← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 613: Kids Are Hurting Because of the World We Gave Them | Mike McLeod, GrowNow ADHD
01:04:54
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- [00:01]
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- [00:31]
Ginny Erich
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Erich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and one of your very favorite guests is back again today for time. Number five, Mike McLeod.
- [00:39]
Podcast Co-host
Welcome.
- [00:40]
Mike McLeod
Thank you so much for having me. This is, this is number five now, is it? Number five?
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Ginny Erich
Number five.
- [00:44]
Mike McLeod
Oh my God.
- [00:46]
Ginny Erich
Well, you're so easy to talk to and you're so interesting. So this is always great for me. I'm like, please come back. And everybody loves you. So welcome back.
- [00:53]
Mike McLeod
You.
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Ginny Erich
We are right around the corner from you having a new book and a new book workbook that are coming out. The Executive Function Playbook and the Executive Function Playbook in action, which is the workbook. Tell us what we can expect. There is actually not that much information. I was like, what are the chapter titles? You know, I was starting to kind of dig a little bit. So it's still kind of under wraps, but you could probably give us a little preview.
- [01:13]
Mike McLeod
Yeah. So this is really going to be a very factual based, hard hitting book about the youth of today. The lack of executive functioning skills. What are executive functioning skills really defining them so people understand it's not time management in an organization. It is the most crucial set of skills for human beings to develop. The greatest predictor of success for human beings is to have executive functions. And how do we. And it takes a deep dive into what they are, how we strengthen them, why they're needed. We talk about what all that's going wrong with education today and ways to improve it and how to make sure you, you can be the parent you always dreamed of being and how you can make sure your child achieves their dreams and goals. So we have the executive Functioning Playbook that gives you all that information. Really hard hitting. All the people who have gotten advanced copies and Reddit have just been like, wow, I had to sit down and take a couple of deep breaths after reading this. This is really hard hitting, factual. It was all the things that I was thinking inside, but I was afraid to say out loud. So it's a really great book in terms of just factual based information combined with the workbook to really bring all of the practices of the book into action.
- [02:23]
Ginny Erich
And the workbook, you know, that's an interesting combo. Not the combo itself isn't unusual, but, like, to have two things that come out at the same time is like a. Is it.
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Podcast Co-host
That's a heavy lift.
- [02:33]
Ginny Erich
You know, it's one thing to have one book come out at one time, but to have that workbook and the book both at the same time. But it just goes to show, you're so practical.
- [02:42]
Podcast Co-host
What you do is so practical for.
- [02:43]
Ginny Erich
Families and for parents and for educators. So talk to us about what someone could expect from the workbook.
- [02:50]
Mike McLeod
Yeah, and I love that term practical, because that is really what parents need today. You and I have talked about it, you know, five times now, that there has never been a harder time to be a parent. And parents are at the mercy of these massive corporations pushing their drugs onto kids. And now we have an entire generation of kids that are behaving like drug addicts because all of this technology is being pushed on them. And parents now are filled with fear and. And they're constantly walking on eggshells around their kids. They're having trouble setting, setting boundaries, sticking to boundaries, creating structure, keeping that structure. And they're, you know, the typical talk therapy, the counseling, all these different things just aren't moving the needle. They're not helping. This whole idea that you can just, you know, outsource your child's executive functioning skills onto somebody else and, oh, they're addicted to screens. Let me get them into therapy. Oh, he's struggling with executive functioning and emotional regulation. Let me get him into therapy. It's not working. This. You know, we are the ones, the parents, we're the ones that created this world for our kids that has now become the worst youth mental health crisis of all time. And the only ones who can end it and can really turn things around, make a real 180 back to how it should be, are the parents. It's us. We're all in this together. So I really see this book and the workbook as a true call to action, practical information to turn this all around.
- [04:18]
Ginny Erich
I'm so excited. It's coming out in January.
- [04:21]
Podcast Co-host
You could pre order.
- [04:21]
Ginny Erich
Pre orders help authors, but they also help you get the book, because sometimes books sell out and you might then have to wait for, like, several months and they do a reprinting. So I always say pre order. It's one of the best things that you can do for yourself and for the author. So I'll make sure I'LL put those links in the show notes. I mean, it is nearing the time, so.
- [04:40]
Mike McLeod
Yeah. And they go really well with another book called the Street Lights Come on and Homeschooling. You're doing it right just by doing it. The books tend to go really well with those.
- [04:49]
Ginny Erich
Yeah. Practical, you know, do it different and you can really, really enjoy these childhood years and help your kids to thrive. I talked to this woman recently, her name is Nicole Runyon.
- [04:59]
Athletic Brewing Company Advertiser
Yes.
