Ep 49: POM Interview with Richard and Shannon Morales

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, it's Richard Ramos and welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. Today, I want to do something a little different. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I'm doing this because normally when I do this, for those of you that have been following me, you know that it's just been myself either answering questions or dealing with different subjects, either parents or stepparents. But today, I have a special guest or guests plural. A couple that I have come to know over the last 20 years, great friends, can't say enough about them, but they've been through my program, Parents on a Mission, and I thought what would be good rather than always just listening to me, that you could hear someone else's story. So I want to introduce to you Richard and Shannon Morales. They are from Colorado Springs, Colorado. And Richard, why don't you introduce yourself and your wife and tell us a little bit about you and what you guys do, and then we'll talk about your children.

Yeah, thanks, Richard. Richard Morales. I currently serve as the Executive Director for Latino Coalition Community Leadership. I've been working with them for the last 20-plus years and also, you know, father of 3 children and grandfather of 3 children as well.

Shannon Morales. I am the president and founder of Case Manager Solutions, which provides software for nonprofits to help them prove their impact and really be able to demonstrate that the work they do is really important in the community.

So why I want you guys are to be here today regarding your kids, because we've known each other for a long time, and when we first met My children were a lot younger, although much older than your kids, but your kids were really little and it was just a wonderful time. But watching them grow all these years later, and at that time I was also— Parents on a Mission was also very young. I was just trying to launch it, get it going. It was very kind of new. And you guys really helped me along and you've been through the course. I don't know how many times have you been through?

Oh, 20+ times easy. Easy, easy, easy. And I think for us, you know, you're right, the kids, they were small when we first met. They were between 3 and 6, somewhere in there. And so my first introduction to Parents on a Mission was really just helping you and get prepared for the courses and, you know, helping facilitate, you know, all of the things that you were doing. And so for us to see how it evolved over the years, but more lucky I feel is just the fact that I got to really absorb it.

Yeah.

It just isn't one time because you have to do it over and over again. 'Cause I kept finding myself in a different place as a parent, encountering different things as they were getting older, as I was getting older. So that was really powerful for me to know that it's a constant learning. It's a constant evolution.

Yeah, so Shannon, as a mom, but now as a grandma, how do you see your experience first with your kids, but then thinking about your son now with kids?

Yeah, it is a whole nother experience. I would agree that having— going through it multiple times or hearing things, you're like, oh yeah, I forgot about that piece, or oh yeah, I gotta really focus on that, has been a good experience. But then it is really nice to see sort of the fruits of that labor or the work you did, even when it was hard, to be able to see now your kids having kids and using those skills without even knowing they're using those skills. Like they just learned it from us. It wasn't like something they took or like we would be like, okay, what would Richard Ramos say in this instance? Well, you know, let's think about it. Let's take a moment where, because we used it, it's more intuitive for them. They're kind of like, oh, this is what my parents did. They didn't, you know, and they just use those skills. And that's been pretty amazing to see that.

Yeah, it is amazing. You know what? I forgot to mention that. About— you took me way back even further because you helped me write some of the curriculum. You gave me some—

Just formatting, just the structure.

Structure, and also some icebreakers and some illustrations and some of that thing. And then the other person I should credit is Eve Berry, a woman who at the time we were working with, she was a consultant, and she really helped me with structure and some of those other things too. And that was Way back, probably in 2006.

Yes.

It was around there that I had written my first book. And the first part of Parents on a Mission was for gang intervention. I was answering the question for parents like that were saying, you know, Richard, how do I prevent my kids from joining gangs? And so my whole philosophy, which is still the same, prevention is not intervention. I did intervention for years, and intervention is when the kids are already down the line. They're already down the road. They're already doing things that you don't want them doing. And that was my experience as a youth mentor, as a youth counselor, dealing with kids that were already on the path, the wrong path. But this was about prevention. And that's how I developed— those of you that have been listening, you know, I talked about the home field advantage. And that's how I developed that strategy, because parents wanted to know, About prevention, so you were a big part of that, and that goes way back to 2006. But here we are all these years later, and I'll never forget, and it's very a big reward and blessing to me because I've had these several times. But your letter came to me in an email, and your son had. Gone into the military, and you sent me an email. And so why don't you pick it up from there?

Yeah, you know, all these years we were going through everything, you know, that I think any parent goes through about the kids evolving and learning and growing. And some spots are definitely easier than others, but some spots are really tough. And I think that was kind of the season that we were in with one of our children who was just Very, you know, what does it say? Hardheaded, you know, just had to learn for himself, wanted to be very independent, and was just at that age where he wanted to get out and explore. Not that he was doing bad, you know, he just, we just weren't seeing living in his full potential. And that's, that's what we were seeing. But we were also living, and I'm so thankful for it, just remembering, hey, we're in the farming mode. We're doing all the tilling of the soil. We're doing the weeding. We're doing all the stuff that's just all the labor.

