1KHO 508: They Said He Needed Drugs for Life. He Was Six. | Barbie Rivera, Enough is Enough

Summary

The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast - Episode 1KHO 508 Summary

Episode Title: They Said He Needed Drugs for Life. He Was Six.
Guest: Barbie Rivera
Release Date: June 23, 2025
Host: Ginny Urch
Book Discussed: Enough is Enough: Exposing the Education System After Their Failed Attempt to Label and Drug My Son by Barbie Rivera

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1. Introduction

In this poignant episode of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, host Ginny Urch welcomes Barbie Rivera, a dedicated parent and educator, to discuss her harrowing experiences with the American education system. Barbie shares her journey chronicled in her book, Enough is Enough, highlighting the detrimental effects of labeling children and the overreliance on psychotropic medications.

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2. Barbie Rivera's Story

Barbie Rivera begins by recounting the traumatic experience her son endured in the school system. At just six years old, her son was rapidly labeled as mentally disabled and prescribed lifelong medication after only two weeks of formal schooling.

Notable Quote:
"He was six, he's six. There's no way he could mastermind a bank robbery!"
— Barbie Rivera [04:35]

Barbie emphasizes that her son exhibited typical child behavior—playing, getting along with peers, and being bilingual—yet he was swiftly judged based on minimal observations.

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3. Critique of the Education System

Barbie critiques the modern education system, contrasting it with the more relaxed and play-focused approach of the late 1960s and early 1970s. She laments the shift towards increased academic pressure, decreased playtime, and the overemphasis on testing.

Notable Quote:
"When you have a kid that, you know, it's like they're confused on fractions... they understand it differently because it was very active. It had to do with some reality."
— Barbie Rivera [20:13]

She argues that the current educational practices fail to recognize individual learning phases and unique developmental timelines, leading to mislabeling and unnecessary medication.

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4. Effects of Labeling and Medication

Barbie details the profound impact labeling and medication had on her son's self-esteem and overall well-being. She describes how her son internalized these negative labels, leading to a loss of confidence and disconnection from himself and his family.

Notable Quote:
"He didn't just think he was stupid, he was convinced he was stupid."
— Ginny Urch [07:15]

Barbie also highlights the lack of comprehensive evaluation in the labeling process, noting that the system relies on simplistic checklists rather than a holistic understanding of a child's circumstances.

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5. Homeschooling as a Solution

Faced with the failures of the traditional school system, Barbie made the bold decision to homeschool her son. She recounts the challenges and rewards of creating a customized learning environment tailored to her son's interests and needs.

Notable Quote:
"We are a homeschooling family. This is not necessarily a podcast about homeschooling, but I do want to plug it because in some ways you could avoid that."
— Ginny Urch [08:17]

Barbie shares how homeschooling allowed her son to thrive, fostering his love for learning through real-world applications and personal interests, such as animal care and art.

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6. Impact on the Family

Barbie discusses how her decision to homeschool not only benefited her son but also enriched the entire family's dynamics. She describes the positive interactions between her children and the additional kids she brought into their homeschooling environment.

Notable Quote:
"They learned early on that if they wanted things, they had to work for them. And they would get really creative."
— Barbie Rivera [49:23]

This approach nurtured independence, creativity, and strong sibling relationships, contrasting sharply with the isolated and pressured environment often found in traditional schools.

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7. Interaction with Drug Representatives

A significant part of the discussion revolves around Barbie's encounters with pharmaceutical representatives seeking to enroll children in drug trials. She reveals the unethical practices of offering financial incentives to families in exchange for participating in these studies.

Notable Quote:
"We could get a basketball court. But then they're like, no, we do not sell out children for $5,000. It's so absurd."
— Ginny Urch [23:12]

Barbie underscores her resistance to such overt commercialization of children's health and well-being, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding children from exploitative practices.

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8. Alternative Education Practices

Barbie advocates for educational methods that emphasize experiential learning and reduce reliance on rote memorization and standardized testing. She shares practical examples from her homeschooling experience, such as using bake sales to teach math or creating realistic projects to grasp complex concepts.

Notable Quote:
"If the education does not impact their life positively, it's a waste of time."
— Barbie Rivera [20:08]

By integrating subjects into engaging activities, Barbie argues that children can learn more effectively and retain information better, fostering a genuine love for learning.

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9. Conclusion

The episode concludes with reflections on the importance of recognizing each child's unique developmental journey and the necessity of adapting educational practices to support their individual needs. Barbie emphasizes that education should empower children, not constrain them with outdated labels and unnecessary medications.

Notable Quote:
"motherhood is... the most creative than all of my art supplies."
— Barbie Rivera [46:44]

Host Ginny Urch commends Barbie for her courage in challenging the status quo and her dedication to creating a nurturing and effective learning environment for her children and others.

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a crucial wake-up call to parents and educators alike, highlighting the urgent need to reassess and reform current educational practices. Barbie Rivera's heartfelt testimony underscores the profound consequences of mislabeling and the transformative power of individualized education.

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Connect with Barbie Rivera:
For more insights and to support Barbie's mission, visit her website Barbie Rivera and subscribe to her newsletter for updates and exclusive content. You can also get a free chapter of her book, Enough is Enough, as mentioned by host Ginny Urch.

Transcript

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[Ginny Urch]

To the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I have just read a phenomenal, phenomenal book. Phenomenal. And the author says the things that I think a lot of people think but are not quite willing to say. Barbie Rivera is here, parent and educator. The book is called Enough is Enough, Exposing the education system after their failed attempt to label and drug my son. Welcome.

[Barbie Rivera]

Thank you.

[Ginny Urch]

You are a brave person.

