Support Not Gratitude With Randi Thompson

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Randi, Randi Thompson from KidSafe. She is an adoptive mum and co-founder, president, and CEO of all of that, of KidSafe.

So, and janitor.

And janitor, that's my job. I do all the jobs here too. So welcome to the show, Randi. I'm looking forward to our chats. We've had a couple in the past and now we've made it happen and we're here. So go, go, Randi.

Well, thank you for having me.

Yeah, you're welcome. You're very welcome. So the big question, right? Thriving. What does thriving mean to you, Randi?

I think thriving is having the opportunity and the ability to exist in our society in a way that is both psychologically and financially sustainable. I think our kids, when we talk about thriving, it's, you know, you're not looking for them necessarily to be the next rocket scientist. You're looking for them to have To be contributing members of society and to have a core inside them that is healthy and able to exist and be happy. Yeah.

Perhaps the last, the best till last there, to be happy.

Find joy, to find joy in life. To have to be able to be through some of the more challenging parts that have impeded that ability to have joy.

Yeah. So what, what do you think impedes that? Impedes joy? Impedes inspiring?

Are you talking about for people in general or for children?

For you. I'd love to, I'd love to make this as personal as we, as we can, really. Um, I, I'm interested in, in your learnings, right? Um, and, and clearly you're a, you're, you're a leader and you're an adoptive mum. So, uh, as, as big as you'd like.

Sure. Well, I mean, I find great joy in life and I find great joy in what I do. I love what I do. I love the, the fact that I found this as my second career. Um, It was almost— I don't like to say a calling, but it really was something that called to me that I thought I could make a difference. And so, the ability to make a difference, the ability to create change gives me great joy and allows me to thrive, I believe.

Yeah.

As a parent, of course, the ability to be happy, the ability to thrive is so contingent upon your children. And I think there's that saying, you're only as happy as your happiest child. But I think as parents, as people, we have the responsibility to ourselves also to recognize that we can create, we can facilitate, we can create the opportunity, we can create the platform, the love, the security. But we cannot make another person happy. We cannot. At some point, that person has to take the responsibility to take— you're not happy for someone else. You're happy for yourself. You're not thriving because somebody— because Mommy told you to. Mommy gave you that. You're thriving because that's what you are choosing to take as your path forward.

Yeah, there's so much there. Um, the thing that pops into, to my head is sometimes trauma's choosing, right? If, if we're, if we're, if we're looking at the impediments to thriving or the impediments to happiness, it's, it's, it's trauma choosing. It's, it, it's, it's not us.

Well, you know, there's always that question whether people choose to allow their trauma to rule or whether they just haven't had the support and the help that they've needed to be able to work through that trauma. I mean, trauma is very real for our kids. Certainly trauma is very real in terms of its impediment to moving forward. You know, people have trauma and they get stuck. You hear of the child who was traumatized at 11, and that's sort of impedes their development forward until they're able to address and resolve that trauma. I mean, we don't— when we say we heal from trauma, we heal from it, but we're never the same after trauma. So it's how we build to the next level that I think allows us to thrive or not to thrive.

Another adoptive mum helped me see this so clearly. a few months ago, and she, she was talking about— so she fosters as well as, um, as well as having adopted. And she's— she lays it out to the, to the kids after there's been a settling-in period, right? Um, and she talks about, uh, she said, I'm not denying your trauma, but you've got a, you've got a choice now. You can either succumb to the trauma or you can rise above it. And that has stayed with me as an incredibly powerful and could be seen as a challenging thing to say to somebody. But she's laying it on the line.

Yes, as long as she's also providing the support services that that child needs to be able to overcome that trauma, because I don't I don't believe it is solely a choice. I mean, I don't— yes, when you say choose trauma, there are people who really have severe issues that they need to be able to deal with. And they, as much as they may try, and as much as I think for so many of the children that we see that have been traumatized, they are incredibly resilient. It's— but that doesn't mean they're thriving. When they, you know, their resiliency allows them to move forward. But if they move forward without resolving those past traumas, then it's always going to be with a flawed or an incomplete ability to thrive, I think.

Perhaps then it's more about a choice to resolve. then, a choice to resolve. Uh, and I, I, um, and she's, she's talking to older teens at this point, right? These aren't—

Sure.