- [04:59]
Ginny Erich
And she wrote a book called Freed to Fly. It is phenomenal. I thought about you while I was reading it. And one of the things that she said was that she estimated that 70% of the clients that she sees in therapy, which are children, don't need to be there. Their parents need to be there. That's what she said. And that 30% do. And what's happening is those 30% are getting crowded out. They're actually not being able to get the support they need because of this other 70% that doesn't actually have to be there. And so one of the things that you do besides having these books that are coming out and you have your own podcast and you have professional development that happens in the school. You have things for launching into college and launching into young adulthood. So many offerings. But one of the ones is one one to parent support and one to one parent coaching. In our situation, I think that I would have probably been the type of mother that tried to do everything. That's the culture that we swim in. We have five kids though, and so I can't. It's really just more a matter of circumstance as opposed to a matter of intention. You know, I think sometimes people are slack jawed, Mike. They'll be, they'll say things like are you going to be at so and so's thing tomorrow? And I'm like, didn't know there was a thing which is not really my personality. But there's a lot of kids going a lot of different places and then people are kind of like, huh, that's so weird. But this is a little bit more historically normal.
- [06:26]
Podcast Co-host
Right.
- [06:27]
Ginny Erich
Where maybe there was less resources and more kids. And so parents were not as involved as they are today. So you have parents that are coming for one on one coaching. Can you talk about a couple key things that would, if parents knew them, if parents knew these couple key things, it would really help their children thrive.
- [06:46]
Mike McLeod
Absolutely. Yeah. So you know, we have to remember this generation of youth is the generation that is getting the most therapy, the most socio emotional classes at school. The more work towards labeling Your emotions and understanding your emotions and they're also the most depressed. And you know, we tend to just go for the, the easy route of what I said about earlier is sort of outsourcing these ideas. My child is screen addicted. Let me get him in therapy. My child can't manage his emotions, doesn't wanna do homework, doesn't wanna make friends. Let me get him in therapy. That's sort of this old school mindset, but the data tells us it is not working, it is not moving the needle. And there's this warm and fuzzy idea of just being able to let my son go talk to someone, let my daughter go talk to someone. It's not working. And the number one most evidence based treatment for ADHD and executive dysfunction is parent training. You can go to effectivechildtherapy.org It's a fantastic website. You can type in any diagnosis name and it lists the actual evidence based practices. And every single day I see an evaluation for a child diagnosed with ADHD and they're below the age of 18, 19, and they're being sent to cognitive behavioral therapy, social skills groups, counseling, talk therapy, things that are not evidence based for ADHD and executive function. It's things that make parents feel good that their kid is talking to someone. But it's all about the point of performance. It's about empowering the parents to be able to step in to their parental authority and stop unintentionally being permissive. And that's exactly why I called the books the executive functioning playbook. Because parents need a playbook on how to best parent this child who is delayed in their executive functioning skills. You can't use your natural parenting instincts to parent this child because here, number one, you have this child who can't manage their emotions, is a handful and is probably struggling socially. And then you hear about, oh, if I get him a cell phone, it'll help him make friends. If I get him Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, they're social, they talk to each other while playing. All the kids are obsessed with it. That'll help him make friends. And then it unbelievably backfires where all of those things become the center of their life. Nothing else matters. And they become addicted to the drug of that social media. Everyone thinks social media is just Facebook and Instagram, but it's also all things that are marketed as social, like Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft. So we have to remember, if you are parenting a child delayed in executive functioning, you have to be very careful with screens which you and I have talked about all the time. Number two is this whole idea of the path of least resistance. And if you have a child who's struggling with executive functions, they are going to be constant dopamine seeking. And if they, they're either going to look for screens or they're going to look for conflict. And they're going to look for that most often from the unconditional relationships they have in their lives, which is mom and dad. So the majority of executive dysfunct, the majority of ADHD behaviors are not seen at school. They're actually seen at home towards mom and dad. So responding to the negativity, getting dysregulated by your child, letting them see you upset, letting them see you yell, is plugging in their brain and giving them more energy and giving them more dopamine. You have to unplug the power source, which is you. You have to remove the negative stimuli, which is you, and not respond to the negativity. Walk away and set those very clear boundaries. Okay, this is hard, very hard.
- [10:30]
Ginny Erich
This is hard. You know, when you have a child, you never, you can't really imagine that, you know, you expected that when they're two and three that they're going to have some meltdowns and they're working through their emotions. But you don't really expect when they're 12 and 13, you know, and obviously there's some things when they're transitioning into teen years too, but that there's going to be defiance, obviously. I think we all remember times when we were like, we didn't really like school and so we're annoyed that we have to do homework work. But the level at this point is as far surpassed, I think, what it used to be. So like we got kids that are defiant, they're melting down, they're not cooperative, they're not following directions. And so you are in this battle, like this day to day battle, and you're so exhausted and the two things that you just named, which are screens and kind of like the reacting, the reaction back, those are, I think, natural things that we would want to do. Like we're going to hand them a screen to get it, to get it to stop and we're going to start yelling back because we're all riled up too. And so in the spot where it's already so hard and you're already kind of enmeshed in this battle, what advice are you giving parents to make such a, I mean, it's a big shift.