[Barbie Rivera]

Thank you. You know, you never feel brave when you're doing it. Yeah, but. Thank you.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah, but you are. So I read this book and found it rather shocking, certain parts of it and also was like. Yeah, I. I think, I think that, you know, or that seems like even you talking about, like how we labeling kids hyper, like that was one of them. Well, they, yeah, they're hyper. They move a lot. Like that type of thing. You said my parents didn't get matching furniture, you know, until all five of their children moved out of the house. Why? Well, because kids are hyper. They jump on stuff. So that type of thing. My parents only became concerned when things were calm and quiet. So this book is. I mean, I've not really read anything much else like it. Even though I think a lot of people are having similar experiences where their child is going off to school and within a very short period of time they're being labeled as something certain and being offered drugs. So this happened for your child? Yes, in 1991, when. Which actually is pretty interesting. I mean, this. This has been going on longer than I realized.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes, absolutely. You know, it's like I was a young parent. So I'm 20 years, almost to the day older than my son. And my son would have thrived in my first grade or kindergarten class of 1969, 1970, where it was, there was no testing, there were songs sung, it was very easy. It was a lot of arts and crafts. It wasn't this pressure cooker. And my son would have thrived in that. And that's what I went into school thinking he was going to experience.

[Ginny Urch]

Right. Because how would you know? You wouldn't know anything different. That's the problem, I think, is that no one really knows because you're not there to see the changes. The only people who know are, in some cases like the pediatricians who see the change. And when you talk to the ones that are 40s and 50s and they've been doing it for 20 years, they say, yes, there's a change. You talk to the occupational therapist, you talk to the teachers, but a lot of times they end up leaving the profession or they're kind of burnt out. So you don't really have that perspective or people are not brave enough to say the things. So you're thinking kindergarten is going to be this play thing. That's how it was for me. There was PlayStations, it was a half a day.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah.

[Ginny Urch]

And we didn't do, I don't think any academics at all that I remember.

[Barbie Rivera]

I mean either.

[Ginny Urch]

Maybe you learned the Alphabet and, you know, maybe you counted to 10. I mean it was very minimal on the academics and very heavy on the play. So you send off your son, you're a young mom, you're not expecting anything different. And you said that within a couple weeks. And I thought this was a really big deal because you talked about how, you know, if you're going to work at Starbucks, they're going to give you a three month ramp up time.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

But for your child in first grade, you know, it's two weeks in that they. He labeled him mentally disabled and that his only hope of learning was psychotropic medications that he would most likely need for the rest of his life. Can you talk about that piece about, my goodness, why so fast?

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah, well, it was the second Friday of school, so we're not like in my day. And if I had my way, school would start the day after Labor Day. So you get a full three months summer. However, school starts now, before Labor Day. So you're looking at before the end of August, my son, or within the first week of September. Two weeks in. It was the second Friday, the teacher pulled me aside and like, yeah, your son is mentally handicapped. Those are her exact words. And he will most likely need medication for the rest of his life to be able to learn. And I'm like, whoa, what is that you may have said, you may have just accused my son of bank robbery of like, he's the mastermind between the diamonds that were stolen out of New York City. I'm like, he's six, he's six.

[Ginny Urch]

And you said it was, there was nothing else out of the ordinary. You said he was playing, he's playing, he's playing with his friends, he's playing with Whatever. Siblings. He's just getting along with kids. He's a great kid. And you wrote there's. I mean, nothing wrong, but he was bilingual also.

[Barbie Rivera]

I'm not bilingual. He's the first grandson to the Cuban side of the family.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah.

[Barbie Rivera]

And so he. Till his grandfather passed away, they. He speaks Cuban Spanish, like, loud and on and on. And the Cuban coffee and the this and the that. And that was my son at 6. He totally understood Spanish. So I'm like, if he can learn that, and he can learn how to bait a hook when he goes fishing in the Keys and he doesn't ever throw a fit at the grocery store, you say, damon, it's time to clean up. Okay, Mom. Damon, it's time to go to bed. Okay, Mom. It was, like, the easiest. He's why I have so many kids, because I'm like, all right, if they're all like this. This is. I like this. I want eight of these, you know?

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah. So you're shocked. You're shocked because you're not expecting it. And then you wrote about how much this affected him. And there was this part of the book where, you know, you're. You're kind of trying to push back a little bit. Like, you're almost, like, making a joke about it. The teacher's like, well, he can't. He. He confuses six and nine.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah. He's in first grade. Like, we just started. Like, whatever you say. Okay, well, you know, I'm gonna take him off all the banking responsibilities.

[Barbie Rivera]

That's right.

[Ginny Urch]

Well, you know what? You're right. I'm not gonna have him write any more of our family checks. And that's funny. Like, that is funny. And it. It totally encapsulates the fact that this is ridiculous. He's in first grade, so it doesn't matter if, for right now, he mixes up 6 and 9 or B and D. Right. Like, there's time to learn these things. And you said the teacher didn't, like, did not respond positively. I would be like, this lady's really funny.

[Barbie Rivera]

Oh, my gosh. No. No sense of humor at all. Plus, like, I don't know. You know, it's like, you look at, like, somebody like, I. When I was little, like, three years old, I had a fear of snowmen. I lived in Cincinnati, so snowmen were around. I was terrified of them. Imagine if my parents would have labeled me, like, what's the psychiatric label? Like, snow challenge. I don't know. You know, like, what would be the label that would stay with me for the Rest of my life. I think by the time I was six, I was building snowmen. So whatever, it was a phase, it was a this, it was a that. But this teacher and the system really came down on my son hard because of the six and the nine. And I'm like, they look alike and the B and the D, they look alike. And I'm like, he does not confuse a cow with a water bottle. He knows differences.