These, these aren't, um, these aren't youngsters. And what, you know, I, I said that it was— it's a challenging statement because I, I can't imagine myself going into a thriving— going into a Facebook group full of adult adoptees and saying something like that to them, they would, they would be coming for me with everything that they, that they could. But, um, I think one of the ways that, uh, I think about this is something from one of my really long-term mentors. And I don't— I speak to her probably once a year now, but I, there was a time I spoke to her every week. It was like I started talking with her like 19 years ago. So she wasn't a therapist, she was more of a mentor/coachy type person, but she used to say, well, it's okay for us, Simon, we're standing in the back garden and we're standing in the backyard and the sun is shining And we're saying, we're saying life's good. And there's some underground daffodils that are magically, uh, able to speak and hear. And they can, they can hear us talking about how— talking about this, the sunny day that's happening, right? And they're shouting up at us, you liars, you lies, you It's dark, it's dark. All I can see is darkness. There is no light, right?

Right.

It's just we— they haven't seen it yet. They're still kind of like— they're still underground daffodils. And but one hopes that given the right kind of nutrients in the soil and stuff, that they will grow, and then they will be— they will pop through, and they'll be able to see what we're able to see, what we're, we're talking about. And then they'll go from that. Hopefully they'll go from that victim to victim to survivor to thriver. That looks like an arc.

Right. I mean, I think that the thriving is growth. It's not the absence of trauma. It's not the absence of suffering. It's the ability to move forward past it. So I think that that's, that's really what we're talking about is that, you know, you It's not a choice of I'm going to choose trauma or choose to move forward. I mean, a lot of trauma— many successful adoptees, many successful people still have emotional issues that they're dealing with, but they are moving. They're having the ability to move forward. It can become part of somebody's identity. And that's where I think what you're saying about choice, you know, people label themselves as, I've suffered so much. It does shape how people see the world sometimes, though. And it's certainly healing isn't linear.

Right.

You know, it's not something that just, you know, for adoptees, often trauma is a defining part of their lives. And so How do you integrate that into your experience, into the broader array of broader identity that includes relationships? You know, when you say thriving, and only I think thriving means healthy relationships, growth. And if you can incorporate— I mean, trauma can make people stronger. Not that we ever want our children certainly to have trauma, but it— some of the kids that I've worked with over the years are very strong. Because they've had to endure trauma. And it's that ability to, you know, go forward with the support and the relationships that will help you to imagine a different future, to imagine a different kind of relationship, those, those types of things.

So, so is— do you mean despite trauma, with trauma, growth with trauma?

And it's like, we don't ask our young people to ignore their trauma. when we're working with kids. We acknowledge it, but it's not— what did somebody say to me? It's my past. My past doesn't have to define my future. My trauma is not your destiny. So the whole thing we do at KidSafe is we try to give children, youth, safe, committed relationships that are healthy. And that will allow them, you know, to get the support that they need to overcome and move forward through the trauma. But it doesn't mean that it shapes who they are. It shapes how they see the world often. And it's really, you know, that whole resilience piece that, you know, is one of the stronger predictives. Resilience plus the supportive relationships, the help that they need to get through it, are, you know, one of the greatest predictors of successful outcomes for a thriving life.

So I'm gonna guess that starting your second career in this space, making a difference, I'm gonna guess that you went— you've learned a lot about resilience doing that, right? The stuff that you've—

yeah. We believed these kids deserved an opportunity. And we heard no. I mean, no, no, no, no, it can't happen. No, these kids are too old. No, they're too damaged. No, families won't step forward. No. And we believed that it could. And so we had to— people often in my early parts of my career used to say I was like a dog with a bone. You know, you— I wouldn't get I wouldn't let go of it. I would just keep working it. We believed very strongly that these kids deserved an opportunity. And so for every no, we just sort of pushed forward. We found another avenue to get forward. So yeah, resilience is certainly something that I think my co-founder and I have. Yeah.

And it's tenacity, it's persistence. And I think that, you know, the They're all, to me, they're all kind of, they're all, all related. But, um, but, and I want to kind of take it back a bit because if, if we're, if we're saying, right, these kids are too damaged, is that what you said? I think you said—

That's what people would tell us. Yeah.

