Ep 32: 12 Years Later - Why This Message Matters More Than Ever - Part 1

If you're a parent looking for sound, solid advice on how to raise your child in an ever-increasing dangerous world, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Richard Ramos.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. I'm Richard Ramos. Author, speaker, parent coach, and like many of you, someone who cares deeply about what's happening in our communities, our homes, and most importantly, our kids. Today is episode 1 of a limited podcast series that I created, and I'll be sharing over the next few episodes called 12 Years Later: Why This Message Matters More Than Ever. You see, 12 years ago, I published a book called From the Margins to the Mainstream: Preparing Latino Youth for Leadership in the 21st Century. That book was part warning, part challenge, and part blueprint for mentoring youth on how to become a community leader. And now, more than a decade later, I've realized the urgency of the message hasn't faded. In fact, it's intensified. So this series is my invitation to you to revisit that message and/or get your copy of the book From the Margins to the Mainstream if you don't already have one. You can go to my website, richardrramos.com, or Amazon, and you can buy your copy there. I'm also inviting you to reimagine what leadership looks like in the home, and finally, to recommit to being the kind of parent, adult, and/or youth mentor young people will thank God for later in their life. Let me start with a line that summarizes what the book is all about. The most effective social program I believe for developing youth future leaders and future influencers is a parent and/or youth mentor with a plan. Now, I know that might rub against the conventional wisdom, as it's called, but we don't need conventional in these unconventional times, especially when Many continue to look for a quick fix from schools, government agencies, or nonprofits to fix what's broken. Hear me out. Let me explain. What our kids need more than another referral is a relationship. More than another diagnosis, they need direction. And more than another system of psychologists and psychiatrists. Prescriptions, which seems to be more and more popular. I say they need first a steady, present, emotionally secure parent leader. And if that's not available, a solid community mentor, which is why I developed my Youth on a Mission Train the Trainer Program, because sometimes parents aren't there for the kids for whatever reason. So I developed that Train the Trainer program to develop young people who want to be a community leader. Now, when I first wrote From the Margins to the Mainstream, I was writing out of my own story, or lived experience as people like to call it these days. Because I've walked with families gripped by gang violence in my own life. I've lived the pain of an absent father, which I did not have. I did not have a father in the home. And just like a lot of my friends did not have fathers when I grew up, I had an emotionally wounded mother. And I was caught, a child caught in the crossfire of what was going on in our home, along with my brother and sisters. And so my intention for the book and the Youth on a Mission Train the Trainer was I was trying to do something about it, about what I know really goes on not only in the community but in the homes of the community, and provide a solution that works. In other words, what I was trying to do back then, 12 years ago, was filling those age-old cracks That we say kids are falling through the cracks and do something about the generational cycles of poverty and violence. Youth who are searching for loyalty— where? In the street. And parents losing moral authority that they used to have. That's what I was trying to do back then. But fast forward 12 years, and what do we see now? The cracks are more like canyons. Today, we're facing the same kind of crisis, but to a much different and more dangerous degree. Not just violence in the streets, that's bad enough, but this is a violence in the soul, the soul of individuals, the soul of families, and the very soul of the nation. Most marked by the constant and consistent school shootings and the recent broad daylight assassination of Charlie Kirk that was celebrated by way too many professional people and politicians. That just shows us how sick the soul of our nation is. See, I was raised in a broken family, and today so many families remain broken, fragmented by social media distraction, parent disconnection, and anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-family ideology. I mean, we're in a season where mental health concerns for young people are at record highs. More and more kids are raised on screens instead of ethical common sense standards. Parental authority is questioned, undermined, and/or simply missing. And our systems, whether they be government or school, they're overwhelmed, reactive, backwards, upside down, irrelevant, and often disconnected from the communities they're supposed to be serving. But here's what I've learned in my decades of doing this work. You don't change a community, a family, or an individual by politics, or more prisons, police, pools, playgrounds, or more parks, or funding a program. You change it by forming better Parents, which is why years ago I developed my Parents on a Mission Train the Trainer system for developing parent leadership in the home, because I believe that is where we have to start if we're going to change things