Clayton Lessor, 56, talks openly about his terrible childhood.

He describes his late father as an alcoholic who was very abusive at home. He grew up with broken bones, black eyes and chronic abuse. He remembers the nights he slept in the backseat of a car.

He lived with his grandparents six months out of each year from when he was 4 years old until he was 16. One week from his senior year of high school stands out as particularly awful: His mother burned down their house, his dog died in the fire and his girlfriend dumped him.

“I don’t remember being in school the last two months,” he said. Still, he managed to graduate and eventually joined the Air Force, a decision he credits with saving his life. During his 24 years of military service, Lessor got married and divorced twice. He decided to get a degree in psychology, hoping to figure out why he kept picking the wrong people to marry.

“I needed to look at myself,” Lessor said. What he discovered was a significant amount of pain from his troubled and estranged relationship with his father.

“I missed out on a lot of developmental stuff,” he said. Lessor worked on “re-parenting” himself and learning the lessons he never got from his father. From this work, he decided he wanted to help other boys in similar situations. He created a 10-week “rite of passage” therapy group for boys who missed out on growing up with a healthy father figure.

He also self-published a book for mothers of adolescent boys, “Saving Our Sons: A Parent’s Guide to Preparing Boys for Success,” which serves as a guidebook for his 10-week Quest therapy program. In it, he lays out a path for healing those suffering from what he calls “father wounds.”

What exactly is a father wound? It could be the pain from having a physically or emotionally absent father, an abusive father, or one who just doesn’t know how to raise a son, Lessor said. It could even be a lost connection over time.

More than 2,000 boys have gone through the Quest program over the past 17 years. The groups meet for 90 minutes once a week in Lessor’s St. Louis-area office. He tells the boys, between the ages of 11 to 19, the things he wished he’d known at their ages. The session topics include identifying their own pain, facing it and learning how to cope with it in healthy ways. He wants to give them a place to deal with shame and anger, feel supported by a community and find a sense of achievement through their deeds.

He was 31 years old before he went into therapy, and says most men who suffered in their childhoods will end up self-medicating or running from the past to avoid dealing with how it impacts their present lives.

“The wound doesn’t heal itself,” he said. “It doesn’t just go away with time.”

He recalls the final straw with his own father. He had come home from the Air Force to get married when he was 20 years old, and went to visit him.

“He tried to kill me. He choked me. He was drunk,” Lessor said. “That was it. I was done.” He spent a long time working through his own grief, and says it’s possible to come through the other side stronger than before.

“It’s scary and painful,” Lessor said, but “you come out better if you finish the work.”

For him, it also brought a sense of acceptance.

“My childhood was suffering,” he said. And yet, he’s forgiven his parents. The emotion that comes up occasionally from the past traumas is just sadness.

“I don’t have any anger or hate,” he said. “It comes up once in awhile -- what comes up is just sadness, and then I move on.”

More importantly, he has found meaning and purpose through those life experiences.

“It wasn’t the childhood I would have chosen,” he said. “(But) my mom and dad were a gift to me.”

It was those dysfunctional relationships that led him to do the work that is so meaningful to him today.

Daniel Stone’s senior year should have ended the way he had been planning for so long: with prom and graduation and parties with his friends.

Instead, he has spent the last seven weeks at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis undergoing ECT, commonly know as shock therapy, in an attempt to treat an onset of delirium. Doctors think it may be related to CHARGE syndrome, a rare disorder Daniel was born with that causes physical abnormalities and developmental delays.

At 18 years old, Daniel is at a second- to third-grade level academically. But as an outgoing special needs student, Daniel has been involved in many clubs and activities at Triad High School in Troy, Illinois. The day of his graduation, he put on his cap and gown, walked around the hospital and watched an online broadcast of the ceremony with his family.

His parents, Kurt and Linda Stone, wrote a letter to the senior class, which Kurt read to them during the rehearsal a day before the graduation. Kurt broke down in tears several times during the address. He wanted the class of about 250 students to know what they had given his son and their family. The following is part of what he said.

“In late 2003, when Daniel was 5 years old, our family was at a crossroads and Linda and I made the decision to relocate our family to Troy from Indiana. The move was for our entire family, but primarily for Daniel. We wanted Daniel to benefit by being in one school district for three reasons: a special education program with case management for all his school years, continuity with teachers through the grade levels, and consistency of friendships from year to year.

“You have done it! You are Daniel’s friends. From January 2004 to May 2017, you, the Class of 2017, have provided the consistency of friendship we hoped and prayed for Daniel.

“Every parent’s desire, especially parents of a student with special needs, is for our child not only to be cared for, but to be loved for who they are.

“You have loved our Daniel! So we thank you for the many ways you have demonstrated your love for Daniel. You loved Daniel when you:

... tied his shoes.

... sat at the table with him in the cafeteria, so no one eats alone.

... nicknamed him ‘Big D!’

... rode bikes with him on his birthday.

... laughed with him when he makes silly animal sounds.

