The Dr. John Delony Show - Life After Deployment, I Want a Relationship w/ My Son, & Alternative Schools

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode My husband is coming back from deployment and I'm wanting to know how we can reconnect. My ex and I were into hard drugs and we had a baby. She cleaned up before I did and now won't let me be involved. - I am an licensed social worker and want to talk about alternative schools Lyrics of the Day: "Photosynthesis" -Frank Turner tags: marriage, relationships, parenting, military, family, substance abuse, workplace/career, counseling/therapy These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to a wife whose husband is coming back from being deployed and she wants to know how they can reconnect when he gets home. We talk to a dad who just got out of jail, who's working through sobriety, who wants to be involved in the life of his young son. And we talk to an awesome licensed social worker who challenges me on my thoughts on alternative schools. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up, good folks?

This is Dr. John Deloney. Welcome to the Dr. John Deloney Show. I just call myself Dr. John in the first person. That annoys me to no end. When someone refers to themselves as, hello, hi, I'm Dr. Don't. My name is John. That annoys me to no end when someone refers to themselves as, Hello, hi, I'm Dr. Don. My name is John. That's what my mom named me. And it's been just fine for my entire life.

So, my name is John. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. And that's because I didn't get to name it, by the way. And on this show, I take calls about your life, your mental health. We talk about everything, right? Schooling, educational concerns, parenting, addiction, marriage, everything, life, love, loss, life, love, loss. That sounds like one of those things that you put on a board in somebody's kitchen next to like gather. And I don't know, it's a, geez, Louise, every Karen who listens to this just cheered and everyone else just went, oh gosh. And all the Karens don't send me cards and letters. I didn't mean that. I meant that metaphorically, sort of.

But I love Karens. But I love my wife the most. Listen, listen. Thank you for joining us today on this podcast. We have been off for a while. And you can tell that I am not on my A game, but I'm just leveling up right now. We're going full Deloney on this one. It's going to be good.

I want to start the show this way. Actually, first, let's do this. No, I'm going tooney on this one. It's going to be good. I want to start the show this way. Actually, first, let's do this. No, I'm going to do it this way. I'm going to start the show this way with this letter because it really got me choked up. And I'm not a choky-up kind of guy. That's a lie. Every time I watch a movie, I get choked up. I got choked up at some kid movie, Pets 2 or something yesterday.

I am a choky-up kind of guy, but I like to say it out loud. I'm not a choky you up kind of guy, but I like to say it out loud. I'm not a choke you up kind of guy. I got to my desk today and there was a book and a note here, a handwritten note from Germany. And it's from Gary James Holland. Gary James Holland, I hope you're not in the witness protection program because I just put you on blast, but the reality is nobody's listening to this anyway. So Gary James Holland sends me a book and if you're watching this on YouTube you can see it it is an original copy of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning in German and here's what he writes dear Dr. Deloney he can say it because he's not mean it's

not weird dear Dr. Deloney in sincere appreciation of it because he's not mean, it's not weird. Dear Dr. Deloney, in sincere appreciation of your work, I feel compelled to give you this book, even if I fear you may have no practical use for it with it being in German. Well played, fair enough. You'll know the book by the title of its English translation, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. As I'm sure you'll know, being a leading mental health professional, Dr. Frankl is a psychologist of Austrian Jewish ethnicity who wrote about his own experience of Nazi concentration camps from a personal and professional perspective the German title actually translates as say yes to life in spite of it all but man's search for meaning rings better in the English, right? Dude, say yes to life in spite of it all.

It just stopped me. I've had a hard, like my family's been having some stuff. We just having some challenges, the ice and the snow, all those things. And I know I dated the show here, but this will come out several weeks after. It's just been a mess, man. And that phrase, say yes to life in spite of it all. And Gary James Holland goes on to write like several pages about his family and just how much the show means to him. So Gary, I just want to thank you, dude, from the bottom of my heart. This will be a prized possession of mine. I have a small box of what I call my prized possessions that I'm going to make sure my kids

know. You don't throw these away. You don't sell this stuff. You hang on to these. And this is going to go in it. This is one of my favorite books of all time, the English version. And I'm super grateful that you reached out, that you told me about your family, that you told me about the successes y'all are having, that you appreciate the podcast. And more importantly, you wrote me a handwritten note and gave me this gift. I just want to thank you so much.

For everybody out there, if this show challenges you, if you think, I don't agree with that at all, you can do two things. You can call into the show, and we'll get you on, because I love having discussions. Like I say,

I used to work in colleges all the time, and I loved the debates and the back and forth from people who are all trying to search for truth, not people who are trying to hate on each other. Or you can just DM me and say, you suck and I hate you. One feels good and it gets you on your day. One actually solves problems. So if you don't like things on the show, or if you think, I disagree, call into the show. I'd love to have you on and love to discuss it on the air. That'd be great. And if the show means something to you, if you're getting somewhere out

of the podcast, if you and your family are starting to do things a little bit differently, if you were starting to walk a little taller, if you've decided to go to counseling, if you have decided to reach out to your husband or your wife in a way you never have, or you've been dating someone forever and you realize this is not right. You know what I mean? I'm worth more than this. If you were making changes in how you eat and take care of your body, man, reach out and let us know. I'd love to have you on the show. I'd love to give you a shout out and just tell the world how proud I am of you, how excited I am of you. And more importantly, these things lift me up, man. And if they lift me up, I hope they lift you up too. So Gary James Holland,

you rule. Thank you so much. Everybody else, give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291 That's 1-844-693-3291 Or go to johndeloney.com Slash show Fill out the form and we will check it out And see if we can get you on the show We're getting emails and calls from all over Planet Earth now It's good times

Alright let's go straight to the phones today Let's go to Alana in Colorado Springs Alana what Colorado Springs. Alana, what's going on? How are we doing? I'm good. How are you doing?