[Ginny Urch]

And there are phases. And that's one of the things that you talk about in this book, is that they're not recognizing that there's phases. And also when you look at child development, the phases is not a monolith. We're unique. So it's not, you know, if you talk about your own children, and I've talked about this before, I have a kid who learned to ride the bike at three and another one who didn't learn to ride the bike at 8. So that's a whole lifespan right there. And that's how things work. So some kids are going to be reading Charlotte's Web when they're four and some kids aren't going to be reading until they're 10. And that should be fine. These are phases. And you talked about how this really affected Damon. You say he crashed and he crashed fast. He didn't just. This is the important part because. And people are like, this actually matters. They seem so young, but it really affects how they feel about themselves. He didn't just think he was stupid, he was convinced he was stupid. Here this is a huge scent. Six years of love and support from me, his father, his aunts, his uncles and grandparents from both sides of the family went down the drain.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah.

[Ginny Urch]

At age 6, he gave up. Now we're a homeschooling family. And this is not necessarily a podcast about homeschooling, but I do want to plug it because in some ways you could avoid that. I think sometimes people, sometimes are like, ah, they're nervous to start. But I think if you're on the fence about it, I would say start, say try it first. As opposed to maybe putting your kid in a situation where they're getting homework from the beginning, like you were talking about the homework. He's getting Fs, but he can't read it. Why are they giving him homework that he can't actually read? He's only six. And then they're going to give him a big F on it. And then it's affecting their self esteem. And sometimes those feelings can last a long time.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah, well, it's Life changing.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah.

[Barbie Rivera]

Like it's life changing.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah.

[Barbie Rivera]

And the interesting thing is, again, I decided to homeschool him. I still left him in school for the first year because I was pregnant with number four, which honestly, that is a decision that haunts me because I feel like I left my son in a burning building. Like the flames were there. We were beyond smelling smoke. There were beyond red flags. He was crashing and I saw it and I had a. A front row seat and I thought that I was being a good mom by, okay, I'm going to sit with him and do the homework. And it was a grind. And I'm like, what are we doing? I never had homework when I was six. I, I don't think I got homework until I was in the fifth grade. And that was write spelling words three times each. It was really basic. But yet he was supposed to write book reports before he could write a sentence. And I'm like, this is nonsense. So my other three kids, they never entered the school system and they thought they were nothing but brilliant. And they were all different. If all of my children were born on the same day, they are all. They're all. There's similarities, of course, but they're all vastly different. They have different interests, they have different speeds, they have different responses. And that's what makes it kind of incredible is like when you get into knowing that person and you present to them some, okay, well, what do you think happened to the dinosaurs? Like, my youngest son, I have to tell the story because I love it. I had. Damon was 9, and at that time I had like 11 kids or 12 kids coming to my house for homeschooling. And Michael was three and he was under the table with his little cars. And I'm like, okay, guys, so what's the theory with dinosaurs and somebody? Well, it was a meter meteor. There was a frost. You know, these kids are tossing out their ideas and Michael stands up, he goes, isn't it obvious what happened? I'm like, what happened to the dinosaurs? He goes, they got run over by a jeep. Like he's three. And I'm like, write that down as a possibility, you know. Anyway, he was so, like, he enlightened us all on what happened to the dinosaurs, which was hilarious.

[Ginny Urch]

Well, so you end up having. Bringing other kids into your home too, which I know different states, different things are allowed, but it's giving your kids a customized learning, but they're still having relationships and all of that. So different ideas in this book, Enough is enough. But one of the things that you talked about that I have not really heard anybody else talk about Barbie is the fact that when your six year old comes home with homework, it's different than when your fifth grader comes home with homework because first of all, your fifth grader can probably do their homework. And second of all, when you have a six year old, a lot of times you have a lot of other younger kids.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

You're in that stage of life where you've got toddlers and nursing babies and by the time they're 11, 12, maybe you're sort of moving out of that. Like Your youngest is 3 or 4 years old and a little bit more self sufficient. So one of the things that you talked about in terms of the homework, which I feel like homework is reaching its tentacles into family time and it shouldn't. The school takes up enough of the day already. I agree, but what you talked about is how it, it started to affect the other children. Now I didn't really think about that. But you're like, okay, I'm frustrated. I've got this six year old that I've got to get through these worksheet packets. I'm frustrated. He's frustrated. It's taking up all of this time and it's affecting the siblings.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes. He had two brothers. One. He has a brother. Two brothers and a sister. And the boys were both in diapers. One wasn't even walking yet. But they wanted their time with Damon.

[Ginny Urch]

That's their big brother. Yeah, they wanted time with brother.

[Barbie Rivera]

And Michael, the baby was like, he would laugh at anything. He was never grumpy. Never grumpy. So while I'm cooking, Damon would sit with him and he's in his little rocker and Damon would tell the most ridiculous knock, knock jokes and Michael would crack up and it made no sense. And then Adam, they would play with the big chunky Legos, or they would do things or they would draw pictures and it was just fantastic because there's, there's this relationship that they're building on their time. And again, Damon is thinking he's, he's going down the tubes. He's losing his confidence and he's starting to lose his desire to connect. Like he's disconnecting from school, he's disconnecting from himself and he's starting to disconnect from his family. And it was that point where I'm like, no, I got to homeschool him. Which I wish I didn't need to have that prompt. I wish I was smart enough to.