- [11:38]
Mike McLeod
It's a Massive shift. And it's so far, it's so far beyond just the basic dysregulation. You know, I've spoken to police officers where they've said, you know, over the past year that the majority of the calls that they've made have been to private homes for dysregulated, angry kids that are attacking their parents physically. Property destruction, all of those things. And that's really what's happening now. The amount of parents who have had to call 911 on their own kids has greatly increased. And so much of this is that dysregulation in the home. And then when the school finds out that this happened at home, they're like, oh, we don't see that here at all. He's an angel at school. I can't believe that happens at home. It's just the lack of structure and you know, school has the structure and it has conditional relationships, it has peer influence. The home is unconditional and unstructured. And in today's world where it is just so hard to be a parent, these, you know, parents with the best intentions will get their kids these screens, get their kids the games want them to. You know, there's the whole social aspect and competitiveness and being able to fit in and not wanting to be ostracized and not wanting to be left out, all of those things. Like in the Axis generation, when Jonathan Haidt talks about, he goes up to a kid and says, would you give up your phone? And he says, no, absolutely not. But what if nobody else had it? Would then you give up your phone? He would say, oh yeah, absolutely, I would love to do it. So there's that whole. And that's, that's what they want. That's what Big Tech wants, is this fear mongering and this constant, you need this to be successful. You need this to fit in. And it's nonsense because we talk about it. When screens and games go into a child's life, they become depressed, dependent and dormant. Not safe, smart and social. So that's really the number one thing that's really, you know, these kids are acting like drug addicts because these screens are drugs. And at the end of the day, what it's all about, which is what 1000 hours outside is all about, we have stolen us as adults. We are the ones that are truly independent. We're the ones that create this world for our kids. We are the ones that make, we're the ones that have made this world that is so divisive. And so, you know, Fiery and, and, you know, neighbors not trusting each other, the society, the community, all of these different things. We created this world for kids where we feel like it's not safe for them to go outside anymore, where we can't trust our neighbors to watch our kids, where we can't let our kids free roam outside. And all of those kinds of things. We, as adults, it is our fault. All of us. We stole play and boredom from childhood. We took it from them. We stole that. And that's when the mental health crisis started. If you steal play and you steal boredom from childhood, you are setting a kid up for failure where their grades are meaningless, their diploma is meaningless, the college they go to is meaningless. None of those things are going to matter if they don't have play and boredom in childhood to set them up for future success.
- [14:41]
Ginny Erich
There you go. And you need to know it early because it's, I would imagine it's easier to circumvent on the front end than to be dealing with the police calls on the back end. So you know it at the front end and pick up the playbook at the front end so that you can row in the right direction and not end up in a spot where you're really struggling.
- [15:01]
Podcast Co-host
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- [17:24]
Ginny Erich
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- [17:26]
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- [18:19]
Ginny Erich
Talking about social media and the social part of it. One of our kids got on this app called Duolingo.
- [18:27]
Mike McLeod
Oh yeah, okay.
- [18:28]
Ginny Erich
So I'm like, that's kind of cool. You know, it's like you learn a language and then one of the kids, the kid who's using it was like, you can also learn chess. I was like, oh, that's kind of a cool thing. And then she says, I have to keep up my streak. Like no, wait, what? So every single thing has been co opted. You know, you literally think it's something like they're just learning a foreign language. And then I was like, you're stressed streak. And she was like, well, because this friend is on it. I was like, oh my goodness. So you really have to be careful of all of the different things. You have no idea. It can be marketed. And as a parent you just are duped. You're totally duped. You're like, oh, they're going to become a better chess player. And they may a little bit, but. But also there's all of these little webs that go through all of them. So that was a lesson for me that the social part of so many of these screen based applications are they, they run really deep. So can you talk to us about an ideal afternoon? I talked to this man today named Dr. Dan Willingham and he had done this survey of a bunch of adults of where should a child's basically free time go to. So he, they basically have about five hours a day. Like if you're thinking four to nine, they should probably be going to bed. I talked to this one woman who was saying that the kids should be going to bed at like 8:30.
- [19:48]
Mike McLeod
I think I heard that episode because.
- [19:50]
Ginny Erich
Of how early they have to get up for high school. So these kids maybe have like three to eight or three to nine, five hours. So this Dan, he sends out this survey to all these adults and he's like, well, what would you think that these kids time should go to those five hours? Every single day they have about five hours. And people were like, they should spend 75 minutes reading. And they, the top three were reading outdoor and time with friends, which I know you would completely agree with. Like yes, if we could spend the majority of those five hours doing those three things. So people had said the adults like they should be spending about 75 minutes reading. And this Dan says they only spend six, which is similar to the outdoor time. It's four to seven minutes a day. So if you were to structure, because I know structure, you just talked about it, you're like in the School setting, there's structure. And then these kids come home and there's no structure. And in fact there is this like a large bucket of things they could.
- [20:43]
Podcast Co-host
Do on a screen.
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Ginny Erich
Whether that's YouTube or Minecraft or Duolingo, whatever. There's an endless amount of things that they could do on screenshot. What would a more appropriate, developmentally appropriate, family centric, healthy afternoon look like?