So, so people are saying these kids are, are too damaged. I'm, I'm having a visceral reaction to this.

Yeah, they're looking at it through a trauma lens. But they're, but they're putting that trauma on the child as opposed to something that has been part of their experience. You know, they're, they're labeling that child that way.

They're labeling. And, and we, uh, the, the jargon I've heard from a, a therapist is we're pathologizing adoptees.

Correct, correct.

Right. So the, if If we're growing up in, around, or we're existing in a space where older people who are in authority think that we're broken, then we're likely to—

Then we're going to hear it so many times, right?

Yeah, we're going to. So it's the same. It's the same stuff. Right, it's, it's the surroundings. Who do— do the people that surround us think that we can get past the tough stuff?

Correct.

And if they think so, if they think so, but those orphans that you were talking about, right, they were in an— they were— the people that surrounded them were saying no.

Right. So labeling them, they were putting them in a box and they were saying, this is, this is what their future can be.

Yeah. So that, so then, and, and they're all— that would be bleeding from them. Their, their, their view on these kids is, is, is going to be demonstrated in how they treat the kids, how they talk about this, you know. And, you know, I, I've I've heard kids being talked about within their earshot being broken, right? And—

Broken or being unadoptable or being too old or too, you know, I mean, just there's so many things that children hear that impact how they, how they process who they are. And so, I mean, one of the things that You know, our model, as I think I've told you before, is— I think it's a great part of a toolbox for a child welfare system. But when we first introduced it, it doesn't go down the traditional child welfare path of matching up children before they've met adults. And that works well for babies. as the child gets older and they have these labels and they've moved in and out of different settings, becomes more and more difficult for them. And because, as you said, the adults in your area that are saying you have this damage or this damage or this damage, you know, all that goes into a file. All that stuff sitting in some file which is defining an individual now. And so what we're trying to do for both the youth and the families is to Move the file off to the side. It's there. We're not denying the trauma. We're not saying that it doesn't exist. But what we're doing is trying to have people see the children as individuals, have the kids see the families that way as well, the potential families, and see that there are people who are there who are not looking at them in the same way that they may have had people in their history. You know, view them. And it makes a huge difference. You know, it empowers kids, it gives them agency, it gives them, um, some sway over their life and what happens, that, that they realize that their past doesn't have to define their future.

Yeah. Can you give me an example of, of, of a, of how you, how that's, um, shown up in, in the world? Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, 'cause that, that empowerment to me, it, you know, the empowerment having, having the choice is a, is a huge, is a huge thing.

Sure.

Sure.

And it shows up. I, I'd love to have you come to one of our events. It shows up every time we're at an event. You know, kids come in, they're feeling reticent. Sometimes they've had a social worker convince them to come and they'll do anything if they're in a group home or whatever to get out of that. But, you know, they'll come and, They'll be surprised that there are people there who just want to spend time with them. Surprised that people are there who aren't being paid. Surprised that people come back. You know, they'll say, what are you doing back here again? I'm here because I want to spend time with you. Why? You know, they— the validation that they've been getting in the past is not that somebody's there just because they want to spend time with them. And then to give them agency, to give them the ability to say, well, you know, a lot of these adults selected you. Was there anybody you liked? Is there anybody you'd like to get to know better? And putting that power at least somewhat back in the youth's hands, you know, having them not be told, go here, do this, do that. Go to this person's house, go to some stranger's house, or give them the opportunity to meet and get to know people in a safe, interactive environment, and then to be able to move forward. I mean, there was a child, she just graduated UCLA, one of our kids, a couple of weeks ago.

Wow.