[Ginny Urch]

Have just done the homeschool how would you know though? And especially, you know, it's like homeschooling has gotten a lot more popular since COVID but even we've we homeschooled before COVID and people did not want to talk about it. They were felt very offended if you talked about it. It was like really taboo. Like you would put something out into the open and you know, you know you're going to get all this hate back for it. So you're talking about in the ninet it was even more so. So it's an interesting piece to a conversation topic to say, well, what does homework take away from a child? Well, it takes their playtime. Like you said, it Rob is their playtime. But it also might rob other things from the family, like sibling relationships. It might rob the peace of the parent. And so there really is a lot more going on with the homework. And you said they did not care. You know, they're really pushing it through the school. You know, you say, look, this is robbing my kid of his hours of playtime. They don't care. How dare you challenge the homework that they're giving.

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[Ginny Urch]

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[Ginny Urch]

You also talked about the change in recess. So in the 1970s, school was 9 to 3. And Dr. Peter Gray, who wrote a book called Free to Learn, talks about this extensively. The school day used to definitely be shorter. It was shorter. And you had recess before lunch, at lunch and in the afternoon. So that's how I grew up. Same same thing. Seat work was limited to 10% of the school day. In kindergarten, 10% of the school day is seat work. So if you're at school for six.

[Barbie Rivera]

Hours, well, kindergarten was half a day. So you were there.

[Ginny Urch]

Oh yeah, three hours. Three hours, right. So you're there for three hours. So that's 180 minutes. So 18 minutes. Yeah, 18 minutes. Now here's what's really interesting. Barbie, where we live in Michigan right now, so seat work was 18 minutes in kindergarten out of a half a day in Michigan. Right now, kindergarten is a full day. It's more than six hours, I'm pretty sure. I think it's probably closer to seven. They get one 20 minute dedicated recess in the afternoon.

[Barbie Rivera]

Isn't that disgusting?

[Ginny Urch]

It like it flip flopped. Yeah, it flip flopped and even way worse because the school day doubled. And now instead of 18 minutes goes to seat work, you only get 18 minutes of recess. So can you talk about that in terms of how that's affecting? Like, what in the heck? And then we're like, they're hyper and they need to be on medication. You're like, well, no one is really meant to live this way. And I don't know, people don't really talk like this. But you're talking like it.

[Barbie Rivera]

No, I'm talking like it. Okay, so what I tell adults is like, okay, so let's say I give you nine hours of filling out government forms. You're going to be condensed in 15 minutes. Like condensed. Now imagine you're four or five and you're being given. You're being overwhelmed with facts or information that there's no jointed or coordinated point. So you're being like, shut down at the get go. Like, I was shocked that Damon was going to be. I never let him get labeled learning disabled. Because I'm like, this kid learns everything that I present to him. He know, he helps me make pancakes. He does all of these things. You know, I don't have to worry about if I'm like, hey, can you mix this? He's not going to go put somebody's eye out with the spatula. You know, he knows what to do. So to say that that's learning disabled, first of all, it's a lie. And learning for me, education is based on communication. And when two people are joined together and they have the intention to learn, I don't know, make a cake or learn multiplication, it's an easy go, but it can't be force fed. And it can't just be presented in packets and packets and packets and packets and packets because we lose our. Then we lose our person.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Barbie Rivera]

And that's what school has become. There's no application at all. At all. So you have a kid that, you know, it's like they're confused on fractions. Good, give them a little bit. Give them a little bit. And then give them a muffin and have them cut it in half. And have them cut it. Cut that in half. And then. Okay, good. Give them A little. It could be a paper pizza. I used to have the kids make their own pizzas out of paper plates. And I'm like, for every year old you are, put a pepperoni. For every year you will be, next year, add a mushroom forever. You know, like all of these things. And they made their pizza. I'm like, good, now five friends are coming over, cut it into equal parts. And you can imagine how it looked. But these kids understood fraction they understood what they were doing because it was very active. It had to do with some reality. And when we were learning addition and subtraction and learning money, we would do a bake sale. And yeah, I'm doing it at my house. We raised $20, but who cares if they lost money? We need, we know we need to do addition and subtraction. If they made money, we know we're on the right track. But they're involved because if the education does not impact their life positively, it's a waste of time.

[Ginny Urch]

And it's a lot of wasted time. There's a whole lot of time, a.

[Barbie Rivera]

Lot of time, and it's a lot of wasted people. It's a lot of wasted humans that think that they're stupid and they're actually not.

[Ad]

Right?

[Barbie Rivera]

And again, I'm like, my son to me was exceptionally bright, he was exceptionally well mannered. And I feel like, okay, he's targeted.

[Ginny Urch]

So you talk about, I mean, you have person after person because you ended up then you're helping kids, you're helping kids to leave the system. You're helping families. And so you've had over the years, family after family after family who comes to you with this child and that child. And you're talking about, you know, this one boy that he goes on to the drugs and now he doesn't interact with anybody at all. Like, all the other kids are playing and they're in there catching fish and they're climbing trees. And he doesn't talk or engage. He sounds like a robot. Then these families will come to you and say, you know, can you help me? And one of the things that was really, really shocking is you're running them this sort of small school and these drug reps actually come to your school. This is so eye opening to read Barbie. Okay? These drug reps, they come to your school and they are trying to get your kids, the kids that are in your, your small school, to be in trials, because they have to have these drug trials in order to get these drugs approved. Basically, yes. And they are offering you all sorts of financial Compensation.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

So much so that you're talking about that you could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars. So basically, they ask you for every kid that you know of.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah.

[Ginny Urch]

If you can give me their address, if you can give me their contact information, 100 bucks per kid. So it's like a sellout situation. Every kid, you know, 100 bucks. Then if you will rate them. And this is one of the things that you talk about is that all of this is sort of like observational ratings and checklists. You know, it's not like blood test. It's like, if you will rate them these 35 things, sometimes, never or often. It's a very simplistic rating system. Then this is $500 per kid. Yep, 500 bucks. And then if they will take the drug, you will make $5,000 per child.

