okay with them staying for a while and working with us. And that's been a
really good thing. And then we have a bunch of other residential programs, everything from substance
abuse treatment to significant traumatic kids who are dealing with traumatic issues, things that
have happened and behaviors that result. And then our newest residential program is for girls who
have survived human trafficking. And in that one, I think the, so maybe you can help, you can help
me understand this. And I think I sort of understand, but when I drove by your guys'
facility shortly after that, that place was built out. There's a stark appearance to it
in comparison to the rest of the facilities that you have. Kind of describe it to us and then
why, the kind of the why behind it. So excuse me, I think the thing that's always the hardest to
understand because our brains can't really comprehend it and mine couldn't even after doing
in doing this work at the beginning. But the girls who have been subjected to that, you would
think that once somebody saves them, that they would be like, thank you so much. I'm so excited
about this help. And actually, they have gone under such systematic brainwashing. I mean,
we don't even have a good concept of the level of brainwashing that happens with these girls,
that their first thing is, I don't trust anybody. I definitely don't trust you. I have to get away
from this place and many times get back to my abuser or my pimp or whatever, which makes no sense.
But if you understand the levels of psychological abuse and trauma that these girls go through,
it does. So our facility is set up to be as, to be a secure facility. So that means the girls
aren't locked in their rooms or anything like that. It means that they can't freely run outside into
the community because if they did, their skill set would make them gone. And then once they're
gone, they're at real risk for never coming back or somebody finding them and them no longer being
alive. And so we built this really, it's a beautiful facility really. And the girls helped
design a lot of things. And in fact, one of the girls who's one of our, we call her our most
notorious, but she also is one of our most beloved girls who's been gone for several years.
We actually contracted her to help us look at some of this stuff because she was so effective at
hurting herself and doing things. And she was extremely helpful in that. But then we also have
outside courtyards and all that with really high fences that are anti-climb fences. And they look,
they actually look really nice to look through. But then on the side, it's amazing how things are
so well designed on the side to our parking lot. The wall that is there, you could literally drive
a semi into and you would not break through. And it's because those girls got to know that nobody
can bust in and steal them. That's interesting. I think that's one of those things that you think of
happens elsewhere. Happens in third world countries. It happens in Miami,
but not in Goshen, Indiana or this area. And yeah, that's sad. And thank you for doing the work
that you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say this. Just to be honest, we didn't think it was that bad.
And it wasn't until we were getting more and more kids in our shelter who were couch surfing
and kids run out of places to couch surf. Then they run into places where people expect things
of them and then they run into danger. And as these kids told these stories, we realized,
okay, there's more than we even realize is going on both within our community and then traveling
through our community and within the state. And so we really tried to work with other facilities
to help get these girls the help they needed, but both our kids and those places said,
you guys know as much as we do, you need to jump in the game and do this. Wow. Yeah. And so that's
what we do. Yeah. Yeah. So and again, and then so we've, you know, the trafficking side, the residential
side, the education, the education side. So you're running an alternative school within,
within on your campus as well. Yeah. Grades ranging from kindergarten all the way through.
Okay. Yeah. And it was interesting because we used to go fourth grade through and then as the
schools kept asking us, how about third? How about second? When they got to kindergarten, we were
like, seriously, you need us for kindergarten? They were like, they were in a position of deciding
whether they were going to expel kindergarteners or not. Wow. And we were like, really? And then
those kids promptly showed up at our place, bid our teachers just like, you know, they were going,
okay, we understand now. Yeah. And you know, there's a lot of difficulty schools deal with,
but it's nice that we, it's good to be able to be there in our, our community schools try really
hard with these kids. And that partnership has been good because they, they really see the
importance of us doing things, but also the importance of them being able to get those kids
back into their schools. So I wonder if obviously this, the stories are
unique to each kid and kind of where they come from. If you were able to kind of paint
with broader brushstrokes, like the circumstances that are, that you, that you guys identify that
are contributing to the students that are finding their way. It goes from even start with just the
alternative school, like the students that are finding their way into your, into your services.
What, what challenges are they facing or what, in what atmospheres are they in that maybe
that, that might probably overlap with kids that are, that are kids that are also staying in the
schools. It's clearly they have responded to something different differently though, that
something different has happened in their life. What are the sort of the things that contribute
to that? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I can say this, there, there's kids from varying backgrounds.