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Mike McLeod
Yeah, so, so how about this? How about I, I give you this little proposition here and you tell me what you think. I'll give you two separate profiles of a child and you tell me who you think has the stronger executive functioning skills and greater chance to succeed. So child A, child A goes to school, comes home, relaxes for a little bit, works on their homework, and then when their homework is done, they then earn their screen time and they're on screen time until bedtime and they're getting mostly A's and B's at school and their weekend is spent with screen time, staying in the house, those sorts of things. Most of their fan, most of their friends and their relationships are on screens. You then have child B who comes home from school and instantly goes outside, goes to the park, rides, bike, plays in the woods, you know, is, is always outside and is always with peers face to face. He gets his homework done sometimes and he gets B's, C's and D's at school. And his weekends are fully spent outdoors with peers. Those kinds of things. Child A or child B, who has a greater chance at success 18 and beyond?
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Ginny Erich
Well, of course I, you know, obviously we've talked about this a lot, so it's child B. But then I do think that there.
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Podcast Co-host
Would be parents who would be really.
- [22:16]
Ginny Erich
Hesitant, of course, because they want those A's and B's.
- [22:19]
Mike McLeod
Of course, but that's, but this is, this is the mindset that has to shift the ability to have and maintain social relationships and think about all it takes to go outside and play away from adults and to be able to take other people's perspectives and meet other people of different backgrounds and different experiences and to go into other people's homes without your parent being there. And to know, to do I have to take my shoes off? Do I have to say hi to the parents? Do I have to think of all of the executive functions that are needed to just have this life outside of the home. This is what we've stolen from kids. We've stolen their identity away from the family. Everything is just wake up, go to school, come home, stay home, and their entire childhood. Now kids turn 18 and you say, what's your greatest memory between birth to 18? And it's a Fortnite victory and it's something I built at Minecraft or it's when I hit my streak and Duolingo or Snapchat or something like that. Think about how strong the brain is to every single day just be involved in outdoor unstructured play that involves multiple peers away from mom and dad. That is just, that is literally every single day going to the gym for your brain. And that kid who's outside and moving and in nature is going to be more attentive in class than the kid who gets their homework done, earns their screens and then is on screens for five hours. You know, one hour of screens on Monday increases inattentiveness on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It's not always a direct thing. This is the mindset that has to shift. Parents spend so much money on tutors and advocates and making sure the IEP and the 504 is robust. Where is all of the focus on social relationships, real relationships, things that actually stimulate these social parts of the brain? The social parts of the brain are not stimulated when you're on Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft. It doesn't light it up. It's not real, it's not helping you, it's not moving the needle. Playing with someone on a screen is not going to help you make friends and keep friends in college and beyond. It's marketed as social. Parents are duped that it's social, but it's not. And the fact that we are putting so much focus on grades, especially in an ever changing world of AI and everything happening and that flipping the job market upside down and not focusing on the trades and other things that are actually important. Kid B is the one who is going to have the executive functioning skills, who you can have confidence he's going to go to college and he's going to go to class and he's going to try his best and he's going to build relationships and he's going to network with alumni and get some internships and can be independent and successful instead of having mom sit with them for three hours on Google Classroom.
- [25:10]
Ginny Erich
The moms are coming. The moms are coming to the interviews. I interviewed this man this morning named Tim Elmore who talks all about Gen Z and he's like, Gen Z is great. Also the moms are coming to their interviews. So it's a thing, it's a problem. And you know that this extended Adolescence, it's going younger and going older and they're really struggling in the job market. So these things matter quite a bit. Talk to us in about. And you've said this before, families are spending a lot of money on therapy in different therapies. And I don't know, you know, sometimes it's like, does insurance pay for it? Sometimes does it not, I'm not sure. But try and convince us to spend our money elsewhere. So I talked to this woman. This actually really challenged me. And we have five kids. So I was like, this is kind of a lot of kids. But I talked to this woman named Melanie Hempy from Screenstrong, I'm sure you know her. And she says kids should have three to five hobbies. I've been talking about this actually with my mom friends, three to five hobbies. And everybody kind of starts out being like, yeah, my kid. And then they're like, well, do they, do they have three? Do they have. And I'm. Hardly anyone has four. And they might say like reading, drawing, maybe a sport. When I talk to Melanie about it and I've been thinking about it a lot with our own kids, there's some investment there. If you want your kids to have hobbies and especially hobbies that they can grow with that. I mean, most hobbies you can. Right there ends up being some sort.
- [26:34]
Podcast Co-host
Of a cost involved.
- [26:35]
Ginny Erich
Are, are some parents, could they just, could they swap the money to the other bucket?
- [26:40]
Mike McLeod
Of course they can. And number one, the last thing I ever want to do is bash all therapies. There are some fantastic therapists out there, some, some fantastic counselors. And it, and it's, and it's very helpful for many different things. Obviously I'm an ADHD and executive functioning specialist. There is countless number of things that kids deal with that is not adhd, executive functioning that can be helped through therapy. I'm here to talk about this and.
- [27:04]
Ginny Erich
That Nicole said 30%. I mean that's still 30%. Three out of the 10 kids really still need their therapy.
- [27:10]
Mike McLeod
Yeah.
- [27:11]
Ginny Erich
But this other 70% maybe do not.