I'm doing so good. How is everything in the Colorado Springs area? Oh, it's lovely. No complaints here. It's so gorgeous. One of my best friends on planet Earth, my friend Craig lives there. And man, every time I visit, I get jealous. It's just such a stunning place.

Very cool. We're very lucky. So what's up? How can I help? So I am looking for ways to reconnect with my husband. And I've heard you speak on past episodes about taking retreats annually with your wife. So sort of do inventory and discuss your marriage. And I was interested in learning more about that. Very cool. So tell me about your husband. So he is in the military,

and he will be returning from deployment at some point in the next, in the near future. I love how you did that. Like, next week, soon, eventually, at some point. One day. That was such a, I'm not even going to say anything. Well done. That was awesome.

If you work with military families or you are a military family, you are laughing to yourself right now. If you're not, just recognize they live in limbo, and these poor spouses who are at home are carrying a lot of stuff on their shoulders. And so we're grateful for you, Alana. Okay, so he's coming back at some point. And go ahead, I'll cut you off. Yeah, so we've been married for eight years. We have a five-year-old and a two-year-old. So on top of just the physical separation,

we've been spending the last five years with a bunch of crazy people in our house, keeping us awake and yelling. So I think just with the, I work also, so we both have pretty high stress jobs. And I think the most difficult part of deployment is when they come home and trying to reintegrate because over several months, you really change who you are as a person. You have new experiences and you don't get to share them in real time with your spouse. And so it really, we had a pretty hard time last time you came home.

Tell me about that. Tell me about that hard time. So I was a full-time student and doing an internship. My son was two and I was, um, a full-time student and doing a internship. Um, my son was two and I was pregnant, um, and he was gone for several months. He came back a week before my due date. Um, so we had integration plus a new baby. Um, and so it was, um, and we have part of the issue is that we have very different parenting styles. So that's a big source of conflict for us. And we, between his last, coming home from his last appointment and when he left last year, we've really been working on that together.

Awesome. And trying to, we've made a lot of progress, but it still is, it's a source of, of worry just for me. Um, and yeah, and just, I feel like we kind of don't, we, we live together, we cohabitate, but we've just lost some of the like fun parts of being married. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you've got a couple, you've got a double or even triple whammy here. And so I want to pull it apart a little bit, not give it the full, and we could do a whole show on this and maybe we will someday, an entire show dedicated to veterans and their spouses and leaving and coming back.

And even just the day-to-day stuff, the identity stuff, all of that wrapping itself up into this little package called marriage and what have we been doing together, right? But today I want to pull a couple of pieces apart. Number one, you know this, but I just want to reiterate. If your husband was the most high-functioning, connected, at home all the time time and he was just an accountant having two little kids in your house is just shake it just everything changes right and so you put that sort of deployment on top of that sort of return on top of that you put all of the political stuff all of the safety stuff all of the stuff, all that goes into this big

thing, but it underlies, man, your house was already, right? Already just like a snow globe that somebody shook up. And so what I want to encourage you to do this time, the best you can, it's going to be hard, the best you can is to both of you, but you can only control you, right? To be open about doing this one new and not bringing any of what happened last time, not bringing any of the, hey, we had these fights. It was crazy. Let's start completely fresh here, okay? And you may have to write stuff down. You may have to be intentional about, I'm nervous he's going to be coming home in two weeks or one week. And last time he got home and he didn't sleep and he was loud or whatever his challenges were reintegrating. And so when he gets back, is he getting out or is he going to stay in?

Is he going to have a job on a base here? Yeah, he will have a job when he gets back. He's staying in. Okay, staying in. So his identity will still be, he'll still be military, right? He's not going to have to also, that's a whole other shift from military to civilian. Okay. So here's a couple of things.

You said you've been working on your parenting styles. They're different. Is it fair to say you both love your kids? You just love them? The picture of what love looks like is different for both of you, and you're trying to merge that picture. Is that fair? Absolutely. Okay. of what love looks like is different for both of you and you're trying to merge that picture is that fair absolutely okay so when you say you're scared or nervous that word picks my like it it piques my interest what are you scared or nervous about is he a yeller and you're a hugger is he

want it there to have four corners when they make their bed and you just don't really care about like what are you nervous or scared about yeah i, I would say that's pretty much it. We both know that we fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. And so he's very positive about it. He's like, we balance each other out. But it's still a challenge for me. And I think part of it, too, is letting go of being the parent solo for nine months and letting him parent again. That's also a challenge.