[Barbie Rivera]

That's right.

[Ginny Urch]

And you are the only one in South Florida to say no.

[Barbie Rivera]

That's right. And that's disgusting. And on the first level of participation on that particular drug study, where it was like, every name, address and phone number that I. Or name and address, because they were going to do a mailing, it was a hundred dollars. And they're like, barbara, you could use your Christmas list, like your Christmas card list. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's already insane enough. And now they're making it worse by making me, like, alluding that I could commit fraud on something that's already ridiculous. And then on the checklist, which I do talk about in the book, the checklists are unfair. First of all, if I were to go to the dentist and say, hey, my son needs a root canal, the dentist is not going to even listen to me. He's going to open his mouth, do an X ray, and whatever a dentist does, we cannot diagnose my son on the checklist. The other thing about my big argument on these checklists is it's all aimed on the student. Like, if somebody were to do a checklist on me on my ability to cook, I'm going to come out failure because I need a cookbook. That's not my thing. So I'm going to be unfairly judged. So these kids are unfairly judged. And never once does any checklist ask the child to rape their parent. They don't ask the child to rape the teacher. How many times a week does the parent read to the child? Once a week, Twice a week? Once a day. How many board games does the parent say? How many times does a parent say, oh, my God, you're just like, so and so you annoy me. Like, how many times is that child rejected by a parent? How many times does a teacher say they're stupid or raise their voice? Because I think that that makes a difference to the child. But they don't do that because we can't ask the child. The child's actually not even part of the equation other than we want to put him on the drug, him or her on the drugs.

[Ginny Urch]

And it does make a difference. It makes a huge difference. You said, I have encountered 10 year olds because you're in the situation where people are coming to you probably often as a last resort, like, we so need help. So they're coming to you. And so you're encountering all of these different people in all of these different situations. And you say, I have encountered 10 year olds who have never played a board game, rolled dice, or use their fingers to move a game piece. I've encountered teenagers who have never helped cook a meal and several who have never sat down to dinner as a family. You're like, these are factors that might affect why a kid behaves in certain ways and why maybe they're behind academically or things like that. You talked about a certain boy named Caden. I know you changed names in the book, but it might jog your memory. And you talk about how he was being raised by his grandmother. He's five. Yeah. And you, you were like, so the checklist is the same for Kayden as it is for everybody else. And you're like, but what about his specific life circumstances? Why is he being raised by his grandmother? Are his parents in jail? You know, were they killed? Is his grandmother 59? Is she 99? Like, all of these things matter. And you say none of that is a part of the process.

[Barbie Rivera]

Right. Plus with him. And I have the, I, I included the drawing that helped get him labeled when he was five. And again, I made note on his record because it was. He was labeled in September, which is the. Yes. Which is the beginning of the school year. They found his art immature in nature. And I'm like, what do we, what do we.

[Ginny Urch]

Yes. To say it again. He's five years old. It's the first month of school. He's got a picture. It's in the book. It's on page 77. And it's a picture. Like, it looks like everything kid would draw. It looks like nothing. It looks like something I would draw. Probably I'm not a good drawer. So he's five years old. He draws this picture. It looks like something a little kid Would draw. And they say his art is immature.

[Barbie Rivera]

In nature because it was Octopus man versus Spider Man. So it's a blob with eyeballs. Like, I'm like, what they could have done with that boy to inspire him, had him write comics. Who cares? And plus his, his first letter, which again, I know that I changed the name, he printed the letter backwards. So that was a whole issue. And I'm like, give him a chance. We know what he's saying. I'm not saying it's correct, but I'm saying if you do handwriting drills every day for five minutes only and have him trace the letters and trace the Alphabet and know that where you start. But handwriting is not taught anymore, right? And so children with sloppy handwriting, that's actually an indication of a learning disability or a mental disability is sloppy handwriting. But we're not teaching kids how to write. So I'm like, that's dumb.

[Ginny Urch]

You read the book and you're like, you really do. Your blood is boiling. And I'm glad you're saying the things that a lot of people are nervous to say. You say just because a Damon. So he's talking about your son didn't know the Alphabet. It doesn't mean he can't learn the Alphabet. And it's the same for this little boy. It's like just because he can't draw Spider man at age 5 doesn't mean he won't ever be able to draw Spider Man. And maybe he doesn't care about drawing Spider Man. Like I can't draw Spider Man. So they put him on, okay, so he put turns in this art. They say it's immature art. And he's five years old and instead of just, I mean, whatever, he drew it on a piece of paper instead of just like letting it go. He's five. They say we need to make sure he knows he is inept. We need to tell his grandmother just how incapable he is. If he cannot learn to count to 10 by the second week of school, science tells us he will never be able to balance a checkbook. So he is doomed to a life of failure. So they put 5 year old Kaden on Strattera and Adderall to start with. And as he got older, more medications were prescribed. So this is what you talk about. These are the things that people are not really saying. Can drugs help you learn the Alphabet?

[Barbie Rivera]

No, there's no pill. And this is kind of harsh, but there's no pill that I can take that's going to have me cook as well as My son's Cuban grandmother, it doesn't exist. And the thought that, the thought that even people entertain that. And it's so woven into the language of like, oh, I have to take my son to the park every day. He's got adhd. I'm like, no, you have to take him to the park every day because that's your job as a parent.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah, because he's a child. And so kids should be going to the park.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

So you say there is no. These are the controversial things. I was like, Barbie went there. There is no drug. Because people would argue, they would say, well, it's going to help them to pay attention better and that type of thing. But when you really look at what's going on with the American school system, it's like they're. The literacy rates are awful. So it would appear that it's not working right. There is no drug on the market that would get my son to learn the Alphabet. There is not a pill or a combination of pills that raises literacy levels. There is an entire generation of parents who think it's perfectly normal to have children on some type of medication so they can focus at school. There is an entire generation of teachers who do not know that children used to be educated without the need for labels and drugs. And there is an entire generation of children prescribed medication like Prozac at age 3, growing up unaware of what it is like to not be medicated.