- [27:14]
Mike McLeod
Yeah. And there's, you know, there's a really good book that came out a couple of years ago called Bad Therapy. And really what that did was that highlighted really just how much of a trillion dollar business therapy is. And if you really think about it, you dive deep into this. I'm not saying all therapists are like this. When you look into therapy being a business and there being so many therapists out there in private practice, businesses like that only work through Client retention. So every time a client gets better and they graduate, you lose a customer. So the whole idea of further pathologizing them or really not helping them get better, of course, once again, this is not everybody. But overall, read the book. That can explain it much better than I ever can. And then once again, I hear every single day there are therapists out there that are telling parents, number one, that screens regulate kids. This is the biggest thing. Screens are good for the neurodiverse brain. It helps regulate them. It helps them make friends. First of all, you being a licensed professional and you telling parents that you need. You should be ashamed of yourself. You need to look yourself in the mirror, look at all of the data, look at suicide rates, look at mental health rates. That is absolutely horrible. I understand this neurodiversity movement that's given a lot of really great positive things and has empowered neurodiverse individuals and has done great things. But this whole idea that screens regulate their brains and is nonsense. And when you introduce screens, and it's our. And this is what gets me so passionate about screens, is because it's our ADHD kids, it's our neurodivergent kids that are the biggest victim in all of this. They didn't ask for EdTech. They didn't ask for a personal laptop. You expect them to be able to listen to a lecture and have a laptop sitting on their desk. That's unfettered access to the Internet. They can't regulate themselves. That's like asking someone with a gambling addiction to go sit in a casino and read a book and not hit a slot machine. It's not going to happen. So they are the victims of all of this. Mass Perfect to a T marketing by Big Tech. It's our neurodiverse people out there. And you know, you also have a lot of therapists and a lot of counselors out there that know if they approach the parent and say, look, you really got to remove these screens, you really got to eliminate these screens, they know it's going to scare the hell out of these parents and they're going to drop out and they're going to quit because the. Because too many parents have the mindset. I am paying you. You fix my kid for me. I don't want to do the hard things. I don't want my baby mad at me. I don't want to have to deal with the fights. I don't want to have to fight the fight. I'm paying you to work on these goals and fix these things. So Too many parents come in with that mindset, which is why therapy is what it is. But if you are a therapist and you know that the second your kid leaves your office, they're right on their phone, they're right on their Xbox, they're right on their PlayStation, and you're afraid to mention to the parents that screens need to be eliminated, then you need to rethink your entire process because what you're doing with them is basically taking their money, knowing it's not going to help because you're not going to gain real world skills when your mind is only in the virtual world.
- [30:31]
Ginny Erich
Yeah, I. I've really been challenged by all of this because there is a level of commitment from the parent that I don't think you used to have quite as much. The world was simpler. You hear about people. And I didn't live close enough to, like, I bust to school. I kind of. I walked to one school, then got bus to another one anyway. But like, there was a time where I was like, you could just do.
- [30:54]
Podcast Co-host
Sports right after school or.
- [30:56]
Ginny Erich
And it didn't cost much and your parents didn't even maybe show up. You know, it was just like your own thing. And the kids are playing out in the neighborhood. And the other day that we had like an afternoon free. No one's obviously really playing outside, so I took a small group of kids to go paint ceramics. And it was like, not free, you know, But I. But then I do think about these conversations where it's like, well, you know, it's sort of front loading, a little bit of brain protection. I don't know, maybe that's the wrong way to put it. It's front loading. What we're really hoping to see is like, kids being creative and interacting and sitting around a table and picking out their colors and what are they going to paint? And I wish it was free. But 70% of parents maybe are paying for something that they could be putting the money in toward other things. Am I saying Exactly.