And she came to our program when she was 12 and a half maybe. And she had been told that she was unadoptable. She had been told that, you know, she just was too old to find a family. And she had a wonderful CASA worker who heard about our program and brought her to her first event. And not that she didn't have a lot of challenges, you know, she'd had a lot of trauma that her— she and her family have worked through for many, many years. This child had a go bag that she kept in her closet for years. She would change the sizes out because, you know, you're just not trusting that this new life that is really— that's the other thing. You've got trauma and you have a new life. And so how do you trust that life? How long does it take to be able to trust that it will be there for always, that you're not going to have someone else disappoint you and create more trauma? So it took a long, long time. But here she's now graduated college. She's heading off. She's doing— You know, deciding what she wants to do with her next phase. But, you know, she's thriving. She's absolutely thriving. And it didn't come easy to her or her family. Everybody works, and you have to work at it. It's not— I wish I— I mean, for me, I would say, and that's why it's hard to see this through the lens of someone who suffered really significant trauma. I've suffered lots of nos in my life, but You know, I grew up with a loving family. Um, I also see my children who grew up with a loving family because they were adopted at a very young age, but their trauma is different than, you know, they still experience some trauma just being adoptees, you know. And you don't know sometimes how that trauma affects because with an older child you can see it. You know, you can't really see it sort of bubbling up in that younger child sometimes where those feelings, you know, it's a different kind of trauma, obviously, but it's real to the person nonetheless. And so, you know, I think sometimes with younger children, it's an invisible trauma because we don't see it until maybe they hit their teens. When they really are starting to be able to verbalize those questions. But for an older child, what you see is what you get in many cases because they're able to already talk about it. They've been living it for a long, long time. And so you're— it's right at you as you're going through and meeting them because they're going to be constantly saying, are you for real or are you going to be like the rest? You know, and their trauma makes them test, you know, because they have had to protect themselves. It's only when you can really feel vulnerable, you know, you have to trust a lot to be able to feel vulnerable and to be able to show that vulnerability, to be able to work through some of the things.

Yeah. Wow. I, I was talking to somebody from, uh, CASA up in Alaska last week, and she mentioned something about, um, what you said at the start of that last piece about kids being surprised that this— kids being surprised that you're there. Um, and And it's not about money. You're not getting paid.

That's a huge thing for our kids in our program when they realize that the volunteers, the families who are coming to our events every month are being paid nothing, that they're just there because they want to be with them. It, it's very uplifting in many ways, you know, because many of these kids have had— since they entered care, they haven't had anybody in their life that wasn't paid to be there. Not to say that the social workers are not wonderful, that there aren't very many wonderful foster parents. I mean, that there are bad ones, there are great ones, you know, but they've been paid and the youth know that. The kids feel it and they're really shocked. And then it's like somebody's there just because they want to be with me. They want to spend time with me just because I'm me. It's very surprising.

Yeah.

And as that settles in, you know, that's very validating. You know, people feel like there are people there to be with me and accept me. The big thing about, and accept me for who I am, is a huge thing for our older youth, huge for our older kids, that someone is there who will accept me as I am and not try to Just make me something I'm not. And our families have to understand that as well. Yeah.

Don't we all want just that? Don't we all just want to be accepted for, for, for who we are?

Absolutely. And you see parents, you know, time and time again trying to mold their kids into being little mini-mes. And, you know, whether you're biological or whether you're adopted, every person has their own individual traits and, you know, their DNA is, Everybody's different, and you know you you can't. You you have to be able to provide the platform, the support, and then you know thriving as someone doing what they want to do, not what you're somebody else wants you to do as well. You know the ability to grow healthy relationships and do what makes you happy, not what makes someone else happy. And that's I think a challenge that a lot of parents, whether they're adoptive or biological face, you know, wanting to recast that child in their own image. And that's, that's not really good for anybody.

So huge question, Randy. Um, on a switch slightly into kind of mum mode, right? Or mom mode, right? You know that we call them mums here.

Mums. Yeah.

M-U-M, not M-O-M. Um, uh, what have you learned about empowering your kids?

Well, I started by saying I've learned that, you know, you can't— they at some point, they have to take— you can't save them, you can't push them, you can't figure it out for them. That part of empowering is allowing them to learn from their own mistakes. And As a parent, you can't want something so bad that it'll happen. They have to want it. And my children both, you know, went through some challenging times in their late teens and early 20s, and they had to be ready to make change. They had to be ready to, as you say, you know, choose to grow and move forward.

Yeah.