Yeah. So here's a couple of things I want to challenge you guys to. Number one, I want you to start, and this is going to sound cheesy, I want you to start dating again long distance. Okay? And what I want you all to focus on is you're going to build a again long distance. Okay. And what you're going to, what I want y'all to focus on is you're going to build a totally new marriage. You're going to build something. You've already got some great foundations to it. You've got a history to get, you've got almost a decade together, right? You got two kids, but I want you to build a new adventure together and look at that

as an opportunity, not as a chore. Okay. It could be super exciting, but I want you all to start dating again and start intentionally being flirtatious. Start intentionally being like, what could this look like? Not what is it going to be? Does that make sense? And it sounds tiny. And you hear those analogies where somebody's driving and if you just turn the wheel one degree, you end up turning all the way around. What book was I reading recently? Maybe it was James Clear's book that says the takeoff from, if you're at LAX and you're going to go to

Washington DC or you're going to, what was the other one? Maybe it was Boston. The difference in it was seven feet. That's how different the nose angle of that plane is to get you from, oh, it was New York City to Washington DC, right? So I'm talking little bitty things, but hey, I want to imagine what our romantic life is going to be like. I want to imagine what waking up next to each other is going to be like. I want to go ahead and let's, can we get not premarital counseling, but can we go ahead and set up some counseling where we can learn how to be married again and what we're going to build a common language and accomplish things together. But you see what I'm saying? I want this to be an exciting, awesome moment, like a reset, not a, how is he going to fit into our life? Does that make sense?

Yes. And the biggest challenge folks have, not the biggest, there's a bunch of challenges reintegrating, but one is you just nailed it. You've got a life, right? It's not one that you love. You'd love him to be around, but you've got a life of, man, your kids have a routine. Y'all do things in a certain way. They come to you for clothes and laundry. You'll have everything. And then you try to figure out how to shove him into that when he gets back. That's a cause of so much conflict. So rebuild it from the floor up. The second thing is give me two or three things that you love about him. Oh, he is incredibly smart.

He loves his kids and he takes really good care of us. Okay. None of that had to do with y'all two. You gave me three different things. One attribute about his cognitive ability and two performance slash achievement based things. What do you love about him? He makes me laugh.

Let me ask this a little more PG-13. What gets your heart beating again um he always thinks i'm beautiful he tells me all the time does he show you yes okay and when he says you're beautiful and he shows you're beautiful he looks at you across the room in that way that you know that gets your heart beating faster again yes do you miss that yes are you know, whew, that gets your heart beating faster again. Yes. Do you miss that? Yes.

Are you excited for that to return when he gets back? I'm very excited, yeah. Okay. And I know that part's hard because you've got to shut that off, right? You've got to completely turn that off. That's why I want you all to start dating again, okay? And the things that you love about him, I want you to focus on not the achievement things, the things he's going to bring back, but I want you to focus on him. Right. And then the third thing is, is I've really, this sounds so cheesy. So here's some

things that we do on that my wife and I do on our, on our retreats together is we look in the past with that past year, the things that have gone well, things that have been hard, right? This is going to be a little bit different. You don't have to go back if you don't want to, but you can go back and say, hey, in the past, this has been tough. This has been tough. I want this to be like this, right? And then we spend some time on what is this year going to look like? If it could be as perfect as we want it, what would it look like? What are some savings goals? How much do we want to pay off on our house? How much do we want to go trips together? What's our week going to look like every week? I want to make sure we're building in times

for us to connect throughout the week. And then we'll let the week fill in behind that. So depending on what his job is there, but we set some, here's who we want to be. We want to be, we've been, my wife and I have been together, gosh, 18 or 19 years. We want it to be like, we want to make sure we're still flirty. We want to make sure we're still laughing. We had a hilarious food fight the other night in our house. And right when I drilled my son with like a half-eaten banana and he threw it back and it blew up all over me. I watched my wife do.

She like exhaled and I could see it like, and then it's almost as though she remembered, oh yeah, we're having fun. And then she's like, y'all are cleaning it up. And then she got involved. Like, so it was those, we set those parameters. We want to be folks who are just silly again. Right. And he may say, I want to have some higher structure than last time. But what you're doing is you're being engineers and architects for the future, not complaining and whining about the past and not being anxious about, is he going to fit in our thing? You have to rebuild a whole new thing.

And your kids, bring them along, not for the romantic part, not for the discussion of who we're going to be as a couple, but bring them along when he gets back. I want you all to have a canvas, right? I should have brought mine. I didn't know we were doing this, but I have a canvas at our house that we did with our kids and it's our family core values. Like, who are we? And we say, yes, and we have adventures and we treat each other with dignity and respect. And we have, we are hospitable. We always have crazy people staying in our house. And so whenever I'm like, hey, son, let's go out and play in the creek. And he's like,

I don't know, dad. I'll say, hey, we're adventurous. Us Delonis are adventurous. And he's like, okay, that's who we are. And then we head out. But inviting the kids into that as a part of this rebuilding together, I love it. So here's the thing. Really focus on him. Start dating each other again. Go ahead and get somebody. Go ahead and get a professional. And some military guys aren't into that. Military guys, if you're listening to this, it's cool, man. Go see somebody to help you learn a new language. This is just a new set of skills. Doesn't mean you're broken. Doesn't um you're dysfunctional it means hey i'm going to pick up some new tools i've been gone a year i'm going to help get some coaching as i

re-enter this and then build something new together right don't try to drag the past forward and see if he can plug into the your existing world now let's rebuild something new it's going to be incredible alana i want to know when he gets back i want you both to give me a call let me know how things are going and then we can check in and see how things are rocking and rolling and see if I might be able to help along the way. But the fact that you're calling now tells me, man, it's going to be so good. I want to thank your husband for his service. I want to thank you for being a rock star of a mom holding it down there in Colorado Springs.

And I can't wait to hear your story about y'all getting reconnected. It's so good. All right, let's go to Jamie in Atlanta, Georgia. Jamie, what's going on? What's going on, Dr. John? Just rocking and rolling, brother. How can I help? So I guess we'll dive right in.