- [31:45]
Mike McLeod
Yeah. And. And the reason why outdoor play is not constantly pushed is because no one makes money when kids go and play outside. They're playing out in nature and no one's profiting off of it, which is why it's not constantly being pushed on Facebook ads and Instagram ads and your algorithm, because it's not a profitable business of kids outside playing in the parks and the trees and the nature and things like that. But, yes, you are 100% correct. Think to yourself, what is a better use of my money, my child? You know, Receiving therapy and counseling where I'm getting minimal parent coaching and parent training, fully personalized parent coaching and parent training that is never one size fits all. That is very practical towards what I'm dealing with. Not a structured, rigid curriculum, which is. Which is exactly what we do. Can that money be spent on karate, swimming, arts class, music lessons, you know, join your local ymca, your local boys and girls club, all those sorts of things? Or do you want to, you know, put that money together to try to, you know, really create a call to action in your neighborhood? You know, that's really the biggest thing that I really want this episode to be about, is a true call to action. You know, basically every what these screens have done is they've created these really secretive households. All you walk by all the little houses in the suburbs and, oh, what's happened? What's happening behind closed doors? And that's where the kids are the most dysregulated. And it's embarrassing to parents, and they feel like failures by every single day. The same fights, the same dysregulation, the same sibling fighting, the same homework fights, and all these secrets that stay in the home where maybe they'll tell the teachers or maybe they'll tell the counselor, but they're not telling their friends because it's a secretive little thing. And that keeps parents from talking to each other, because chances are there's 10, 15 parents on your same street that are dealing with the exact same thing. What is the cure to the youth mental health crisis is us being a society again. Us being a community again. We used to trust each other to watch after our kids. We used to be able to let our kids roam the neighborhood because we knew our neighbors, we knew the people in our neighborhood. We would let them roam free. The outside world has never been safer for kids because all the bad people are now on the Internet. They know better. They know where the kids are. So we need to get back to, you know, the biggest thing of what parents have to realize is, okay, my son doesn't have adhd. My son doesn't have executive dysfunction. He's developing typically. He asked for a phone, so I'm going to give him a phone. Yeah, that may seem like a careless, innocent little thing, but you giving your child a phone is fueling Johnny's argument next door. Who's not ready for a phone? Hey, I'm the only one who doesn't have one. I'm the weirdo. I have the worst parents. You're ruining my life because everybody else has a phone. But me. So we have to realize we're all sort of affecting each other. Our parenting choices aren't just towards our kids. Right when we're bringing this level of technology into our kids life, we're affecting our neighbors, we're affecting our school district, we're affecting our school. If we're afraid to opt out of edtech, if we're afraid to admit that edtech has been a massive failure, I don't want to go to the PTA meeting and push to get rid of these personal laptops, personal iPads, because I think tech is the way of the future and my son has no problem with it. That's what fuels other parents who know it's been a disaster to be scared to get rid of it because they don't want their they don't want their kid to be the one kid without it. So we have to realize the choices we're making are affecting other people.
- [35:22]
Podcast Co-host
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- [37:32]
Ginny Erich
But the Waldorf schools, they, and I don't know if they still do, I, I need to find out. They used to have a policy of no screens and I think it was Sunday night to Thursday night because it would affect the kids in the classroom the next day. And it was a community solution. No one's doing it then. No one's on Fortnite. So you know, your kid can't be like, well, Charlie's playing Fortnite on Tuesday night, can I play? And then you feel like you're impeding on their social relationship. So those things really matter. To your point, you know that every parent listening has a part to play here. And the more you limit, the more you help everyone else. And it really matters a lot. I saw a video. So my friend, her name's Angela Hanscom.
- [38:12]
Mike McLeod
Oh yeah.
- [38:13]
Ginny Erich
She has a drop off play in the woods program called Timber Nook and it is phenomenal. I got to go to their training. I got to go see them launch a location here in Jackson, Michigan. And I was watching one of the videos on her site for preparation for a talk. And there were these kids, they're all out in the woods. They get three or four hours out in the woods. The adults are in the background. They sit on these little cushions and they don't really get involved in this unless it's like truly dangerous, someone's going.
- [38:37]
Podcast Co-host
To actually get hurt.
- [38:38]
Ginny Erich
They, they don't get involved in the social squabbles, nothing. They just kind of hold back. So I saw a video of these kids that had a slide, like a plastic slide, a wobbly one, a sort of a, like it was garbage basically. Mike like one, it was like a slide that came off of some sort of a play structure. So they had this slide and then they had a big bucket and they had filled the bucket with water and they had a pumpkin in it. They were just dumping the bucket of water with the pumpkin onto the slide and watching it roll down like a slate. They'd put it on a slate decline. They're just watching. And to your point about who makes money off of that.
- [39:17]
Mike McLeod
Exactly.
- [39:17]
Ginny Erich
It's garbage. It's garbage and a pumpkin and a bucket and water. And yet the amount of interaction enjoy and social skills. I read recently a book by Heather Shoemaker. It's called it's okay not to Share. And it blew my mind about how young these kids are starting to learn their social skills and how in all of these interactions, they're learning how to regulate their emotions. They're learning how to fit into a group of peers. You could just see it. You can see the importance of it in these simple interactions and how with the screens, they just get none of that.