As much as I wanted it, it wasn't going to happen until they wanted it as badly as I did, or they wanted it more than I did. I think as a parent, you have to learn you can't live through your children. They are the greatest joy of my life, of course, but you have to sometimes step back. Not in their early years. You've got to be 24/7 on guard, on duty. But as they begin to, you know, in their teens and their early 20s, some of those decisions that they make for themselves that, you know, are not great decisions, you know, that, you know, will come and bite them in the butt. You try obviously to guide them, but, you know, sometimes they have to learn by making those mistakes. And, you know, a mistake that someone makes, you know, I always look at my employees and say, I've got some employees that Make a mistake. I'd rather they made the mistake because they won't make it again. If I stop them from making the mistake, have they learned? And so I guess that's that's an empowering thing for children when you realize that your mom isn't going to obviate all your choices so that you can't make a mistake because then. The first time you're on your own, you're more likely to make the mistake. You know, you want them to make them along the way so that when they are off on their own completely, they have the tools to be able to make decisions that will allow them to make— as I always say to my kids, make good choices as they leave the door in their 30s. Make good choices.

Yeah.

But that's, I think, allowing them to make choices is sometimes as important as helping them, you know.

Yeah, I see— me and my wife haven't got any kids. But I, I see people trying to micromanage me. I see other people trying to micromanage their kids. Right. I see wives trying to micromanage husbands and husbands trying to Micromanage their wives, and the whole world is trying to tell us this is, this is the way to do it, you know, like, uh, and quite frankly, it drives me completely nuts, especially if anybody tries to do it to me.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's— no one wants to be— well, if you're micromanaged, you often, you just, that you're not able to thrive because you can't grow. If somebody's making all your decisions for you, then how do you personally grow? You stay in that same place.

Yeah.

And part of being a parent is to helping, helping your kids make decisions, but also sitting back. A very wise person once said to me, you know, when you're talking to your kids, this was in the teens, and is Say less. Say less. You know, you say less, they say more. You say more, they say less. So allowing them to have the, you know, the mic, so to speak, as opposed to constantly giving them advice. You know, just being that listening ear. I still— my son is starting a new business and he comes over and he talks at me a lot about his plans. He's not looking for me to give him advice. If he, if he wants advice, he specifically asks for it. And I have to remind myself all the time to sit back and allow him to talk. If he wants my help, if he asks for my help specifically about something, good. But otherwise, you know, Be that listening ear. Allow people— if you hear someone talking to you, often my employees even will come into me and they'll start talking to me about a problem and I'll say, well, what do you think? And they'll sort of talk through and then you can watch them making decisions as you're speaking. But it would have been easy for them to walk in and say, what should I do? You know, it's allowing people to have agency. I mean, I think it's a really important thing for kids, for—

Yeah.

People in general.

And it requires a lot of patience though.

Yes, yes, because we all know as parents we could make those decisions better for our kids, right?

And faster. We could make it a lot faster. Like, you know, I'm thinking, right, I'm thinking when I had a team, right, when I had a team trying to Giving people space to come to their own conclusions takes a lot of time.

And it does, it does. But otherwise, you know, I'm a leader, for instance, who wants to leave an organization, a healthy organization. I want to leave a thriving organization. And so if I make all the decisions for my team and then I retire ultimately, What kind of a team am I leaving? I have to leave— it may take longer to allow people to make their own decisions or to come to things or to come to a group consensus, but it may be faster in the moment. And the same thing with kids. It may be faster in the moment to make the decision for them, but it's not faster in the long run, and it's not growth that allows you to thrive.

Did you Learn that in business first or in family first or don't, do you not remember?

I think in business in my first career, I was very much, you know, moving quickly and making decisions and leading my team that way. I think I learned the hard way in as a parent that You have to allow them to make decisions on their own. So, and then maturing in business, you know, it's probably a combination of— but I certainly learned with my children. I certainly learned that, you know, you can't solve their problems for them. You have to be there as a rock if they need you, but you can't solve their problem. You can't solve all their problems.

Yeah.

Some of them you can solve easy, but those aren't the ones that, you know, they're really struggling with for the most part. And you— so I probably, as a parent, I've probably learned more about how you manage people, how you don't manage them, how you allow them to self-manage. You know, over time, I try not to micromanage my team. For sure at work. And I have a really solid team. So, you know, they're adults, they're capable of doing good work. And, you know, they've got people under them that are, you know, more at the younger level learning. And, you know, I see that they have more challenges sometimes with that. That's a maturation process too.