Let's do it, man. So about five years ago, I was on drugs really bad with, uh, my son's mother. Um, and, uh, they were all the fun things. They're not really fun. That's, that's a really bad joke. Um, and, uh, she, uh, she was able to quit. I was not, I was not able to quit at the time. I couldn't, uh, couldn't do it. And, um, so things got progressively worse. She left, uh, which was the right, definitely the right move to make. She left and, uh, I was still in Georgia and she left and went back to Wisconsin, which we moved from there to here. And I moved from here to there before all of that. And I ended up going to jail several times, and in one of those times going, I was able to have what we call the vital spiritual experience.

That was enough to this day. I have not found it necessary to take any mind-altering substance for the past three years. Good for you, man. So you're 36 months in? Yeah. Well, over that. It Good for you, man. So you're 36 months in? Yeah. Well, over that. It's September 22nd, 2017.

Congratulations, brother. That's a big deal, man. Hold on. You have to acknowledge that. That's a big deal, right? I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. All right, go ahead. So I've done everything. I will work at a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you know, it says in there, you know, uh, you know, we write an honest letter if they, if they won't hear us. So I wrote an honest letter, talked to her multiple times. And every time, um, even in the times where she's like, so our, uh, our son is four now, and I've never seen him. I was in jail when he was born. She moved back up to Wisconsin for good reason.

I was incredibly abusive. Okay. And, you know, it's just every time she says, you know, it's always the same response. It's gotten to the point where it's always the same response. You've never seen him. You're just a sperm donor. He has a dad now. We don't need you. You're not even a part of his life. And then the last time I sent a letter, I wrote a letter out. I had people proofread it, make sure that I wasn't saying anything offensive or too selfish or anything

like that. I was just, you know, and, uh, you know, she responded back at first with, uh, cause I pay child support. Um, I'm up to date on child support. I make sure, you know, she responded back at first with because I pay child support. I'm up to date on child support. I make sure, you know, as I'm supposed to, because it's the right thing to do is what I want to do. And, you know, she said, well, if you go to court, you know, you'll get drug tests, but you'll probably get visitation. That's the best I can do. And I was about to say, like, OK, or something. And then she responds back with, you know, how her parents left her because she was adopted and her parents never got off drugs and never came to go see her and she voiced that to me along with all the other things too which I have 100% admitted that that is what it is and I've told her I was like look I will go to a counselor I will tell them everything that I did to you every wrong I'll tell everything that I did to anything else.

If we got to do that, that'll be fine. And then all of it's to no avail. The closest thing was her saying to go through the court system. So, you know, I'm just kind of at an impasse with it. You know, I've talked to plenty of people about it, you know, and it's just. So what is the common advice you're getting? Well, um, it's actually, none of it's common. It's all different.

Uh, a lot, like my sponsor is like, man, you need to just pray about it and let God work that out. You've done the, you pulled your end of the bargain or whatever. And I don't feel that that's sufficient. And then I have another person who says, Tim, you need to be ready to, uh, you've, you've never been a part of this child's life or anything like that. Are you ready and willing to accept it if you are not allowed to be, if this is not your place? And like I said, yes. And I guess yes is the thing, but have I explored every avenue? You know what I mean? Right. Is that, is that the, really the final answer here? Is that, is that, I don't, I don't, I don't, you know, is it me being selfish?

I don't know. You know? It's something that I rack my brain with all the time. Brother, listen, there's not a selfish, that's the wrong word when it comes to your kid, right? Parents who are selfish with their kids, if you were still using and that kid lived with you, if you were blowing rent on partying with your buddies or whatever, then that would be selfish. Wanting to track down your son after you've been healed for three years or you learn some new ways of getting through some of the hard stuff in life. Seeking forgiveness. That's not selfish. That's you chasing your son.

Okay? So just in the few things you've told me, your wife, man, she's got demons from when she was a kid that I don't blame her for a second for. Right? She had parents that walked out on her. She's lived that road. Who knows the trauma she's carrying on in her heart and mind i don't blame her for a second you said you're abusive tell me about that um i was both physically and verbally abusive okay did she ever call the police on you

is that why you went to jail or did you go to jail for using no no she she never did i went to jail uh for using after we had moved down here okay she had left, you know, she gave me the ultimatum. You know, she told me at one point, I remember this is my part of the supreme sacrifice. You know, she said, you know, if you could just quit, you know, everything'd be all right. And I, you know, I made that promise and 30 minutes later, it's like it says, you know, I couldn't bring into sufficient memory the pain of a week or a month ago. And before I knew it, it was already too late. And, uh, I had gone back to doing what I had always done since, since for a long time.

So why did you get clean, man? Uh, at first, you know, I was, I was a sentenced sentenced to drug court so i couldn't leave the state for the first year and a half two years um and i got i just had a guy listen to me out front of the clubhouse that i stayed at that was my home group for a long time and he listened to me and you know i was just offered it was a lot of it's god's grace, man. Like, I can't explain it any other way. No, no, no, no. But not how. Why? Why are you clean now? Because I'm sick of it, man.

And I didn't even, like, and now I have something that works. You know what I mean? Like, I 100% believe that at that point in time, I was powerless and I was a slave. I was an absolute slave to everything that I was doing. I had no way to work through it, and nor could I see if there was a slave. I was an absolute slave to everything that I was doing. I had no way to work through it and nor could I see if there was a way. And today, you know, I've been given, somebody sat down and worked with me and gave me the power to take control of my life and to live by principles that don't allow for excuses and that don't allow for me to go back to that way.