- [39:50]
Mike McLeod
Exactly. Yeah. And I'm a huge fan of Angela and Timber Nook, and I was lucky enough to give the keynote at one of their conferences about two years ago. It's fantastic because it's exactly what this world needs. And I can listen to stories like you just told with the slide and the pumpkin. I can listen to that all day long because that just highlights how capable these kids are. These kids have resilience, they have grit, they have creativity. They can do all of these things. But we, as parents, we have stopped being able to parent. There's too much parenting with fear, and these kids are incapable parents. Today, pretty much every single parent I talk to every single day operates every single day with the mindset nothing is going to happen unless I step in. So every single day, they think, my kid's never going to get to school on time unless I chase them around. They'll never get to bed on time, they'll never get their homework done. And parents are just too unintentionally involved in their child's life, and it's leading to parent burnout, which is why there's all these parenting gurus on social media now. And parenting has become the science in this country. But that's exactly what we're dealing with here, is we are succumbing to their complaining. And basically, we have confused complaining with cannot and oh, my son is complaining. He must be anxious, he must be depressed. There must be something wrong. There's the old saying of kids do well if they can. That's nonsense. Kids do well when we push them. Kids do well, when we get them in the environment and we set the bar high, somewhere along the line we have learned to lower the bar, lower the bar in schools. Now kids can turn things in late months later and get zero points off. No wonder they're going to college and dropping out the first semester. Dr. Russell Barkley, the worldwide leader on ADHD, he says, if you want to see a person with ADHD fail, put them in an environment with no consequences. And that's exactly what we've created in today's world. I consult with public schools where literally the kid can show up on day one of classes, sign their name on a paper, never show up again, never submit anything, and still pass and graduate. And this is exactly what's happening. So we are creating an environment where we are over coddling our kids, over protecting them, and we're basically. Jonathan Haidt wrote the Anxious Generation all these years ago. And sadly, things have only gotten worse since then with AI and ChatGPT and increase of screens and more edtech and more tech in schools. And it's gone from the anxious generation to the incapable generation. You said it earlier. In terms of Gen Z bringing their moms to job interviews and having their moms talk to job managers. Those, those are sobering statistics and they are real. I've spoken to probably 50 different college professors that wanted to quit their job or did quit their job because they were tired of getting parent emails. They were tired of parents calling them, trying to advocate for their kids, like, this is. This is college, like, like what is happening right now. And that story you just told of kids building their own slide, rolling pumpkins down it, that's kids. It's not homework output, it's not grades. It's their ability to be children. We've gotten so obsessed with sending them to structured therapy, getting them tutors, you know, grades and everything we have, we have stolen play and boredom, and that's what's making them incapable. And we don't realize when they don't have those experiences, when they don't have a real child and adolescence, nothing else matters because they're not going to have executive functions. If you don't have executive functions, nothing else matters. And executive functions are never strengthened through worksheets. They are strengthened through varied experiences and interpersonal relationships. And when you get my workbook, the executive functioning playbook in action, you'll see that none of those are worksheets that are done in a way to sort of strengthen the child's executive functions by them doing it. It's about helping Parents gain their confidence, step into their parental authority. Helping teachers use executive functioning principles in the classroom so the environment can change. It's not a kid sitting there and doing a worksheet. And all of a sudden I want to be on screens less. All of a sudden I can self regulate enough. It's about us learning to parent again.
- [44:34]
Ginny Erich
I have to, I'm gonna, I gotta grab other notes. Hold on. Okay, so I talked to this man today, I talked to this man today named Tim Elmore. And he, he's really big. He's been studying generational, like the new generation for like 45 years. So he wrote a book called the Future Begins with Z. It's all about generation Z. And he talks about how first of all, they view work as a hobby. They ask things like at a job interview, when is spring break.
- [45:03]
Mike McLeod
Oh my God.
- [45:05]
Ginny Erich
You know, like. And he's also saying they're also brilliant. They're, they're good entrepreneurs. Like, they have a lot of things going for them as well. But some of these kind of critical things are missing. They're missing their interpersonal skills. He said, you know, he just gave just little snippets of stories where one, one young woman comes in for a job interview and she gets the job. And then she says to the CEO, I'm gonna have your job in 18 months. And he's like, no, that's not good emotional intelligence. It's not good social intelligence. So he's talking about these different things and I. He talked about how there's this new business. It's a Rent a mom. It's a rent, Rent a mom for college kids where the second mom will come in and make the bed and do the laundry and tidy the room for college kids. And I just thought, wouldn't you be horrified as a college student if you all of a sudden someone shows up and they're cleaning your room like it's a hotel? But what's interesting to me is that when you talk about parenting based out of fear, I do think that there are some things that we should be afraid of. I think we should be afraid of failure to launch. I think we should be in some ways afraid of a kid who needs Daisy. I take what it's called, a kid who needs.
- [46:24]
Podcast Co-host
Where is it?
- [46:24]
Ginny Erich
In my notes? There's like a whole name for it. There's Rent a Mom and Daisy Bug delivery. It sounds like something for a toddler.
- [46:32]
Mike McLeod
Rent a Mom, Rent a Mom.
- [46:34]
Ginny Erich
Daisy bug delivery is gonna come and they're gonna tidy your kids room. Like I Think we should, we should be afraid of that. But we're, we're afraid of the wrong things. That's what it appears to be. Like, there should be a little bit of fear in you. Of like, my kid is not going to succeed in the world. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna parent in the direction of like helping make sure that they can work through these executive functions, that they have social skills, that they don't ask, they don't say to the CEO of the company, I'm gonna have your job in 18 months. Like that they would know that that's not super appropriate. So it's like fear me, I'm not super into fear based parenting, but it definitely just feels like if we are going to be afraid, we should be afraid of the right things and not the wrong things.
