Matt Agee can tell you the exact date he graduated: August 11, 2006. This year he was back at Discovery Ranch to tell students about his experiences both as a student and a graduate.
“I came back to visit because I missed the place so much,” he says. His mom, Laine, says the two had a deal. “I told him if he got through this school year and did OK I’d take him back,” she explains. “As soon as he got his final report card he sent me a text message saying, ‘You owe me a trip to Utah.’”
Matt admits he wasn’t thrilled about going to Discovery Ranch the first time. He had just completed a wilderness program and hoped he would be going home. He said it took about five weeks before his attitude started to change. From then on, he was almost unstoppable.
“It really changed my work ethic,” Matt says. “I went from not working at all to working as hard as I could. People told me I was the engine of the work projects. I was the one getting people psyched.”
He says the hard work gave him new self-confidence and social skills – two things he struggled with before Discovery Ranch.
“I think I was the only kid there that loved moving bales of hay,” he laughs. “Sometimes I would actually ask the staff if I could do it.”
During his visit, Matt told the students to concentrate not on how to get through the day, but how to accomplish the task at hand. He told them to try not to think about home. “That will only distract you,” he said.
He says parents should make sure they write to their students each week. “It doesn’t even have to be a whole page,” he says. “It can be a paragraph saying ‘Keep up the good work’ – just little things.”
Laine Agee says watching her son speak to the other students filled her with pride. “He related to them on so many levels,” she says. Matt answered questions from the boys about how he handled days at the ranch. He showed the girls tricks that make it easier to give their calves medicine, and he discussed his experience meeting his birth mother with the adoption group.
“This trip was as beneficial for Matt as it was for the students,” she says. “It was amazing to watch.”
Matt says home is less structured than the ranch and sometimes that’s a challenge. “You have to keep yourself busy with little things,” he says. He’s also working out an apprenticeship to a farrier. “I’m trying to keep myself busy with horses since I learned so much about them at the ranch.”
This fall he’ll start his senior year at a local prep school where he plays basketball and enjoys his sociology class. From there he plans to go to college and study equine science or animal husbandry.
When we first thought of doing a 5k at DR we imagined only a few girls choosing to participate. To our surprise we had 10 girls express interest from all different ability levels. After our first couple training runs, we entered our first ever 5k with 8 students and 3 staff. Not knowing what to expect everyone was anxious, but quickly we learned our preparation had paid off as all of the DR 5k Team finished in the top 25%! Not too bad for our first time.
Leslie Giles,
Residential Director
“Play hard. Work hard.” That’s Leslie Giles’ motto. And she helps students at Discovery Ranch do both.
Leslie has worked in residential therapy for more than 20 years. But she’s never loved her work more than now. “I love the people I work with!” she exclaims. “It’s like coming to work to hang out with your best friends. Everybody is so committed to making change.”
Born and raised in the Provo area, Giles says the Discovery Ranch model is different from any other. “I’ve worked with big corporations and it was just ‘heads on beds’ for them,” she says. “With these guys, they put their blood, sweat and tears into making Discovery Ranch work for our kids.”
Giles supervises 47 employees who help mentor students. She says the hardest thing about her job is that she just can’t stop talking. “Everybody sees me as the mother at the ranch,” she laughs. “I guess that’s because I spend so much time talking to everybody.”
Besides “mothering” staff and students at the ranch, Giles cares for her 15-year-old son, two grandchildren, ages 3and five, and her elderly parents. When she does get a break in her schedule, the family heads for the mountains for some camping and motorcycle riding.
Even when she’s away from the ranch she can’t help thinking about her students, past and present. “I’ll get a text message at 3 a.m. from a former student who just wanted to know if they could come back to the ranch to visit.”
She adds, “I really enjoy building those relationships and keep in touch with them. I really want to know how the kids are doing.”
That’s why Leslie is always going full speed all the time. “I want to make sure all of us remember what our mission statement is. That every day we’re working towards truly making a difference in kids’ lives.”
Craig Smith,
Clinical Director
“I guess I’m just a kid at heart,” Craig Smith explains. Craig has been working with adolescents for the past 30 years, both professionally and in church or community activities. “I never grew up,” he jokes.
He admits he has a tough time when students with so much potential resist changing. “But I always know if we can be consistent and unconditional they will eventually turn the corner.”
Craig’s favorite responsibility at Discovery is teaching students DBT skills. The clinical interpretation is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Craig says it really amounts to helping students learn how to handle their emotions and develop coping and life skills. “It teaches kids how to deal with whatever life throws at them,” he explains. “I love watching them use the skills doing all the activities of the ranch.”