No matter how hard it is, no matter whether I'm crying on the floor, wondering why, why, why, or anything like that. Like I don't ever have to go back to that today. And that's,

so I choose that, you know what I mean? Wake up in the morning. I'm like, Oh, no, this is way, way better.

Absolutely. So here's the, here's the bottom line. If I'm you and I have my little boy out there, I'm going to move heaven and earth to try to see my boy. And at this point, he does have a man who stepped up in his life. I'm assuming she's remarried now. Is that fair? Well, we were never married.

Okay. Is she married now? I do not know. Okay. I don't think so, but I don't know. Okay. You mentioned she had a dad in his life now. Yeah, her adoptive parents took care of her.

Okay. She has a very good support group. Did you sign custody over for him? I did while I was in jail. Okay. Um, man, without getting into your backstory too deeply, we would need some time to sit down and go through this. Here's what I'm telling you what I would do. Um, there are a few things on planet earth more important to me than my son. And I would move heaven and earth to do that. There's a part of

me that thinks that your wife still loves you and cares about you, but you beat her up, man. You scared her. You left her alone. And that is, that fear, it's not even a fear, that meant those memories, those experiences override any feeling she has. And at some point it feels like she's asking you, I'm going to see how far you're going to go. Right. And so what I'm telling you, this may not be the most sound legal advice. This may not be the most sound big book advice, okay?

I'm just telling you guy to guy what I would do. And I've got a son, a young son son myself i would call every lawyer i could find i would do whatever i had to do to be in my son's life i would be sending my son probably a weekly letter so and now you're playing both a short game and a long game okay number one at some point you're going to have this conversation more than once with your son about who you used to be. And you want to have a track record where, son, I chased you to the ends of the earth. I wrote you every week. I screwed up. Your dad was sick.

Your dad was acting the fool that your dad didn't have the right tools. And who knows what your trauma is like. You may be able to teach him a lot about what you experienced as a young guy. Right? All that to say is that will come over time. So you're playing a long relational game. What you're aiming for right now is that when you're 50 and he's, whatever, 30, 35, that y'all are hanging out together, that you get to go see your grandkids.

Okay? that y'all are hanging out together, that you get to go see your grandkids. You're not shooting for everything to be rosy and hunky-dory because this four-year-old little boy has no idea who you are. And so I want to constantly be reaching out to him, and his mom is right to protect him right now, but you can't control what she does. You can control what you do. So I want to write a letter to him every week and And, but I, you can't control what she does. You can control what you do. So I want to write a letter to him every week and mail it to him. And hopefully she'll read it to him. And as he gets older, he'll read it. You can draw him pictures, whatever that's going to look

like for him. The second thing is, man, I'd be on the phone with a lawyer tomorrow and say, man, I screwed up. I signed over stuff when I was in jail and I want to go meet my son. And I honestly, I mean, you're talking between states. You're talking I don't know what your full criminal history is. I don't know any of that stuff. And so I don't know the legal ramifications how that would actually get together. If you would have to move to Wisconsin to have I don't know any of that stuff. What I'm telling you what I would do is whatever I had to do to hold my son.

Right. to do to hold my son right and then just know it's going to be a slow slow process of rebuilding trust and rebuilding trust and those days are going to feel agonizingly slow you're going to have seasons where you are you weep you're going to have seasons where you want to punch a hole in something and you're going to have to constantly be practicing those new skills that you've picked up over the last 37 38 months right and you? Mm-hmm. And you're playing a long, long game. You're raising a man, and you're both healing. And you're healing one too, right, at the same time? Right.

Right. So tell me why you want to see your son again, man. You know— All right, and it's not again. Why do you want to see him, period? You signed away your name. You said, he's better off without me. I'm out. Why do you want to see him, period? You signed away your name. You said, he's better off without me. I'm out. Why do you want into his life? Because even if at that time, I mean, even if my thought was he's better off without me, even today, even if he has a new dad,

you know what I mean? Like I'm not there to interject in between all that. That's literally the last thing I want to do. It's not. But if there's ever a time where they can't do something, you know what I mean? I'm not saying I'm not challenging their capacity to take care of him, but if there's ever a time where it might be useful for somebody who has the proper motivation to show up when nobody else is over to show up, I can do that. I have that motivation. You know what I mean? I really feel that, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I know that I messed up in that sense. You know, I understand it. I've worked through it. I've put it on paper. I see it, you know, I own that, but you know, it never hurts to have somebody who is, who would drop everything they're doing.

If I'm at work, if I got to fly up there, if there's a hospital thing, if there, you know what I mean? If there's a COVID. Hold on, hold on. Listen, listen. You're giving me a bunch of things. You're giving me a bunch of tasks. You're giving me a bunch of achievements, a bunch of accomplishments.

Those are all good, man. They're all noble. But when somebody asks you, hey, why do you want to see your son? I want to hear you say, because I love that kid. I've never even met him. Because there's a piece of my heart beating out there somewhere in Wisconsin, and I've got to meet him. I've got to know him, and I've got to love him.

And I've got to make sure that he never goes to bed at night not knowing that his daddy loves him. Right? he never goes to bed at night not knowing that his daddy loves him right and those other things that you mentioned those are all derivatives of that right because you love him because you got a piece of your heart beating somewhere else out in the universe that's why you're going to show up right that's why you're going to go see a lawyer and probably have to work overtime to pay for that or pick up a second job to cover that cost that's why you're going to go see a lawyer and probably have to work overtime to pay for that or pick up a second job to cover that cost. That's why you're going to have to get in front of a jury or in front of a judge and say the things out loud that you did, right? And you're going to have to risk being told by a judge, you cannot see your son, right? And that's all a risk and that's all scary. That's all freak out time, right? But all of that is the why is because I want to see my son, right?