[Barbie Rivera]

It's horrible. Like I could cry. And I'm. I'm the one who wrote that.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah. And you say the checklist, guess what? It doesn't include. Do they get ample time outside to climb trees? Are they building forts? Are they exploring nature? And that these checklists, you say sometimes it's like a three minute meeting with a psychiatrist and then they are put on these pills and you talk about how they alter the nervous system. There's different side effects. And you say, if medications end up harming your child, who do you sue? You sue the school?

[Barbie Rivera]

Well, that's what I tell parents. Like if they're told to medicate, just ask. So who do I sue if this goes south? Because that'll usually jars. Changes the conversation. Not much, but to me there's just no responsibility. There's a lot of money changing hands and there's a lot of children losing. And unfortunately the parents are part of the problem because they. And I'm not gonna. I don't really want to pick on them and I don't want to pick on the teachers either because the teachers have an impossible job. They're not allowed to control their classroom. My teachers growing up, if we were caught chewing gum in class, we were sent to the principal's office. That was the level of discipline. And it's not that way anymore.

[Ginny Urch]

Right?

[Barbie Rivera]

And I think we kind of need to go back to what worked. And what worked isn't all these drugs. And what worked wasn't all this label. And what worked wasn't having a five year old forced to sit in a chair for seven hours a day.

[Ginny Urch]

It is an impossible job because if you're teaching a class of 265 year olds, you could do 18 minutes of seat work in the morning, no problem. You know, sprinkled throughout three hours of a morning kindergarten, I'm sure you could get 18 minutes of seat work in 10% of the day. If it's flip flopped. If it's flip flopped and they only get 18 minutes to go play, that's impossible. It is impossible. And this is just going against their very nature. You wrote children are not hyperactive, they are naturally active. Which is the absolute truth. The number one selling product of its.

[Barbie Rivera]

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[Ginny Urch]

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[Barbie Rivera]

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[Ginny Urch]

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[Ginny Urch]

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[Ginny Urch]

You also then go down the path of this sort of mess of education. And you know, the Common Core is overly complicated and we're dismantling reading. And we went from phonics to site based words, which is so ridiculous. Why would anyone do that? I do not understand. And what's so crazy, Barbie? So we homeschool and our youngest daughter, we didn't do any reading curriculum at all because I had read this book that said kids should be able to learn on their own is, you know, once they're old enough, if they come from a literate household, they're going to ask questions. So we did end up not teaching our youngest at all. No lessons. And she reads every day. She has books with her all the time. She's eight now and she doesn't go anywhere without a book. She really likes these. They're like natural disaster ones. I can't think of what they're called. There's a whole series. And so she knows about, you know, like the Titanic and this plague. And anyway, she loves those books. She goes, she takes them with her everywhere. And it didn't teach her nothing. Like no one taught her. And there's like, there's PhDs and like it's like such a big deal. It makes it seem like it's so hard to do. And for some kids, there's going to be some different interventions if they're dyslexic or different types of things. But for a lot of kids, reading is so easy to learn.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

That if you just wait until they're old enough.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yes.

[Ginny Urch]

You don't even have to teach them.

[Barbie Rivera]

Right. Well, now I'm going to tell you something. So these, I have 150 of these old textbooks. This is from 1883. And in the beginning I put a post it here so I could read it. There's a note to teacher on all of these books. First of all, they're authored by one person, not a team of psychologists or a team of PhDs. Right. You want to, you want to have Thanksgiving? Put one person in the kitchen with some help. Don't put 19 people in the kitchen. No one's going to Eat. Anyway, one of the things that's interesting from the early 1900s when the United States was number one educationally, is throughout these books. And like I say, I've collected over 450 of them. One of the things is that if the material is written in such a way that it repeats itself over and over and is on a slow gradient of mastery, the child will learn it on his own with minimal teacher interference. And the book used the word interference. And, and that is incredible because again, like going back to something you said about a kindergarten teacher having 25 kids. To me, that's right. There we lose it. I had four under the age of six getting four under the age of six. Now pretend they were all six. I'm busy. You know, it's like on one of my children, Adam, my third one, I don't know what I ate when I was pregnant with him. This kid, he was the biggest baby that I had. He was just under eight pounds. And now he's like six foot three. He, he's got like a swimmer's body, but he's bulky. And this kid ate tremendous amounts of food. Well, he was born with his two bottom teeth. So like born with two teeth like ready for rice and beans at three hours old. And he's an eater, so he has to eat twice, three, four times the amount of food that my other ones eat. Am I now not supposed to feed him because of his of the way he is? Because that's not the standard of whatever. And he was only interested in animals. So everything he would do had to be animal related. And so I let him do animal related books. And by the time he was 10, he had read 250 books on his own about animals. He also rescued a bird like a Florida, I don't know, one of these E crit, it looks like a stork. He knew exactly what to do.

[Ginny Urch]

Wow.

[Barbie Rivera]

And so, and, and he was very engaged. School helped him because it helped him with the collection of snakes and frogs. And he had, I think I even talk about it in the book where I bought him two 55 gallon tanks because the bottom tank was the hospital. And any animal that he brought, snakes, frogs, whatever, that he rehabilitated, I paid him $3 to let it go. And so one month I paid this boy $30 because he had his little hospitals. And it was his creation, his thing, and it was fabulous.