With four grown children of his own and five grandchildren, Craig says his favorite spare time activities are family, golfing and fishing. He swam competitively as a youth and has always enjoyed sports of all kinds – including coaching his own children and others in baseball, basketball, soccer and wrestling.
As a graduate of the University of Utah, he’s quick to point out he’s also a huge “U” fan – an important distinction for a man who lives and works practically in the backyard of rival Brigham Young University.
He says working at Discovery Ranch is the highlight of his career. “It’s re-kindled my excitement to work with adolescents and to help them work through their struggles. I know that experiential therapy is what changes lives.”
Welcome to the quarterly newsletter for Discovery Ranch. We’re pleased to offer news and information to enhance your family’s DR experience. In the coming months you’ll see updates on programs, information about our staff, relationship helps and parenting tips from respected authors and speakers. We also welcome your contributions. Please give us your feedback at editor@discoveryranch.net
Two starving horses, the eating disorder group, and a video camera combined to make a compelling documentary for a Discovery Ranch student.
It started when a woman approached Experiential Director Jerry Christensen and asked if he could take two horses. Facing a divorce and strapped for cash, she let the horses go through the harsh Utah winter with virtually no feed.
Christensen brought the animals to the ranch. “When I saw them I was surprised they were still ambulatory,” recalls Dave Blackwell, therapist. Struggling to stand, Kodiac and Otis, both quarter horses, were described as “walking carcasses.” Dave and Jerry discussed the animals and wondered how they could turn the situation into a therapeutic learning experience for students.
One of Blackwell’s students, Ellie, had had a serious eating disorder before her admission. As a Level Four student, she needed a Forget About Me (FAM) project. The two men wondered if the horses could somehow help.
They determined the eating disorder group should have primary responsibility for rehabilitating the horses. Ellie decided to take it a step further. She videotaped the horses’ journey to recovery and wove a narrative around that story describing her own battle with body image.
Her video opens with shots of the gaunt animals and Jerry’s instructions to the group to make sure the horses never ran out of food. Her observation was not shock or sorrow. She says, candidly, “I wish my bones stuck out the way theirs do.”
Her eating disorder odyssey started at age 13 when she put herself on a diet. By 8th grade she was using laxatives. The next year she moved to diet pills and purging after meals.
As the video progresses Ellie talks about standing on a stool in front of her mirror and criticizing her body. She wore sweats and baggy shirts to hide her “ugliness” and confesses to pulling silly faces in photos so she wouldn’t have to look at her body.
Ellie says she realized there were two voices that spoke to her. The first voice is her own. It says things like, “Dinner looks good. I think I’ll have some.”
The second voice, she explains, speaks as someone else – someone outside herself. “That voice says, ‘Ellie, you’re fat. Eating will only make you uglier.’”
In the video, Jerry teaches the students it will be months before the Kodiac and Otis will start to look normal and even longer before they can be ridden or worked.
Ellie records, “Looking at them makes me think about the slow process of recovery. It only took four months to starve them but after a year they’ll still be recovering. That’s with all of us at the ranch doing everything we can to help. What does that say about years of systematic abuse from an eating disorder and the fact that sometimes I’m not even sure how committed I am to getting better?”
Dave Blackwell says Ellie had a tough time making the video. “There were times she just wanted to bag it.” But Blackwell refused to budge. “ I knew the seriousness of her eating disorder. Whatever insight she could gain, if it had a chance of helping her, we wanted to do that.”
As a therapist, he believes the real value of Ellie’s documentary is her ability to see the consequences of starvation from a caregiver’s perspective. She was able to recognize, recapture and then write up her feelings.
Ellie writes, “I think that was the first time I had ever looked at something so scrawny without wishing I could look the same way.” Perhaps most telling is her observation, “Why would I treat myself in a way that would be considered criminally abusive if I did that to an animal?”
Blackwell believes Ellie’s story is another example of why experiential therapy so effective. “In this case, it took two other lives and their circumstances. It created emotion within the student that she’s not going to experience just sitting on a therapist’s couch.”
“Eating disorder kids have a ‘me, me, me’ thinking pattern,” he explains. “It’s very self-centered. Caring for something else is an unselfish way of thinking, and that’s the kind of thinking you want them to develop.”
Ellie adds, “It’s every bit as selfish and dumb as the decision to starve your horse just because you’re going through hard times.”