Yeah. I want to see my son. I love him. And I never have even seen him. And that's going to be what drives you over the long term. And here's the thing, my promise to you, brother, let's say the judge says no. Like I can't relieve that past. I can't put that trauma back on mom.

I don't know that that's the case. I would doubt it, but who knows? There will come a day when he comes looking for who his dad is. There will come a day. Technology has gotten to a point where he's going to do 23andMe. He's going to get on Facebook. He's going to figure out who dad is, right? And I want there for y'all to, I want there to be a track record.

Like I said earlier, I want there to be a breadcrumb trail right back to your heart that said, I wrote you a letter every week for 14 years before you turned 18 and were allowed to come see me. I saved money for your college, and I never even got to see you for 18 years. But I knew that there was going to come a day when you were going to come meet me, and I wanted to be able to at least, you may not want to talk to me at all, but I want you to know,

when all else burns to the ground, your daddy loved you. And your dad was a wreck and a mess and a broken guy. And I'm healed and I'm whole. And hey, look, I'm married now. I got kids, whatever your situation is. But son, I kept chasing you and I kept chasing you and I kept chasing you. Right? So yeah, man, I'm on the phone today. I'm on the phone first thing, eight o'clock tomorrow morning, trying to get a lawyer that I can afford, that's going to be

excellent, that's not going to go to war with my wife. I mean, my ex, right, with my son's mom. I'm not going to war. I'm not trying to burn anything down. But I want to find out every option I've got to go see my son. And here's the thing I want to keep in your heart and mind. Be honest every step of the way. I want to applaud you for your honesty here, for your healing. You got to move forward. You did some stuff that was ugly and despicable and way. I want to applaud you for your honesty here, for your healing. You got to move forward. You did some stuff that was ugly and despicable and gross. I'm not going to beat you up for it. You know.

And now it's about putting the bricks down, brother, and then running off into the light. Right? Running forward. So, man, I love your heart, Jamie. Go find him and go find your son. If you are able to check in with him, I want you to give me a shout back. I want to know how that reunion goes. If you're not able to, give me a call back, and we'll walk through what next, right?

Because these things don't always have a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, man. Sometimes these things do not have a happy ending. So thank you so much for your call, brother. All right, let's go. Let's take one more call. Let's go to Emily in Dayton, Ohio. Emily, what is happening? How are you doing?

I am doing awesome. How about you? I am rocking on to the break of dawn. So how can I help? Okay. Well, I kind of have a different question than most people. I've been listening to your show and really appreciate your perspective on mental health and mental illness. I'm a licensed social worker, and I find that oftentimes you and I have the same outlook on calls.

Yes. That's good. That's good. That makes me happy. You actually know what you're doing. I don't, so that's awesome. Good. No, see, you know what you're doing.

But a few months ago, you were talking to a mom about her child who was struggling with behaviors at school. And you had made a comment about alternative schools. And I kind of picked up a negative connotation to the comment that you made. And I just actually recently left my job working in an alternative school setting. And it's been haunting my dreams. I just need to know what Dr. John Deloney thinks about alternative schools. Oh, you're the best. Okay.

And number one, this makes me happy because I felt my mom and my little brother-in-law was listening to the show. So we've got three listeners, ladies and gentlemen. This is awesome. Two, tell me about your experience in an alternative school. What was it like? What was it about? Okay. So, and I, I realized that every school is a little bit different and, um, I don't have

like an opinion either way. I was fresh into the field when I took the job. Um, but our school, um, follows a trauma informed care approach, um, to the best of its ability. Emily, I can stop you right there and tell you, yes, that's awesome. The fact that you can say the words trauma-informed tells me you have a different program. The fact that you're a licensed clinical social worker at an alternative school tells me that however messy it is, your school district is unique and different than most in the country. Okay, but go ahead. Okay, so we took in students that their home district weren't able to meet their needs.

Okay. So the particular, like, they had different, like, programs, but mine was primarily behavioral disorders or, like, kids that struggled with their behavior. So it was unsafe for them to be in their school district or their school district couldn't meet their needs. And so, hey, for meet, when someone, we're talking what I would call Pollyanna counseling terms. And we say the school couldn't meet their needs. In more brash terms, the school kicked them out because they were caused,

they were disruptive to the learning environment. Is that fair? Yes. Yes. Like most of them had been suspended, expelled, or they were working their way towards there. And, you know, they have to educate the students. So this was their way of educating the students. And so for the average listener out there, the school has a – the states have a mandate to –

that they pass to the schools that every kid's got to be educated and then a kid comes to class and he's super disruptive or he's got special needs and or both and it's um or he's got really tough situations or whatever but it manifests itself in the classroom that he or she disrupts the learning environment in some way that a teacher and or a group of teachers and or a principal kicks the kid out and says, you've got to go to a special campus out of here because we can't deal with you, right? Or as us super sweet counselors will say, or I'm not a counselor, a super sweet mental health thinkers will say, kids can't meet their needs.