... asked him how he was doing, and you stopped to really listen to his response.

... volunteered to be his partner in P.E.

... were his seatmate on the school bus.

... traveled with him to watch and cheer for the University of Evansville Purple Aces basketball team.

... planned and hosted after-school holiday parties for the the Life Skills students.

... helped him with an art project.

... included him in your group on the football student fan bus to away/playoff games.

... played, and sometimes won, doubles tennis matches.

... gave him a ride home after basketball practice and games.

... bought a delicious fresh-baked cookie for a fundraiser.

... gifted him a can of Crush soda on Valentine’s Day from the band.

... toured Washington, D.C. during the eighth-grade trip to the nation’s capital.

... noshed with him in New York City on the band trip.

... petted the bum of a koala bear with him in Australia during the summer trip.

... invited him to your house to watch University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball.

... made sure he had a date, or was his date, to homecoming or prom.

... cheered for every three-point basketball shot he launched, and taught him to show the ‘3-baller’ sign for every one he made.

... gave up a basketball shot of your own, to pass the ball to Daniel so he could shoot it.

... signed one of the four giant ‘Get Well Soon’ poster cards delivered to him at the hospital.

... counted measures and measures of beats in the musical score so you could cue Daniel at the very moment he needed to play the suspended cymbal or strike the triangle during a band concert.

“This is just the beginning of the list, and you know it, of the ways you have not only cared for Daniel, but loved him. And for all of that and your genuine friendship with him, we and the entire Stone family are profoundly grateful.

“There’s a spiritual song titled, ‘When It’s All Been Said and Done’ -- listen to it sometime during your personal quiet time -- with these lyrical lines:

‘When it’s all been said and done

All my treasures will mean nothing

Only what I’ve done for love’s reward

Will stand the test of time.’

“What you’ve done is love a friend,” said Kurt. “It will stand for eternity.”

Parents serve many roles for their children: nurturer, teacher, mentor -- and inevitably, a child’s first ATM.

Most parents give their tweens and teens money in some way: cash as needed, an allowance or maybe access to a credit card. But simply dispensing funds is a less-than-ideal way to teach personal financial responsibility.

And American kids need some help in that department. One in 5 U.S. teenage students lack basic financial literacy skills, according to results released last week by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Among the 15 participating countries, the U.S. ranked 7th in how well 15-year-olds understood essential financial concepts and risks.

The scores remained unchanged since 2012, the first time PISA tested financial literacy. Only 1 in 10 American students achieved the highest proficiency level, meaning they are able to make the kinds of financial decisions relevant to them in the future. Chinese students ranked first overall.

With the average college graduate facing more than $35,000 in student loan debt, an array of credit card options, complicated cellphone plans and an ever-changing housing market, teens need solid financial planning skills before they launch into adulthood.

There was a key indicator that correlated with better performance on the PISA test: 53 percent of the participants said they have a bank account. Students with a bank account scored 42 points higher on the financial literacy exam than students who did not have one.

“Parents are the number-one influence on their children when it comes to money,” said Billy Hensley, senior director of education for the National Endowment for Financial Education. Besides setting up an account that a child can access and manage, there are other important money-management tips for parents to teach children before they head off to college:

1. Explain how college debt and interest work. Give examples of what monthly loan repayments could look like and how many years it would take. If a high schooler is deciding between college options with significantly different debt loads, explain to them the salary range required after graduation for them to comfortably make the loan payments.

2. Show them the dangers of credit card spending using real-life examples. Calculate how much they would pay in interest if they only paid a minimum monthly amount and carried a balance, and what the long-term consequences of bad credit can be.

3. Share your own financial mistakes. Be honest about your own financial setbacks and the better choices you wish you had made.

4. Make a plan. Anthony ONeal, co-author of “The Graduate Survival Guide: 5 Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make in College,” says students need to have two written plans before heading off to college: a plan for their life and a plan for their money. Begin by setting personal goals for the semester and making sure those align with their budget. He advises revisiting and revising each plan at the start of each semester.

5. Create an emergency fund. ONeal also suggests college students save and keep a $500 emergency fund. (Not for late-night pizza “emergencies,” but the broken-down-car type of emergency.)

Some companies, recognizing that cash usage is declining and that teens need to learn digital money management, are jumping into this niche. Financial services tech firm Current recently launched the Current Student Account, a preloaded Visa debit card connected to a parent’s account with tight parental control and supervision.

The card, which comes with an iOS or Android app, allows parents to denote how money will be earned through various chores, and to transfer allowance as it is earned. Teens can divide their funds into three digital wallets: spending, saving and giving, which helps teens identify local charities to which they can donate. Parents and teens are able to track purchases as they are made.

The company charges a $3 monthly service fee, which is higher than what a bank typically charges for a preloaded spending card. But it’s appealing how this digitized allowance can be tied to chores and responsibilities in a tech-friendly way.

The goal is to encourage good financial management, saving and charitable giving habits among teens.

These may be among the most valuable lessons parents can give.