The National Eating Disorders Association estimates as many as 10 million females and one million males struggle with eating disorders. Here’s a look at this illness by the numbers:
- Four out of ten Americans either suffered from or know someone who suffers from an eating disorder.
- 42% of 1st through 3rd grade girls want to be thinner.
- 46% of 9-11 year olds are sometimes or very often on diets.
- Anorexia nervosa has the highest premature fatality rate of any mental illness.
- Americans spend more than $40 billion on dieting and diet-related products each year.
The Lavender Days 5k was spectacular! The scenery was stunning and distracted from the difficulty of the run. We were surrounded by waves of purple from the lavender fields and overwhelmed with the scent of the flowers. It was refreshingly cool in the early morning and the sun was just peaking over the mountaintops as the gun sounded. The terrain was a dirt road with slight slopes that seemed much easier on the body than the previous 5k’s pavement trail. Our training through the hills of Hobble Creek Canyon greatly prepared us for this challenging environment!
The entire attitude of the team was very positive and supportive, everyone was motivated to do their individual best. Even with the increased difficulty of the terrain, many of our team turned in the same or better time then our first 5k. Two members of the team were unable to run yet still chose to walk the course as a show of support for their teammates.
by Linda Kavelin-Popov
The Maori of New Zealand have an expression: “I see you.” The first time I heard it, a Maori elder was looking deep into my eyes. That gaze felt life-changing. I felt that she was seeing my soul and knew me as a good person.
I remember longing for that personal recognition from my mother, even when I wore an adolescent scowl and snarled at everything she said. Underneath, I wanted to be known as a good girl, a worthy person.
Each one of us has far more personal power to see and bring out the best in others than we realize. It takes a discerning eye, and a willingness to look for virtues, even in the most troubled and aggressive child. The tools we need are vision, language, boundaries, and love.
1. Hold a Vision of their Best Possibilities
Notice what children are good at and see it as an asset that can be used in a positive way. An aggressive child is a potential leader. A rebellious person has a spirit of independence and often can be creative and original. If a child is failing to be responsible, hold fast to the knowledge that he or she can be, and call them to it. “I know you can be responsible. When I come back in fifteen minutes, I trust you to have this done.” If you know they are lying, tell them, “I know you are truthful most of the time. Please tell the truth now.” Look for any glimmer of goodness and name it. It gives them hope and incentive to keep trying.
2. Speak the Language of Virtues
Language is one of the most powerful ways to shape character and to give children a sense of who they are. Identity forms around the words we hear about ourselves and the way we are treated, as well as the unique characteristics and circumstances of our lives. It is easy to call a child a name that can put them in a box forever. Words like lazy, stupid, mean, or curse words are a script for behavior.
We can change the script by banishing negative words and replacing them with qualities of character, which tell someone that we expect the best from them. There are four ways to use this language: First, to acknowledge: “I see your courage.” Second to prepare: “You’ll need your courage for this.” Third for correction: “You need to use your patience. What will help you right now?” Fourth, to thank: “Thank you for your patience. You really called on your self-discipline.”
3. Set Clear Boundaries based on Restorative Justice
Be a strong, assertive leader. Create boundaries that you communicate clearly, and enforce them consistently, every single time. Word them positively and use one or more virtues to describe them. “We use only respectful language in this program.” “In our house we speak, act and treat each other with respect at all times.” Post the boundaries on a poster. Model the virtues and boundaries you expect of children. Just as you expect children to make amends and not excuses, when you make a mistake, clean it up and make amends. Have consequences that are educative, not punitive. If a child calls a sibling a name, have them replace it with three virtues acknowledgments. If you have a boundary that everyone does chores, when they fail to be reliable, they get more chores. When they are late for curfew, they lose freedom or hours the next time they want to go out. This living example of justice removes constant power struggles. It makes children feel safe.
4. Show Your Love
Everyone, no matter what behavior they are showing on the outside, longs to be loved. Find something you like or respect about each child, and speak it out loud. And when you feel love, show it in the way you smile, the way you look at them, and the words you speak to them. Love, above all, can do wonders.
Children need people in their lives who hold a positive vision of what is possible for them. Be a vision keeper. Your positive thoughts, words, and feelings are the best investment in their future.
Linda Kavelin Popov is author of The Family Virtues Guide and The Virtues Project Educator’s Guide, co-founder of The Virtues Project ™ , and an international speaker on personal and global transformation. www.virtuesproject.com. See www.paceofgrace.net for a list of virtues definitions.
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