So that's such a kind way to say that. You're so lovely, Emily. Okay, so they couldn't meet their needs, and they went and saw you. What was that environment like? So it was all small group settings, so no more than 10 kids with a high ratio of adults, so at least two adults in every classroom. Everybody had mental health counseling. We had

individual group, and there was also occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists. The teachers were, you know, given lots of training in trauma-informed care, and that was kind of how we operated. Um, it was really cool. What school is this man? Listen, if you took a group of mental health professionals and put them together and said, let's create the perfect place you're describing it, right? For the average listener, what is, um, like in 30 seconds, what is a trauma-informed school? So a lot of times when kids are having behaviors, a lot of times something bad has happened to them in their life. So it's recognizing that their behavior is trying to tell us something. They're not a bad kid.

You know, they are, they're trying to get their needs met. So they might feel unsafe. So they might act out or they may be afraid to build a relationship with another adult because adults have let them down in their life. So they're going to push you away because they don't want to trust you or it's easier if they damage the relationship, whether then be hurt later. So it's taking that all into consideration when you're approaching them. We did a lot of teaching the kids how to do emotional regulation, recognize what we use the zones of regulation, which is, I don't know if you know what that is. Yes, absolutely. Okay, to kind of recognize, like, identify their feelings and then identify coping skills. So we did a little bit less education than a traditional

school would do because you can't educate if you're not regulated. So we helped the kids kind of get to a stable so that they were able. Emily, I don't even know who you are. I was having a day that was not great. I'm just being honest. I'm sorry. It wasn't a great day. And you are restoring my faith in everything. Everything. What you just said is so profound. And if the government of the United States would listen to that. No, but if you take Maslow's hierarchy, right? And that little top triangle, self-actualization and right below it, right?

Like being able to actually process facts. Right. We expect our citizens, we expect our kids, we expect college kids, we expect people in the workforce who are exhausted, hungry, traumatized, fried, broke, unable to eat, to go in and fill in the blank right be perfect citizens and learn all this new information and you try to tell a 12 year old that or a 16 year old that who by the way as you mentioned again so kind way nicer than i would say it um who parents um who adults may have not lived up to their expect adults that physically and sexually injure them, right? And then they show up to a class and we expect them to look in front of a geography teacher or a algebra teacher and these schools can turn into failure factories, right?

So, let's cut to this. When I'm talking about not liking alternative centers, here is my challenge with alternative schools. And I will even go up to – because most of my behavioral stuff, my wife's PhD is curriculum instruction. So she's worked in K-12 schools. I was a high school teacher. I was a K-5 teacher for a year. But most of my time has been working in student conduct in colleges and universities. Any of those settings, the idea that when you look at behavior in and of itself,

and then you are punitive against behavior without any understanding as to where that behavior is coming from, right? Every behavior, like you said, is a language. It's communicating something. Sometimes it's, I'm real hungry. Sometimes it's, I can't sleep because there's 42 people in my house every night high. I can't focus because I'm starving, right? All sorts of, I can't focus on this because I've been abused or sexually assaulted and my brain will not shut off. Fill in the blank, fill in not shut off fill in the blank fill in the

blank fill in the blank and so anytime a school who again has to hold up the integrity of a classroom setting they use alternative centers punitively get out we have to preserve our test scores for this group of kid we want you out of here because you're going to hurt our bottom line score and they send them to an alternative center where they put them in front of a screen for eight hours a day. And they do, they just go through the curriculum alone or they have automatic triggers, right? They've got, Hey, if you have alcohol, you're automatically in, um, you're off campus at the alternative center for, and they all have these cute names too, by the way, every school district in the United States has a fancy cute name for their alternative

school. But we send them away punitively. We send them away with this, like the goal is just to remove you from our community. And when you are struggling with all of those different connections, throw in special needs on top of that, right? If someone's got processing issues or learning disabilities or autism on top of that, you throw all that together and I just need you out of here so that we can get back to our calm, quiet life. That mode of thinking dominates the way schools operate. And I want to also honor the schools, man. Every school I know is underfunded. Every school I know is being pushed on by parents and by government leaders. They are caught and by unions that are all over the place, just a mishmash, right? What you just described is different.

It is, I literally, and I was making fun of it, but you were right. I can't meet your needs because you need more than we can offer. Not I'm kicking you out because we don't love you or not we're kicking you out because you're loud. You're loud for some reasons that we can't help in this setting. So we're going to surround you. I wrote this down. 10 kids in a class, in a group,

two adults per class. That's a one to five student ratio. That's magic, right? And then you're talking about trained professionals, social workers, counselors, speech pathologists. Imagine being a 12-year-old, many of you listening can, who got picked on because they weren't able to speak properly or not even properly, quote-unquote normally, or the way that other 12-year-olds aren't just going to ridicule you. And imagine walking to class every day and having a teacher point at you and say, stand up, tell me, answer these questions live. And you know you're going to get made fun of and you're going to get made fun of.

You're going to get made fun of. Oh, by the way, your dad makes fun of the way you talk too. And the fact that you can't pronounce these words in the right way. And you're going to lash out, right? And what does your school district do, Emily? Y'all went back and actually tried to teach and educate and give this kid some skills so that they could return to that classroom, right? What was your recidivism rate, I wonder? Well, so I kind of bounced around grades.

And when I started with the older kids, I will say it was really difficult to get them back to their home district for many reasons. I think the younger kids, it was a little bit easier because, I don't know, I feel like once you, there's a double-edged sword, right? Because then you get kind of stuck in the cycle and, you know, it's scary for them to go back or they don't have to do as much work at this school academically and they like it, so they don't necessarily want to go back. Or also, like, the school districts care, but if they're smaller, they just don't have what they need to help those kids. So this really is the best placement for them. So I definitely think there's a mix,

and it really depended on each case scenario, especially if you've got kids with high anxiety, and now all they've wanted their whole life is to go back to their school and they're trying but they're anxious so now they're going to have behaviors because they're so afraid of the school setting and they have you know past experiences that were negative so it is kind of hard to to transition them back but I have seen it happen and those cases are are really cool and really rewarding to see them get to go back.