Like we always tend to think it's kids from certain backgrounds that, that run into these
challenges. But sometimes you have kids who are, who have very loving families who, who care about
them a lot, but there's been some trauma that's happened or some things that have been really
difficult. And so as the kids' behaviors become more and more problematic, there are times where
the family just realizes, okay, if I don't do something different with my kid, my kid's going
to end up getting expelled from school. And so we have kids that come in where their parents are
working with the school on that, and we have kids who come in whose families are kind of chronically
homeless. And so they aren't in a particular school system for very long periods of time,
and they bounce and bounce. And once you get really behind as a kid, if you have two choices in class
to look stupid or be a problem, it's easier to be a problem in front of everybody than look stupid.
And so our kids will act that out. And some of our kids, you know, really come from a lot of,
a lot of substance abuse within their family. And, you know, that, that's hard, especially with,
you know, a lot of the stuff that's out there now, it puts kids in bad positions. It puts them
in positions of basically being in control of their own lives at really early ages. And we all
know that that doesn't work out real well, but also puts them in situations where they're around
some particularly dangerous people sometimes. And so those kids both like going to school
because it's one safe, stable place. But then they have real trouble at school because they're
used to doing whatever they want everywhere else. And so that's a lot, I think a lot of what we see
are, you know, families who have had some difficulties have kind of that chronic homelessness
side of things, a lot of substance abuse issues. And then we do see a lot of families, a lot of
boys struggle with a complete father absence or positive role, male role model has huge impacts
on those kids. They don't realize that, but you can see it. Yeah, I think this has been a
conversation, I think this is a conversation that comes up a lot on our show. And it's definitely
close to the work that you guys do really addressing fatherlessness, really talking about
the impact that it can make. I say this with all respect to the families that
you know, that are running and trying to operate without a dad. But, you know, there's just no,
I felt like culture for a long time, you know, was trying to say like, well, you know,
like the single mom, like she can, she can, she can get by, right? She can, she had enough resources,
enough support, whatever. And for all the amazing women, and there's story after story after story,
who, man, just went and got the second, the third job, worked all kinds of hours and shifts,
it made a way for their family to survive. And that's really what it was. Just had a,
had a mindset of like, we will, we will make this, set themselves to that. Like, my goodness,
how amazing. We can say that. And at the same time, say that nothing replaces having a father
in the home. And that's, that's for our young men. And that's for our, for our young women.
Well, and not only that, but I think that when you have a son, especially that doesn't have a dad,
not only is he not getting that example, but then he also has to be that man of the house.
Yeah. Right. And that's not something that any kid should have to take on.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Such a lot of, I mean, I can only imagine just the amount,
in so many cases, with some of the kids that are, that are coming to you guys,
just the level of stress, just chronic stress that they are carrying with them.
Feelings of, like having to take on responsibility before they should really have to take on that
responsibility. Right.
Wondering how are my parents doing? How are my, I mean, they might be,
they might be the ones that are the adult in the room, right? No, kind of, kind of thing.
How, so, I mean, you guys are provided, and obviously, and I, you guys are providing
in the services that you do, there's a lot of psychological care, I would imagine in all of this.
What, what is a young person who's coming to you? What do they, what is your goal?
Like, what do you feel like they need to know and experience and understand to, to move forward
in life? Yeah. Well, you know, one of the, one of the great things is, is a part of our agency,
we've always had, you know, a strong Christian spiritual background. Yeah.
And the great thing is, is, you know, our people, though,
try to shove anything down any of our kids' throats, a bad idea, right? Yeah.
And so, you know, we're always trying to offer as many things as we can
and not have it be like, we're trying to make you do this stuff. And I'll tell you this, people
think, would think, and in, it does happen at the beginning, but our kids are not as
resistant to that stuff as people would think. In fact, most of our kids are interested. We have
kids who go to area churches, who are involved in area youth groups. We have a chaplain on campus,
and actually one of my favorite statistics, the only 100% statistic that Basher has,
I love this one. Every kid who has tried to punch our chaplain has gotten baptized.