and heal the sickness in our homes, in our communities, and in our country. And if we can't reach the parents, because another thing I've learned over the years I've been doing this, some parents just don't want help. But what we can do is we can create more youth mentors through the Youth on a Mission train-the-trainer process to develop youth to be the next positive social media influencers and community leaders. So before you start thinking, man, this is all doom and gloom, it's really not. But I'm just sharing my heart because I've seen what happens when a parent decides to lead again. I've seen a mom who once was in survival mode become a mentor to other moms. I've seen dads who were once disengaged turn into champions of their kids' emotional safety. And I've seen families that were stuck in generational cycles of dysfunction begin to rise because one parent or one mentor decided they weren't going to let their children and family stay on the margins of their community. So let me leave you with a challenge right here in this first episode of 12 Years Later. Mom and Dad, let's ask ourselves, am I parenting with a plan or just reacting to pressure? Are you shaping the future of your children with intention or letting the future shape you and your kids? Are you living or being lived by others? Are you creating your future and the future of your children, or just reacting to whatever new thing confronts you? If you're a parent, what values are you reinforcing on a consistent basis that counter The messaging of the negative music, the negative movies, negative magazines, and all kinds of social media platforms. How are we countering those messages in our home? If you're a coach, maybe a teacher, or you're a mentor in a nonprofit organization, I want to ask you this: Are you partnering with parents or replacing them? See, I think that's one of the most powerful things I did with Parents on a Mission. I wasn't trying to replace the parents; I was partnering with them and asking them to join me not only in receiving the messages that I was teaching in Parents on a Mission, but also to allow me to train them as parent mentors so they could take the lessons and their story out. to the community, to other parents, and partner with me as mentors in the community developing parent leadership in the home. If you do have a program, let me ask you this. Is it building dependency? In other words, where the people in the program, youth or parents, have to depend on you? Or does it develop independent Healthy individuals who can then lead others. So these are the challenges, and I know it's challenging, but just look at it this way. Look at it as a coach who has your best interests in mind. Think about Olympic athletes. These are the best athletes in the world, and yet all of them have coaches that are pushing them, that are challenging them, to perform at their peak potential. And that's what I'm doing here in asking you to consider these questions, because I want you to realize that you, as a parent and/or a mentor of youth, you are in the best position to influence your kids. And as I always encourage parents I always express this to them. I am not blaming you for everything that goes wrong with your kids, but I am naming you as the most important asset, the most important person in the community. Think about that. If I were to ask you to just think about who is the most important person or people in the community. Right away, a lot of people, well, it's the politician, it's the pastor, it's the priest, it's the principal of the school. No, all those people are fine and they all have their role, but they're not the most important asset. They're not the most important person or people in the community when it comes to raising your children. You are. You're the most important person. Mom, dad, stepmom, stepdad, or youth mentor. You're the most important person. You're in the best position to influence your children and/or youth that you might be mentoring, like I did many years ago. So I want you to really understand that, catch that, and keep that in your heart of who you are and your important. Relevance in what I'm talking about today. Now let me say at the end, in concluding here, if this message has stirred something in you, I want you to share it with somebody. Share it with another parent or mentor or community leader that you know who would be interested in hearing this message. And as I said earlier, if you don't have the book From the Margins to the Mainstream, if you haven't read it yet, reading it will really help you understand where I'm coming from. And remember, I wrote that book 12 years ago, and it just impresses me how I have thought about that book and that message. And I look at the world today and what's going on today, and things are just worse. But that doesn't mean we should throw in the towel. So I invite you to get your copy. Again, richardrramos.com, that's my website. You can get it there, or you can simply go to Amazon. Now, in the next episode, I'm going to get into something that's been happening also recently, and that is the war on authority. And who's paying the price for that? It's our kids. So trust me, that's the message you don't want to miss. Listen, I'm Richard Ramos, and thank you for joining me on the Parent Whisperer Podcast. Always remember, Mom and Dad, Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents like you who want to get better. See you next time.

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