I wanna go back to your kids and expectations. And I've got a really, I've got a real tangible issue here. not a tangible issue, but a tiny little thing I sometimes see, right? So I swim most lunchtimes. Sometimes there's been kids, a school group, a class of kids, they're in the pool, and when they're finished, their session finishes, then it's open to the public, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I see a I see a big— there's a big sign at the start, at the— after, after they're paid and you go through into the swimming pool yourself, there's a big sign saying, don't, don't leave your, uh, your trainers here, right? And the trainers are all just— the shoes are just all over the shop, right? So they've been left there, right? Um, and all the shoes have Velcro fastenings rather than laces. And these kids, uh, I don't know whether— we start school younger in the UK than you guys do, so it's kind of 4 and a half, I think, people will start. So these could be, these could be 4 and a half year old kids, they could be 6 year old kids, they could be 7 year old kids, something like that. But they're not, they're not, um, tying— they're not tying their laces. The, the parents haven't— the parents haven't bought them trainers. with laces, they bought them trainers with Velcro. And as an old-fashioned guy of 59, right, I think that is really sad.

Mm-hmm.

That their impatience has led them to do this, or that they're not expecting their kids to be able to tie their shoelaces.

They're often just— they may not be thinking that deeply about it, honestly. They may be thinking about expediency and convenience and quickness. Yes.

Yeah, they— or maybe they'd just be following— maybe they're just following the herd.

Right. Yeah, right. Could be just following the herd as well.

Following the herd.

Yeah.

But, um, we talked about this kind of at the start about expectations, people surrounding these kids who say they're— who are writing them off, basically. And, and you're— and, and you're not.

Right.

Well, what have you learned about expectations? And, and you can make this as big as you like. I, I just It's just a little bugbear of mine, these Velcro trainers, and maybe I should let it go.

Yeah, I mean, expectations. What have I learned? I have learned that my children are not me, that what I expect of myself is what I expect. And that I can't expect my children to measure to my— whatever my standard is for myself. They have to set the standard for themselves. I mean, I think with parents, we all set some standards for our kids. And I've always told my children that they can do— I have full belief that they can accomplish whatever they set their mind to do. They have to decide. what it is that will make them happy, not what will make me happy. And I think that in working with my own children, you know, I had expectations of grades and I had expectations of them doing homework, but I dealt with each child differently because they were very different children. And, you know, I've always said, I just want you to do something that makes you happy and that you're, you know, sustainable. You should be sustainable as an adult. So, but I always believed they had the capability to do whatever they chose to do. I mean, my son was what I'd call a late bloomer. You know, he was one of those boys that you said, okay, boys' plasticity of their brains doesn't really firm until they're 26. And then I said, oh my, there's some new data that says it'll be 30. And around 30, he really did just, you know, sail. And, you know, his last 5 years have been nothing but, you know, the progression has been very different than the last 5 before. But he's doing what he wants to do. You know, he's started a business.

Yeah.

He's doing, Treatment centers for addiction, and he's found his way. I'm very proud of him. I'm very proud of both of my kids. My daughter's a welder, so she's chosen a very different profession. They're not you know certainly the welding is not something that I would have ever envisioned for my daughter, but makes her happy. And so. That's great. My expectations were not expect. I wanted them both to go to college. I wanted them both to graduate college. I thought that was important. My son did it later than my daughter, and when when the time came that he was ready to do it, then I was there to support him in doing it. But if When first time he went to college, he wasn't ready to go. And it was just— so my expectation was he'd go to college, but he really wasn't ready for it. And so it didn't work the first time. Worked the second time beautifully, you know, as an adult learner, but he was not ready. My expectation that he goes to college was not fulfilled because he wasn't ready for it. When he was ready, he blew it out the water.

Yeah. So what, what do you think clicked for him around 30?

Um, I think he matured. I think he became sober. Um, I mean, I know he became sober. Um, he took away some distractions. And, you know, and I think Did he initially, when he moved, when he really started to sail, I think he decided that he didn't like the rearview mirror and that the rearview mirror didn't have to define his future. And as he said, he sees people all the time in his work who don't have a supportive family environment. And knowing that no matter what, his family was there for him, I think made a big difference. I mean, my kids will both say that, that they see others who don't have that, and that's a huge difference. Not that I expect you to do something, but I'm here for you.