Now, we've had other kids who've gotten baptized too, but every one. So, so my, my question for
our, you know, chaplain who most recently came in was, I said, told him that I said, you, you
will want to take one for the team. He's like, I'll take two of it gets a kid baptized. That's a
good stat. I mean, you should be maybe gotta be more concerned about a kid if they haven't taken
a swing. Right. Yeah. It's like, are you okay? Is this? Well, they don't, you know, the good thing
is I always say that's not a kid who's, who's apathetic. He's at least mad. And I do think so,
for me, you know, kids choose to put in repair requests. And it's amazing to me. We have
something like 1400 people who are on our prayer request chain who like, yeah, our kids and staff
put out prayers. They pray for them. But, you know, like in my role now, I watch those very
closely and I can tell you when something changes for a kid because it'll look a lot like this. And
I remember this one girl had this very specific one several years ago, 16 straight weeks of Get Me
Outta Bashar. That was the prayer. Week 17 was please pray. Or my prayer is that the man who
killed my mom knows he's forgiven and that I can realize that I'm forgiven too. Wow. Wow. So that
was week 17. So I got to tell her staff. I said, Hey, you know, she's going to be doing butter here
soon. And they're like, yeah, right. Cause this is a kid who flipped every furniture. She was like
super human. A couple weeks later, a couple of staff show up at my door and they were like,
how'd you know? And I was like, well, I'm just that good. And then I told them, I'm like, well,
no, actually, I was reading her prayer request. But you can see it. Yeah. Like so, so how do I
know? Yeah, I like, I like the kids start to feel hope for their future and belief in things.
But I know that that's also tied to grace, knowing that they're them having grace for people,
having grace for themselves. And then also being able to kind of see that side of things where
you're grateful. Yeah. You know, I had one of the kids tell me one time when I said to him,
said, why are you still making it years after he said, you just statistically shouldn't be making
it. And he said, I got so much more to lose now. Wow. He's like, I just don't want to pay the cost
anymore. And I was like, that's a grateful person. The 100% living with gratitude is powerful. That's
a powerful thing. And you know, you say 16 weeks of prayer. That's, that is, that's a few months.
Yeah. Right. That's four. That's a long time. Yeah.
How many of us as adults, when we look at a problem at a troubled kid or a kid who's going
through something are willing to say, are willing to say, Hey, I'll go through, I'll go through hell
with this kid for four months. If it means, if it means, you know, I just think like, that's why
I appreciate what you guys do is that it is, it's not a sprint. It is a marathon with, with so many
of the kids, but you're, you guys are in a position and you have an intentionality to take that journey
with them. And, and I know like not every story, not every story ends, ends as happily as you guys
would want to. And I'm sure there's lots of stories that actually in the long term, maybe did, and you
just don't, you don't know, but you're committed to planting the seeds of hope for, for a better
future. And it's a win every time. I mean, it's a win every time we do it. Right. So as you've done
this, if you've, as you've, as you've just climbed the ladder at Basher and if, you know, you did
direct casework and then you, like how many, how many different roles have you, have you held?
I think, you know, I never really counted them, but it's got to be over 10. Yeah. And here's what
I found out was just like, I, you know, looking backwards, I didn't realize it wasn't that I was
so good at anything. It was just, I was really interested in everything. Yeah. So it was like,
hey, we're going to start this really hard new program that it's like, it's, I don't know if
it'll work out. And I'm like, yeah, can I do that? You know? And what I realized in that was
that, you know, the good thing is, is, you know, God already had the plan. He just needed, again,
back to ignorance. Somebody ignorant enough to realize they didn't have the skills, but we're
fortunate enough to be backed by somebody who did, you know? That's good. And so like, yeah,
I've gotten to be involved. Now, the one thing I've never gotten to do as a job and I'm not even
allowed to play with is anything in our maintenance or engineering. So I get to look at this stuff.
I just don't get to touch anything. I don't know if I've ever seen Sean Molaouan out there.
No, no, no, let me wash the mower. So yeah, that's nice. It's nice. Sean, as you've,
as you've done this work, as you've had, you know, you've, you've seen
the importance of the work, you've seen the dynamics of the work of working with kids that
are coming from challenging situations. I'd be interested to know how it impacted your own
fathering journey. What it meant, yeah, how it impacted the way you talked to your kids about
things, the way you parented. You're kind of, you know, we always talk about parenting philosophy.