I can imagine a scenario where, man, I mean, what kid in the world would want to go back, right? Right, exactly. I finally go to a place where you're teaching me skills. You're accepted by your peers, and yeah. My teachers look me in the eye. No one's making fun of me. There's some guidelines. That's the magic word.

There's some connection there, right? So here's the thing. Alternative centers for schools, I get it all the way around. I've been a high school teacher and had to send somebody out, dude, because the student was violent in the class. I get that. The goal for a school – well, you're going to send me on a to connect with others socially, how to work hard and solve problems, how to work and navigate systems, right? How to work with different adults and understand this adult needs things this way, this adult needs things this way, this adult needs

things this way. I'll consider that a massive, massive win. And if you look at the, man, I'd love just to sit down and have a hard conversation. And I could learn some stuff, and so I'm not taking this on as a challenge. But if a principal or a superintendent wants to call into the show too, I would love to have a conversation about the rise in technology spending. Every kid gets 18 different devices, and we have all these smart boards and all this tech and stuff like that. And we've got kids who are struggling socially. We've got kids struggling with some of these basic services because I don't know how to self-regulate. I don't know what to do because at my house, it's like this. And when I look at the family dynamics and the data on families. And I look at the data on poverty and I look at the data on trauma and the data on child abuse. It's a direct link to the data on test scores dropping,

right? And piling more tech on there. Well, you know what they really need is a Chromebook. That'll solve it. Now, this is a weird year because of COVID. So don't write me and be like, Chromebook saved the day. You're right. They were helpful. Way to go. But the Chromebooks plus the iPad, plus the this, plus the that, plus the thises and that's. And dude, what you just have described to me, Emily, is a masterpiece. Does it always work? No. Is it always going to put every kid back in a classroom? No, because some kids aren't going to ever want to leave that safety and that set and that, where they're finally seen and heard. What I want schools, what I want everyone who's involved in the idea of student discipline is to get to, number one, what is this behavior trying to tell me, right? If you wait until there's a behavior issue, you've missed it.

As an educator, I had to go way upstream, right? I've got a buddy who's the superintendent. For years and years and years, he's extraordinary. He used to have to get rid of kids who were in gangs, but he also would meet with their parents, the leaders of the gangs in the local community, and with the students, like kind of the student reps of these gangs and say, I want you here, but you can't do these four things. You can't do these five things. Otherwise you can't be here. You guys are choosing at that point to opt out of here.

I'm not kicking you out. You're choosing to opt out because you're being violent because you're picking on people, whatever the things are. And you get that type of buy-in on the front end, then downstream, some of these things take care of themselves, right? We've got a safe campus. We've got a campus that is supportive. We have a campus

that is about educating, not about testing. We're about learning and teaching, not about this. And I know funding is tied to teaching, so I'm not blaming teachers. I'm not even blaming administrators here. The whole thing is a mess. But there are schools, these trauma-informed schools especially, if you want to read up on something fascinating, these trauma-informed schools I think are extraordinary. But like Emily just described here, where what can we do to support this kid? How can we help this kid heal from the inside out so that they can go into a classroom, into a social setting, and then actually do the hard work of learning geometry, right? Actually learn the hard work of coding or of learning about the Civil War and learning about World War II, et cetera, et cetera. So that when they get to college,

so that when they get to the workforce, they have these behavioral regulation techniques. They know what to do when they get frustrated. They know what to do when an adult yells and screams at them or when a classmate yells at him. Emily, you have given me hope for life. To every teacher out there, I can't, I know. I've been there. I've lived with a teacher. I have been a teacher. There is no harder job.

School administrators, I've worked with school administrators behind closed doors for years and years and years. There is no harder job. But what Emily is describing here, and I also know that a lot of school districts are broke, broke. But if we were to step back from the testing, we were to step back from the, we got to get all this tech in there. We were to step back and say,

how can we help these kids be whole so that they can learn? Man, Emily just gave us a roadmap. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Emily, thank you so much for that call. You, Emily just gave us a roadmap. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Emily, thank you so much for that call. You just made my heart feel good.

And I was getting frustrated, but you made my heart feel good. All right, so as we wrap up, man, hey, listen, I'm going to bring him back. I said this was the greatest song of all time. Last time, same guy, different song. He has two of the greatest songs of all time.

Figure that one out, America. This is off the Love, Ire, and Song record by my man Frank Turner in 2008. This book, I mean, this is a book. This song is called Photosynthesis, and it goes like this. Well, I guess I should confess that I'm starting to get old. All the latest music fads have passed me by and left me cold. All the kids are talking slang I won't pretend to understand. All my friends are getting married and mortgages and pension plans. And it's obvious my angry adolescent days are done and I'm happy and I'm settled in the person I've become.

But that doesn't mean I'm settled up and sitting out the game. Time may change a lot, but some things may stay the same. And I won't sit down, and I won't shut up, and most of all, I won't grow up. Maturity is a wrapped-up package deal, so it seems, and ditching teenage fantasy means ditching all your dreams. All your friends and peers and family solemnly tell you will have to grow up and be an adult and be bored and unfulfilled. Well, if that's your road, then take it. But it's not the road for me. America, I'm not telling you to not be grown up. It's Frank. This is Frank, but I love this song. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. you