Yeah.

Not necessarily financially, but psychologically, certainly always. I feel like my children know that. They could call me any day, anytime, anywhere, and I would do whatever I could to support them in whatever they were going through.

Yeah. I didn't think that I got lucky or unlucky with my parents. I didn't have a benchmark, you know?

Right.

Um, until I started doing the podcast.

Mm-hmm.

And then I heard some stories from some adoptees and it made me realize that I did get lucky, you know, and I'm wondering if something similar has happened to your, to your son. He's, he's, uh, he's grown up with your support but he hasn't had another benchmark for that support until he's seen all these people that haven't had that support and that's made him feel more supported, more loved. It is some things— I'm getting goosebumps as I say this. I'm not quite sure why. Normally that's because I'm on to something good.

Yeah, I think that benchmarking is, is something certainly that he's talked about, that, um, and one of the things that he wants to do in his treatment is to work with the families as well as not just the addicted person. He wants to really work with the families to help them to be able to work through this. He's seen what families go through now, and now he wants to help them to develop a better way to support without Trying to solve everything for them, you know, let the person take responsibility for it, but be there. It's certainly something that he has talked about a lot.

Yeah. I have name-checked this in the past listeners, so apologies if you've heard me talking about this before, but there's a— I read a great book, listened to a great book a few years ago. years ago by a guy called Ben Timberlake, not Justin Timberlake, Ben Timberlake. And it is about an adrenaline junkie that becomes— who becomes a junkie junkie. He has this mad idea to try heroin for 2 months— sorry, 2 weeks— to see what it's like coming off it. And after that, Well, it takes him 5 years.

Sure.

It takes him 5 years to get to the bottom before he bounces back up. And his bounce back, or the reason for his bounce back, bouncing back, he gives one sentence and that's it. And he said, I, I realized that I was bigger than my addiction. And that's the start of the turnaround.

Right.

And for, for me, uh, you know, as I think of, think of trauma and, and, and, and turnarounds after trauma, right, is that we are bigger than our trauma as we see that, right? I'm bigger than my trauma. I'm bigger than my addiction, which means I've got power over it because it's smaller than me.

Right, right.

Same thing with the trauma. I am bigger than my trauma. It is not bigger than me. And for me, this, this is about, um, so I came up with the surfing analogy for this, and, and which is really weird because I'm not a surfer, and if I— I've tried windsurfing, and my balance and stuff like that, and, you know, it's terrible, right? But I think of the surfer analogy, surf analogy, I come up with it because I've been in the water swimming and been rolled over by it, rolled over by a wave. That's happened to me as a kid. That's when the wave is bigger than us, whereas we're lost in it. But if we're riding the wave like a surfer, or a good surfer, not like Simon Benn, right, um, then, then we're— it's— we're riding it.

It's not riding us.

It's, it's, it's, it's not riding us. And so there's that that crucial inflection point, the, the turning point when, when we realize something profound about ourselves and our experience.

Mm-hmm.

And that, that's the, that's the, uh, nadir, is it? It's the bottom, like when we bounce and we bounce and, and then the bit that happens after that. is our, is, is our post-adoption growth. Sorry, post— our post-traumatic growth. People talk about PTSD all the time. Very few people talk about PTG. It's post-traumatic growth, I think. Um, and, and I'm thinking like post-traumatic growth and post-addiction growth, it's the same kind of thing. To me anyway, it seems.

Well, I mean, addiction, and there's the question of, you know, how much does trauma, does past trauma, past issues influence addiction as well? But addiction is a disease. You know, it isn't— it is a disease, and a lot of people don't acknowledge or agree with that. So, you know, trauma could impact that, but, you know, addiction is a disease. So it's— but it is something that people have to— it'll always be part of them. Trauma will always be part of our kids. It's like all of your other life experiences, though, is, you know, how do you manage it going forward? How do you grow? How do you make it? I like the analogy of how do you arrive— ride the wave instead of tumbling through it? And that's very much, you know, people who have experienced significant trauma and have, you know, it, it does help to define who you are. It's then how do you grow beyond just making it about that? Yeah.