I'm not sure I have a fully baked one yet, you know, like, but we're trying to get in that
direction, right? Like a framework that we're operating from. I'd be interested in what that
was for you. Right. Well, at some point, my parenting philosophy at its base level was this,
try not to set the kids on fire. Yeah. As much fun as you can without setting your kids on fire by
accident, you know. Well, I'll say, yeah, I was, I was really taught so much by the kids, you know,
so I was 21. Yeah. When I started, Shelley and I got married two years later, it was two years after
that. We had our first son, our first child, Liam. And so there was a couple of things. In fact,
Shelley told me this at one point early on, because, you know, she's just an awesome everything,
but she's an awesome mom and she's adventurous and all that. But, you know, the, is a first mom,
it's a first parent anyway, but especially the first mom, I think you worry, we're doing everything
wrong. I'm doing everything wrong. And one day, you know, I guess I didn't really even think about
it, but I said to her, I said, look, you know what I do? As long as our kids know without a doubt
that we love them and that we believe in them, we're going to have to try really, really hard to
screw them up. And I believe that. Like you think about it, like you can be too hard on your kid or
too soft on your kid, but if you are, if your kid knows, not fake, but knows that you believe in them
and that you love them, even if you're too harsh on things sometimes, they're going to understand
that. And in fact, that was probably one of the other things I learned in working with our kids
at Bash or was, you know, I had to truly believe in them. I had to really be interested in relationship
with them. Truly had to love those kids. But if I had to fall on one side or the other,
my side was always more stern or strong, not stern in a mean way, but like strong. And it would
immediately be followed up with something that would make that kid know that I was being that way,
because I believe that they had something in them that was really good. And I wasn't going to accept
something less than that. And so that really fed into my kids. I mean, yeah, I think my kids made
my life too easy. Shelley and my life too easy. In fact, there are times where like, shouldn't we be
having a little more problems, you know? And there's, I think there's lots of things that go into that.
Large family is wonderful and supportive. And so it's far beyond us. But definitely the other
thing the kids taught me early on, quick story to show just how stupid I was at the very beginning,
but that how God gave me a great lesson. And that is we had this policy that came out like three,
four weeks after I was hired that said, if a kid throws a chemical, you have to physically
intervene with them right away. Makes sense, right? Because now we don't give kids chemicals
anymore to do. That was back then. So just me and one kid are in the cottage and the kid
trucks this bottle of chemicals and I'm in my head going, this seems weird, but I got a,
but I take the kid down in a physical intervention and we get to the ground and the kid goes,
why did you do that? And I said, I don't know. And so I said, you okay? And he's like, yeah,
like, can we sit up? And he's like, yeah, so he's set up. And so I kind of explained to him. I said,
but now I'm realizing I'm pretty sure that only men, if there's other kids in the area,
he started laughing and I said, I'm really sorry. And he started tearing up. And I was like,
I'm like, oh no, maybe I did hurt him. I'm like, you okay? And he's like, yeah. I'm like, what
happened? He goes, nobody's ever said that to me. And so that was like God thing. And it was like,
my own human stupidity does this thing. But then God's like, I'm going to make something out of it.
Right.
Realizing that kid had never, that kid should have been told he was sorry.
Yeah.
Like so many people. And the craziest thing is a couple of months later,
to one of the female staff who is really hard on female staff. I heard him say, I'm sorry.
And it changed her world too. Because she never thought that would happen. And so I think in that
is saying you're sorry to your kids isn't weakness. No. It is the only real strength.
And kids are incredibly forgiving. This kid who had this horrible life immediately forgave me
for physically intervening for absolutely no reason.
Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
He had no reason to end it. Who am I to him? And he forgave me immediately.
My own kids who love me to death, me being able to say I'm sorry and truly be sorry for something
is not going to do anything but make their lives better in mine too.
So you mentioned kind of at the top of the show that you, you know, initially when you got out
of college, you're like, Hey, I'm going to go get my masters right away. And then you're like,
No, maybe, maybe not. And so went to Basterd did that, did that work? How, so how long between
undergraduate and graduate work for you? Let's see, probably would have been
eight years. Okay. Yeah. So do you feel like that was the right, that was the right move?
Like that was the best. For me it was. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. We, we talk a lot on this show frequently about, we've had like gap year
discussions. We've had kind of, I think helpful because we've got lots of families,
they're listening and they're asking the question about how, you know,
how they should be encouraging their kids one way or the other in education and things like this.