[Ginny Urch]

And you're like, how much do you learn when you learn in context like that?

[Barbie Rivera]

That's right.

[Ginny Urch]

You learn a tremendous amount. And you learn all of the subjects and they're all interwoven together. They're not separated by textbooks. And now obviously so much of it is on computers. You don't even have a textbook. But that counts as really engaged learning of science and math and geography and history. I mean, you can learn all sorts of things through the study of something that a kid is engaged with. And almost every kid has something that they specialize in that they really love, that lights them up. And you can use that as a vehicle to teach all sorts of different things. And when you have that contextualized learning, when you have. It's not the right word. When you have. When it's individualized, when you have opportunity for the child to be an individual, you talked about then how the little things really add up. The little moments matter. So you talked about this one story where your dad says to you, barbie, you're really good at art. Yeah, One sentence. It's someone that notices you and knows you and can see and draw that out. And you wrote, this ranks as one of the most validating experiences of my life. It speaks to the importance of just noticing, just noticing another's effort or skill. In this case, you had drawn this school of fish. My father's simple comment impacted me far more than the supplies he purchased. These different art supplies. How much better could childhood be if a parent or teacher just sincerely pointed out what the child was already good at doing and mentioned it from time to time? That's the minimally invasive that, you know, the min, the minimal interference. They already have things that they're good at. And so you're encouraging them in those fields of study that they're really already interested in. And it really, like, you still remember that your dad said that.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah, that was a great part of my book, was recalling all of these things that my dad like, these little interactions with my father. Because like when I had that third grade teacher that gave me C's, and I was devastated. And I thought, you know, here it is, that my brothers and sisters are getting their stockings ready. And I'm in grief because I'm convinced that Santa's not bringing me anything. And my dad's like, what's happening? I'm like, well, I got. Had three Cs on my report card. And, you know, one was in art. And my. My dad was just like, come with me, because he didn't want my mom to hear, because you never talk bad about a teacher. You know, yeah, Santa thinks your art is amazing. You are getting presents. And Santa also thinks your Teacher's A. I was like, thank you. Like, it just. I mean, I was going to bed every night for months, haunted about the low grades that this teacher gave me. Four art that I was doing on my free time. Oh, my little seven up bottle. And it, like, I talked to talk about it, like. Yeah, I drew the same thing over and over because I was trying to make it look glass. Like, how can you.

[Ginny Urch]

I'm.

[Barbie Rivera]

I'm what, eight? And I wanted to look like you could reach on the page and pick it up. So I kept practicing and practicing and practicing, and she said I was too repetitive. So. And it was on my free time.

[Ginny Urch]

Why do we give adults so much power to crush children?

[Barbie Rivera]

Exactly.

[Ginny Urch]

Because it definitely happens. I mean, I used to be in the public school system and there are kids that were crushed. You know, I was in high school and they were already crushed. And those things just stick with them. Those, you know, those negative experiences. I mean, here you are, you're an adult.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah.

[Ginny Urch]

And you can still talk about this teacher at 8 years old and. And how that affected you. I loved this sentence. It's a very, very short sentence, but you're talking about homeschooling. So you, you know, you pull yourself out of the system. So basically, this book, it's called Enough is Enough, Exposing the education system after their failed attempt to label and drug my son. So if this is something that is a current situation in your home, you grab the book. It's going to give you some confidence, it's going to give you some different ideas. It might help a friend of yours so you can pass this information along to them. A lot of things in here about what is the actual goal of education in general. You talk about these things. Reading pens, which I'd never heard of, which is basically like a calculator, but for reading. So the kids are just like, their skills are going down the tubes and that really is going to affect their lifelong life. It's gonna affect. It's gonna affect a lot of things. If they can't read well, and the reading pens are not. They're not the right thing to say it calculators.

[Barbie Rivera]

And. And now in Miami, you have schools where the kids go and they sit in front of a screen and there's an adult in the room. There's no communication. I'm like. Like I'm gonna lose my mind.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah.

[Barbie Rivera]

For this.

[Ginny Urch]

It's not good for kids.

[Barbie Rivera]

It's not good for anybody. It's not even good for the workforce. You have a child who's been Stuck in front of a screen his entire life. And I know because I've tried to hire college kids who can't take a. Can't take a message.

[Ginny Urch]

Wow.

[Barbie Rivera]

And you're like, okay. And it's because they've been in front of a screen the whole time.

[Ginny Urch]

In 2022, the U.S. department of Education reported that more than half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read at or 6th grade level. Despite billions spent on modern education, the results are worse. And you've got literacy rates in this book. It's on page 222. People can pick it up and see just. I mean, the most important academic skill of reading has just been dismantled over the last 100 years. But I want to wrap it up with this sentence, because I think this is really important as you end up with four young kids at home, and then you take in other kids. And like I said, different states are different if you're allowed to do that or not allowed to do that or what the sort of rules on that are. So make sure that you look into that if that's something that you're interested in doing. Like in Michigan, I don't know if you'd be able to do that, or it maybe have to be set up as a private school or something like that. But you end up having all these kids in your home. And what a sweet thing. What a sweet thing for you to bring in. Not only are you helping your own kids, because now they've got these different social experiences, but you're helping other people's families. And this is. Now what you've done for decades is you're helping people and their kids and what to do with education situation that they're in. And you say, and this is, I think, one of the biggest misnomers, you would think that if you take that leap, you got all four kids at home, you got neighborhood kids at home, that you would hate your life. That's what society makes you think, right? Oh, you're gonna hate it. You know, they're trying to push everybody out into the workforce and put your kids in daycare, and you're gonna hate it. And you say, I was very busy, but happily so. And then you wrote this. I was really busy, but I really enjoyed the life I was building.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yep.