I think the choice, the decision, that's the key part. The how comes afterwards, right? Wasn't that like, wasn't that true for you? In, in setting up KidSafe, right? The, the, the idea comes, the determination comes, right? And, and then the how comes later. But most people think you've got to know the— you've got to know the how before you start.

No, you have to make the decision that you're going to do the work.

And doing the work is figuring out the how.

Right, right. And for— and I think that that's, that's also in terms of trauma is that the how is not the same for everybody.

Of course. Yeah. I mean, it's a personal, it's a personal journey, right? Growth journey after that. Yeah.

But we do know that, you know, having those supportive relationships Makes an enormous difference in that journey.

Indeed. And especially when we realize it.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's true. It's true. You realize it and then you're thinking, oh, well, I guess I— I remember my daughter saying to me once that she never thought about the fact that she really did have far more support than other people that she knew. And to know that you can count on— to really count on another human being is a very important thing. You don't want that to become enabling.

Yeah.

But to know that you have— you know, that somebody has your back. I mean, that's how we talk to our kids about it. You know, that these people have your back.

Yeah.

And that's an important thing.

Um, as, as you're sharing that, I'm thinking, did Randy feel underappreciated?

In where?

Well, so, um, I'm, I'm telling— I'm sharing the story about me.

Um, I mean, as a parent, underappreciated? Oh, parents are supposed to be underappreciated. Come on.

Okay. Yeah.

You know, absolutely. They, you know, parents are supposed to be taken for granted. I mean, that's the best of all possible worlds, really, when you think that children can take for granted that they have this love and support. I think kids see it much later and appreciate it. Just part of growing up, you know? And then if they become parents, then they really see it.

Yeah.

Because that cycle.

So I haven't done this, I haven't done this for a while, but I, I'd, uh, I'd love to do this on the— on this occasion. So, um, bearing in mind what we just said then, uh, what, what do you— or what you said, right? Because I thought it was fantastic what you just said. Um, I love it. And I was thinking I'd love to— I'd love the, the, the name of this episode to capture what you just said. And I'm wondering if you, if you see a way of doing that.

You mean about parents being underappreciated?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As the title for the interview.

Well, you know, Simon, I, I have concerns about Parents thinking they should be appreciated. Honestly.

Yes, I know.

Yeah, because, um, that's, that's one of the hardest things for an adoptive parent to get sometimes, particularly with older kids. Not so much with babies, but with older kids, you know, they feel like, why aren't these kids grateful? You know, they should be grateful. Well, no, they're not supposed to be grateful. It's not about gratitude. It's— there is gratitude. I would say my children experience a lot of gratitude today, but that's not why you should be a parent. You're not supposed to be a parent so that somebody can be grateful to you for all you do for them. You know, that's just part of the job. Gratitude isn't part of your job as a parent.

Um, so that's quite a long sentence. Um, I'm thinking of a name. I'm thinking of a name for the podcast, a name for the interview. Um, so I had— do you want— are you okay for time? Have you got a couple of minutes?

I have just a couple. My staff meeting starts in— they can probably do without me for— and it starts at 10 my time.

Okay, so one minute, right?

Yeah, I've got about a minute.

So does anything come to mind as the—

We talked about so many things. I guess it's, you know, I don't know, support, not gratitude.

That does it.

Gratitude's not the name of the game, I'm telling you that.

I had willingly taken for granted.

Ah, I like that. I like willingly taken for granted. Yeah.

Support, not gratitude, says it more succinctly, but willingly taken for granted is a little bit more poetic and perhaps a little bit more—

Yeah, the only thing, you just don't want people to think that they're supposed to be laying down and letting your kids walk all over them.

Well, indeed. Then, yeah.

Yeah. Support, not gratitude helps kids. Sure.

But we're gonna go, we'll go with support, not, not gratitude.

Yeah.

It's more standard. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, thanks so much for having me.

Appreciate it. You're welcome. And, uh, we'll let you know when the, when the episode airs and, uh, see you soon. Yeah.

Take care. Sounds great. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thanks. Bye.