I know, I know in my under my, I know in my, well, from between undergrad and graduate work for me was,
was not, I just was a year in between, but, but I was an older, I was a super senior by the time
I graduated was a little bit, I was married and you know, and all sorts of things. But I just,
I think now so often times like the value and I'd be interested in even when you're looking at,
when you're hiring people and talking about staff, the value of getting some real world on the ground
experience. There is such a, there can be such a rush through the educational process. And I know
in my, in my time in graduate school, the students that annoyed me the absolute most that really
got under my skin and I was just like, you're just not, they were not able to connect with the
educate, the graduate educational part the same way because they had not gone and been a practitioner,
like they had not actually been a practitioner for a time. They had not,
they'd not gotten hit in the face by a kid, you know, or, or, you know, an elder,
or whoever, you know, they had not had to have that kind of, you know, rubber meets the road
experience a little bit to help gauge their, you know, yeah, to give some parameters and some
direction for their future. I mean, are you there? Do you think like, hey,
space it out, get some real world experience. It's, it's valuable.
Well, you know, here, here's what I would say. I, and I guess this comes from my own experience
with my own kids. So, you know, both my kids being it Purdue for engineering, you know,
okay, yeah, that's a bragging thing or whatever. It's hard to get into that. Right?
I told both of them, if you get into this and it's not for you, change your major.
Because the worst thing you could do is be in something that's super successful
and you're really good at it and you do all this and it pays you too well that you can't really
move into something else and you hate it. Yeah. And so, and I truly meant that and that came from
my thing. I was going to come, I was going to become a psychologist because that was kind of
the highest paying and this helping profession. I realized I wasn't like there and like wonderful
psychologists are very, very important. I'm just not that guy. You know, I got to,
I got to have more different interaction, less testing interaction. And so what I'd say is
when you're looking at your kids, step back and assess honestly. If your kids are in high school
and they're being really successful, they don't need you to drive them anymore. Like they just
don't. You've already done your work, you know. And in fact, probably at that time, the best thing
you can do is switch gears and be like, you don't have to take yourself so seriously. You're already
going to be successful. Because one of the, I mean, we all remember back to high school age and if
you went to college, early college, that whole being terrified of, am I going to be good enough?
Let's face it, you're not going to go anywhere where you're the smartest person ever.
I mean, somebody will, but it ain't going to be me either.
So I can let go of that. I'm also not a failure, you know. And you probably don't have kids who
are a failure. And that's where I think switching, especially, you know, from junior high to high
school age, switching from a parent who makes a lot of statements to being a parent who asks a
lot of questions becomes really critical. Because your questions will bore out your kids'
beliefs and their deep values. And you've already cemented those in your kids.
And over the long haul, most kids, even if they're kind of going out of bounds a little bit,
if they've had the right kind of moral upbringing and all that stuff, good family, outside of drugs,
drugs are the wild card, man. But outside of that, most of them, even if they bounce around,
by mid to late twenties, they'll be coming right back into line with things. And so I think we put
that pressure on ourselves. And I would challenge us not to look at how other people's kids are
doing. There you go. That's going to kill everything. I care comparison goes you every time.
Yeah. Yeah. And I hope for us, for listeners out there, I mean, I really hope you hear this from
Sean as someone who's interacting with a lot of kids and has seen, in 28 years, I just can't
imagine all that. I mean, you've probably forgotten more things than you, than anything. But like,
I think to sort of boil it down to say, you know, the takeaways from your work and what you've seen,
I really hope everyone hears like it really isn't rocket science in as much as like we just often
think and I'm there too. I have, man, I've got it like it's a, it's a voice that's in the back of
my head of like, Hey, I need to keep the accelerator down with my kid. I need to keep, you know,
to keep on making sure that they, that they're doing their best all the time. And, and I hear,
but I mean, and this is what we also know. It's what we know about adolescent psychology. It's
what we know about, you know, brain development, moral formation, all that sort of stuff.
The key building blocks more than likely through adolescence are there, are there,
are there as long as they don't get mixed up in, in substance abuse, which like you said,
that's a major wildcard. As long as they don't, and they have a parent that really what you've
really really said becomes more of a mentor and coach to them and less of a less of a
guiding each one of their steps and kind of giving all of this.
You're setting up them by and large, setting them up first and first success. And then
that way we can just as parents take a little bit of a breather. So absolutely. Well, man,
Sean, wow, really helpful, interesting perspectives on things. I think a lot of good experience.