Planting the seed.

Planting all of those different seeds, you know, for our oldest, you know, it was for the point where I was showing up to his graduation and I was still wondering, man, is he gonna be able to graduate? Like, is he really gonna be able to watch the stage, you know, walk the stage and do those things? Because we were just like, we're not sure what's gonna happen today.

Mm-hmm.

You know, but thank God, you know, he was able to graduate that day and 3 days later he was in the military. He's a smart kid, you know, not afraid to work.

Did you say 3 days later after he graduated?

Yes. After he graduated high school. Yeah.

He, wow.

You know, and the honest truth was he doesn't have a lot of other options. You know, he could go and go to work right away, of course, but he knew that he needed some other opportunities. And so he had to go into the Army right after he graduated.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and we're thinking like, oh my goodness, what's going to happen from here? You know, this was the kid that you tell him the sky is blue, he's going to say it's red. If, you know, just had to just prove it to himself. But as he started going into the military, you know, he started to blossom. You know, it was things that he was responsible for. And I remember his mother Shannon here being very upset with him when we went for the test to get into the military that he scored off the charts, like the highest. You know, we couldn't get him to remember to put his homework in his backpack.

Yeah.

You know, let alone here he is taking this test and he scores off the charts so he could do whatever he wanted to do. So then all of a sudden he's in military intelligence and we're scratching our head going, are you serious? This kid?

You—

oh, he's— well, this is what's happening, but, you know, happy he's on his way, right? But, you know, as we're learning what he's doing and hearing more about it, he received this commendation. And I read the comment. I still have it. It's one I shared with you, right?

I have it too.

You know, and I just could not believe— I was like, who is this kid? And you think they're not in there. You think they're not listening. You think they're not picking anything up. You're not sure what's happening. And then you see this written commendation, just an outstanding commendation that he received an award for within the military intelligence community. And that was the fruit. That was the moment where we finally could harvest some of the fruit of years of hard work, of years of wondering, what's this kid gonna be able to do? What's gonna happen next? And to see that was just an incredible moment for both of us.

Mm-hmm.

And something that we completely credited to Parents on a Mission, just all those things we learned, because there was not one single moment. It was hundreds of small moments.

And that's the key, and that's the way it is. And I try to encourage parents about that because I know it is hard when you're on the journey of, you know, what we call planting, plowing, watering, cultivating. And then parents always want to know, well, When am I going to see the fruit of my labor?

I don't know.

I don't know. And in your case, it was you know years. In other cases, it might be months. In other cases, it could be you know even longer. We've been through the same thing with one of our children, and it's been years. You know that we'll continue to plow, plant, water. But I know this, and this is what we teach: when you're doing that, the law of the harvest is on your side because you're not giving up. You just keep on doing the same like a farmer. That's why we call. You know, Shannon, I want you to speak too, because a lot of times there are what I call— you could have the best children in the world, but the parents weren't so great.

Mm-hmm.

Or you could have the worst children in the world and the parents are great. And again, we're not saying who you're talking about is the worst. We're just saying, you guys, I know you, okay? You guys are great people. You're great parents. But what's that like when, you know, you, you're a great parent, You start doubting yourself, like, am I doing the right thing? Am I doing enough? But here we are, these much later, and your son is doing great. He has 3 kids.

Yeah, no, I think you definitely go through those, and I think you see some of your own challenges in your kids. And I think what Richard and I did was really sort of— all of our kids are completely different. Anybody with multiple children knows this. They're unique and you have to adjust to them. And so we sort of started looking at who sort of could work with, be more patient, talk through, and use some of the skills differently with different kids. Because I do think so often we do focus on the challenge we had, but I think what really resonates with me and my experience, especially with all 3 of my children, is the— you have really great kids doing great things, but there are still challenges. And what I always tried to remind myself is the whole preparation for separation that you talked about, because I think that's so important for parents because you do have to prepare. You're preparing your kids to be on their own and go through challenges and build muscles. You can't do everything for them. They have to build the muscles. They have to build the resiliency. And a lot of that goes back to you saying, I'm preparing them, you know, preparing for separation, preparation for separation, like you say all the time. That was sort of my mantra as my kids were getting older is like, no, they need to, Things need to be hard sometimes. Things need to, because you want to do, you want them to have better. I think all parents sort of feel that way. You want to make things easier for your kids. You know, you've had it tough.

We want to save them.