[Ginny Urch]

And that's what people need to know.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yeah. I had a moment early on with all four of my kids, and they were just crawling around on the floor. And I had my art supplies. I'm an artist, and my art supplies were in a Closet. And they took up, like, they were in, like, a little suitcase that I got at a thrift store. And I'm like, oh, my God, what have I done? I'm not going to ever paint or create again. And then instantly I changed my mind. And I turned and I look and it was my little son Michael, who was. He wasn't even walking yet, and he was crawling after his sister who had some pull toy, like a little Fisher Price pull toy. And she was like, come on, Michael. Come on, Michael. And I'm like, what am I thinking? Paper and pen. Yes, create, create. Draw. Good. I can draw a dog. I can draw a car. I can draw whatever. I go. What I'm experiencing right now is actually my ultimate creation. And it's the ultimate. To me, it's my ultimate weapon. And I know we're not, like, now. I can't even believe. You can't say, oh, I'm a mom now. It's controversial and it shouldn't be, because I feel. And again, I'll be shocked for this statement. I feel that if the moms really stood up, we could put orders into a lot of the things that are happening in our neighborhoods. Because I'm an organized person. I'm a very high standard person. My kids are like, okay, make up your bed. The bed better look like it's made up. Not because I'm going to force or come at them meanly, but I'm going to show them how to do it. And I want them to succeed. And when they come to me and they're 10 years old and they're like, mom, I want a skateboard. The skateboard's $175. I'm like, good. What are you going to help me do to earn that money? So they learned early on that if they wanted things, they had to work for them. And they would get really creative. And guess what? They ended up making their own businesses. And some of them were ridiculous. Their kids, you know, oh, we're going to paint rocks. I'm going to bake cookies. I'm going to clean up the neighbor's yard. And when a hurricane hit, my boys would go out with their gloves and garbage bags and clean up yards, and they came back with $600. And they were like, I don't know. The youngest one was nine. And I'm like, good for them, and good for me for giving them that type of an environment. I really think that by saying, like, motherhood is, oh, that's beneath you. You're going to be so up, you're not going to be happy. I'm like, no, this is the most. This is more creative than all of my art supplies. And now I have tons of art supplies. But it, you know, you can. You can stand back. My kids are all grown now, but they have that same relationship. They just light each other up when they see each other. And when on the rare chance that I. It's not totally rare that I have all of them in the same place. We don't need a tv, we don't need a radio, because it's right there in the communication and what they say and how they treat each other and the level of humor and the level of intelligence. It's just. It's. It's really nice. And to think that I would have lost that had I done what the school system said. Yeah, A crime.

[Ginny Urch]

Yes. These phases. And that's the thing, I think when you're in the spot where you have six kids or, you know, four kids or six kids, whatever, a bunch of young kids, there is this message like, it's going to be awful, and it might be hard and it might be busy, but your message and my message would be the same. You're going to love it, and you're going to be so glad that you did it in retrospect. And the time will come, these phases. The time will come when you get your art supplies back out. The time will come when you play the piano again. The time will come when you read novels, you know, that you want to read. The time will come when you get to take a bubble bath or whatever. But it's just really a short window where you set those things aside and you're busy, but you can be happily busy. I was really busy, but really enjoyed it. And I loved Barbie, that you had that message in the book, because that's the message that's not getting out there, that you can really love it. And especially in comparison to losing your kid. You know, these different stories that you talked about where these kids come to you and they're 10 or 14, and they really lost a big chunk of their childhood due to what we're doing in the school systems these days. So the book is great. I was like, she went there, she went there. And I've not really read many others where the book, the. Where the author really goes there. And in sharing your own personal story, I think that's really powerful, too, because no one can argue with that. I mean, you saw firsthand, you know, 1991, where they're given a kid an F my goodness, it's ridiculous. So the book is called Enough Is Enough, exposing the education system after their failed attempt to label and drug my son. You can go to your website, Barbie Rivera, and I'll make sure. I'll put the link in the show notes. People could subscribe to your newsletter there and you could send them. You'll send them a couple chapters. They could put 1,000 hours outside in the subject and you could send them a couple free chapters of Enough is Enough so they can kind of see what it's about. You do a whole lot. You're spreading this word all over the place. So I really am thankful that you came on. It was a great book. I was so glad. I read. It was very eye opening, especially the part about literally paying $5,000 for every child that you could get on their drug in their clinical trial. And the kids were like, you know, you're in this really school that you're running and they're like, we could get a basketball court. We get what it. And then. But then they're like, no, we do not sell out children for $5,000. It's so absurd. So I was really glad to read it. It was very eye openening. I learned things that I didn't know were going on. So thank you for being here.

[Barbie Rivera]

Thank you for having me.

[Ginny Urch]

We always end our show with the same question. The question is, what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside.

[Barbie Rivera]

This tree? Like, I was a tree climber and my mother would have the radio on and I would climb this tree. And it was such a pleasure moment because I listened to Marvin Gays, Heard it through the Grapevine while I'm in this tree with probably a couple of Barbie dolls or something. But it was. It was really nice to just be in that space.

[Ginny Urch]

Yeah. Just be. And that's so many of the things in childhood that don't exist anymore.

[Barbie Rivera]

Yep.

[Ginny Urch]

Time and space to just be Barbie. Thank you for what you're doing and for the information that you're putting out in the world.

[Barbie Rivera]

It's.

[Ginny Urch]

These are tricky things to say and so it's really wonderful that you're saying them.

[Barbie Rivera]

Thank you.