But we can never end a show without putting you through the final ringer. And so now it is time
for now it's time for dudes and dads pop quiz. Thank you, Aaron. James appreciate it. This is
where we ask you random questions. You can't prepare for them right anyway, shape or form. And
we can't prepare for the answer. Oh, man. That's good. That's what makes this podcast magic.
Yes. Andy, you got you tell me when you're ready with your questions and I'm going to fire mine off.
All right. What's your greatest regret? I want the regret one. Nice one. My greatest regret
would be and I don't have very many of those. That's okay. So yeah, my greatest regret would
be that I couldn't trick Shelly into marrying me at five years instead of seven.
Wow. I feel like the way he answered that is like it's a win. Right. Yeah. One more matter
of what. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Sean, if you were, if you had a time machine
and you wanted to relive three significant events within your lifetime,
what would those three things be? I would, and I'm going to pair these together. I would relive
both of my kids being born because I've never had a body mental spiritual reaction like that in my
life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then so the second one would be reliving a week before my dad died.
He was on a fishing trip with us and my son Liam was on the boat and my dad could barely do anything
by that point. And my dad catches about a three and a half pound small mouth bass and reels it in
himself, which was like, he could hardly hold a spoon and we get it in and we're all just excited.
And Liam turns to me just tears flush in his face and he said, I just prayed God let him have one
more. Oh, come on. Come on. Yeah. I could live that all day every day. Yeah. That's great.
And then, then the, I think probably one of my greatest gift joys in my life is a mug my daughter
Cara gave me that basically the mug said, thanks for raising me to be a great man even though I'm
your daughter. And I was so excited about that because I've always said we don't have different
rules for boys and girls in our house. She's a very strong woman, but not a not mouthy strong.
She's just strong. Yeah. And so when she gave that to me, it was one of the best gifts of my life.
That's great. All right. What is your favorite gadget? My favorite gadget would be,
I'm going to have to say my, this is my favorite. I'm thinking of all the things I play with. Okay,
probably my favorite gadget is I have like a World War two trench lighter. There's somebody
had built out of a cartridge in World War two and it's taken me a lot to kind of get it running
and going again. So I'd say it's probably my favorite gadget. That's nice. That's good.
Favorite book that you've read in the last five years?
My favorite, the favorite one I'd say would probably be endurance. It's the story of Ernest
Shackleton's ship. I don't know if you've heard the story, but they got 1800s, got stuck in
pack ice, survived for 400 and some days in Antarctica. Amazing story. Great leadership story.
My last question, which living person do you admire the most?
It's a tie and it's all within my family. Oh, wow. Oh man. Yeah, I admire both. I admire all three,
my daughter and my son and my wife. Nice. For different reasons. My son is probably the
best representation of Jesus that I see. He's just crazy weird how good he is. You know what I mean?
Like almost irritating. My daughter is always a surprise in the depth of her spirituality
and my wife is always an amazing representation of grace where it's not.
I just go to dinner with my family basically. That's great. Awesome. That's great.
Sean, what's the best thing you've eaten in the last year?
Well, that's easy for me to answer. So when the salmon are running into Bering Springs,
my son and I always go out and fish. And so there's been times where we catch a salmon,
flay it up, butter it and salt it over a fire and there's nothing better than that.
Well, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Sean, congratulations. You have passed.
You have successfully passed. Flying colors. Oh, gosh. Sean, I just want to say,
from the bottom of my heart, I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for being out there.
Yeah. Thanks for coming out. We're just so fortunate to have people
like you and the many great people that are at Basher doing amazing things in our community.
And so as always, we will give you all the ways.
Basher is always looking for volunteers, people to invest in their ministry there and all that.
So we'll make sure over the show notes at Dudes and Dads, Dudes and Dands podcast.
You'll get it right. We'll get it on these days. We'll make sure to send links over there so you
can get to know more about them. Guys, we appreciate you. We're grateful for you. You can
hover to dudes and dads podcast.com for all the show notes, past episodes, future episodes,
present episodes, Dudes and Dands podcast at gmail.com. You can listen now to our future
episodes. You can. You can. You've got a time machine. It's amazing. Dudes and Dads podcast
at gmail.com. If you want to send us an email ideas for future show ideas, all that good stuff,
all that great stuff, all that great stuff. Anything else Andy with grace and peace. See ya.
Hey, baby.
Yeah.
You
you
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