Exactly, exactly. So I think that mantra of the preparation for separation, what made a big difference in helping our kids be more resilient. There's some ways, you know, you look back and you go, oh, I wish I'd helped them build this muscle better by giving them more opportunity to maybe fail a little bit, to make things harder. But again, I think thinking that through for no matter if you have the best, easiest kid in the world versus the hardest kid in the world and every kid in between, I think that idea of thinking about how they can build their muscles to be resilient, to be able to be good parents when they get older, like all of those things has been a really key part that I didn't When you're so focused on challenges with the kid, you don't think about just the baseline of these are the things we have to do to prepare them for when I'm not there all the time, or I shouldn't be there all the time. They should be on their own. They should be doing these things. And that's sometimes the missing piece. I think that's so fundamental to any thinking about being a parent.

Yeah, I would completely agree because so often, so many parents that I've seen never want their kid to experience failure. They don't want them to fail. like some source of embarrassment for them. And we're like, no, that's part of growing. That is definitely where you build that resilience. And so I think it's how you approached failure, how we started talking about what can we learn from this? You know, what could we have done differently next time? And sometimes things just don't go your way. There's nothing you could have done different. Yeah, it's not fair, but what's next?

Right.

And really trying to move through that. And so being in a position to coach our kids and not get caught up on our own emotion, around, you know, whatever that was, was really important.

Well, so you mentioned that emotional maturity is the key, right? I mean, that is the first thing we talk about. How has that, you know, played a part in you knowing that you had to look at yourself before wanting to correct? Because right away we want to correct the kids, which I, you know, I've failed in that many, many times. But over the years I learned I got to look at me first.

Yeah, and that was, you know, I think one of the great strengths that we have is just in our marriage, sometimes we're able to speak into each other in these moments, to have this reflection of like, how did you handle that? And this is an area that, you know, I need to grow in. And to have some of that feedback and reflection has been really, really important, you know, because, you know, first it's easy, right? You do some comment because I said so. I'm dad. That's why you do that.

Right.

You know, and as they get older—

Especially when they're little.

Yeah, when they're little, right? But as they get older and then they give you a really good rationale, like, well, no, this is another way to do it. And you have to stop and think, like, you know what? That's— yeah, that's an okay way to do that too. But I think that constant, like, having to grow myself and not thinking like, oh, I'm a dad, I achieved it. That's just the way I think and what I say is just— in our experience was not the right way to handle that. We had to continue to grow. But also, you know, I think one of the most powerful pieces for me in Parents on a Mission was just talking about how to say sorry and to admit and apologize to your kids when you blew it, right?

You know, that's so huge.

It's so huge. And I think for us, having experienced that, and to see one of my children just so caught off guard that I apologized to them and admitted a mistake that I had made, right, was a really big moment. And just Them seeing me a person, but also that vulnerability that also allowed them to have a vulnerability to come and talk about things that maybe they wouldn't have otherwise.

Hey everybody, listen, you are listening to a couple, Richard and Shannon Morales, and I wanted to do that because I can talk about Parents on a Mission all day. I can tell you guys how I think it works, and I can even talk about people that have told me how it worked and things like that, but you're hearing it for the first time. You're hearing it from a real couple. They've gone through the course many times, as they already mentioned. So Richard, Shannon, any last encouraging words you want to give to parents that are listening to this?

For me, it's just, you know, hang in there. We know it's hard, those times you're really questioning when you're staying up all night not sharing what to do next, you know, really use the principles within Parents on a Mission to get you through that because you don't know what to do. So you have to lean in somewhere. And that, over 20 years, 3 children, 3 grandchildren, has not steered us wrong.

Yeah.

For sure. And I would say for those people that are in a relationship as parents, you know, together, that it's very— not being critical of each other or how you behave. It's like Learning together as much as possible, which is really important. I think if there is an issue, things like that, not having that disagreement or argument in front of the kids, talking about that separately so you come together as a team really on that, and having that emotional maturity to have that sort of relationship and make sure that's in a place so you can parent supportively together. Neither one of you is going to be right all the time, wrong all the time, but if you can come together and do the best you can together with the kids, that's going to make a huge difference as well.

I want to thank you guys for your time. Thank you for being here. And I think we should just let everybody know where we're at, right? We are sitting in an Airbnb in, of all places, Cortona, Italy. So I don't know if that makes you eat your heart out or not, but that's where I am. But I wanted to get this done. We've been spending time together. So I'm Richard Ramos. Thank you for listening. Subscribe, leave a review. If you have questions, you can always email me. And remember, I have resources on my website, richardrramos.com. I have a new online Parent on a Mission course. You can go there and find it there. You can find my books there. And if you know parents that you feel need to hear this episode, Please share it with them, and always remember: Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents; it's for good parents who want to get better. See you next time.

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