- [47:16]
Mike McLeod
That's exactly it. Yeah. And one thing overall, Jenny, you have inspired me to be a better person in many ways from our conversations. And you've inspired me to be more of a reader. And I read more now than ever before since meeting you. And I recently read a great book called the Gift of Failure by Jessica Leahy. So that book right there should be mandatory reading for all parents, especially in today's world. And parents are scared. They're scared of their kids. They walk on eggshells around them and this whole concept of the perfect parent scares them every day of their algorithms filled with all this parenting advice, of all these different things, of if your kid has a mental breakdown, if your kid screams, if your kid says no. And there's conflicting advice all the time. And there's all this pseudoscience nonsense about kids do well if they can get on your kid's level, validate their emotions. Pathological demand avoidance. All of this nonsense out there that are, that are causing parents to get stuck in things that are not based in science and all of this stuff. When at the end of the day parents are scared to step into their parental authority because all of the research tells us kids do well when they have a strong leadership parent. And we're not telling you to be a drill sergeant and yell at your kids. The goal is to never yell at your kids. The goal is to never yell and for them to always see you calm, cool and collected because that's an authoritative parent, is a parent who never yells and parents with love and limits and isn't afraid to say no and isn't afraid to walk away from the complaining, walk away from the negotiating, walk away from the big emotions. Think about, you know, one of the number one things kids learn from their parents is social reciprocity. 50, 50 relationships. They learn that relationship relationships involve a give and a take. I do for you, you do for me. You scratch your back, I scratch mine. You make me feel important, I make you feel important. And we're all happy together. But so often parent and child relationships are all take and no give, and it's just the parents doing everything, stepping in for homework and friends and social and buying them things and all of this. So there's too many kids out there that are screaming and cursing and saying unspeakable things to mom and dad, and five minutes later, they're scrolling. Five minutes later they're on YouTube and they're learning that you can. You can treat people very disrespectfully and very inappropriately, and five minutes later be getting a dopamine rush. What is that? Training the brain. So then they go to school and they don't know how to treat people because they have this warped view of relationships from how poorly they treat their parents and how much their parents are constantly doing for them. Kids need love and they need limits. Look up the difference between authoritative parenting and authoritarian parenting. Authoritarian parenting is bad and that's going to lead to trauma, and that's not good. That's drill sergeant parenting. Authoritative parenting is when you know you're the leader and what you say goes. And yes, your kid's gonna complain. Yes, your kid's gonna have, you know, cry and scream and have breakdowns and try to test limits, because kids are supposed to do that. That's not a diagnosable thing. Kids were put on this earth to push their parents buttons and to test limits. Stop pathologizing. That. That's what kids do. Okay, back up. Be a strong leader and teach your kids. When you talk to me that way, when you treat me that way, when you don't follow through on your responsibilities, then you don't get my attention. I'm not going to stand here and talk to you, you know. Yeah, no, you don't get my attention. And I'm not giving. I'm not giving you the stage, the spotlight, the microphone to get all the dopamine. I'm going to walk away from you and I'm going to make sure you don't have your phone, you don't have your computer, you don't have your video games. And you come to me when you're ready. You come to me when you're dysregulated. You're allowed to be a kid with no Prefrontal cortex or a very small prefrontal cortex. Take the time to self regulate and be on your own. And you come to me when you're ready to talk to me like a human being.
- [51:35]
Ginny Erich
There's a lot there, the 5050 reciprocity. It's interesting when you look at the childhood as a whole that there are.
- [51:42]
Podcast Co-host
So many parts of it that are.
- [51:44]
Ginny Erich
Prescriptive and, and it used to be partially that. It used to be partially that your day was taken up by a teacher, but I think teachers had more autonomy too. And the school day was shorter and recess was longer, but there was a part of your day that was taken up by the teacher. The sort of control of the classroom. And now that's longer. And now there's adult directed activities. Like the sports are a lot more adult directed and so are a lot of the extracurriculars. But then you throw in the screens, those are prescriptive as well. It's like, what video are you going to watch next? It immediately goes to the next one it and Amazon's going to tell you, maybe you should buy this. So it's the fear of, of losing control. Like these parents want to be perfect and so they're trying to control and the teachers are controlling and the screen manufacturers are controlling. And so these kids are having zero experience with managing their own life and it's just coming at them from every direction. Can we wrap up with. And you know, it's October, this will probably come out in November. We're getting close to your new book here. We're really getting close to a new year. Like things have to change. Like at some point there has to be a line in the sand and people have to say, look, as a.
- [52:54]
Podcast Co-host
Society we are suffering.
- [52:56]
Ginny Erich
It's not only the mental health epidemic, but it's also the loneliness. And there's a couple key things here that need to change. So we need to drop the control and we also need to let kids step up to the plate a little bit. So can you talk through just the low expectations piece? It's like we're just giving, giving, giving, giving. But then there's also low expectations in terms of a child contributing to the family, let's say.
- [53:19]
Mike McLeod
Correct. That's exactly it. And this whole thing, kids don't need a perfect parent, they need a strong parent. It's as simple as that. They basically need someone who is going to set a boundary and stick with it. Because the second your child, especially if they have ADHD and they have a negative attention seeking brain, the Second, your child learns that complaining equals control. Big emotions equal control. Yelling equals control, property damage, physical aggression equals control. Their brain learns what works. The ADHD brain is not lazy, it's not malicious. It just simply does what works, which is why they're constantly seeking screens and conflict, because those things work for them. And when they learn that, the conflict works and it helps them gain control. And if I scream and yell, I get out of chores. If I scream and yell, I get out of homework. If I scream and yell, I don't have to go outside, I don't have to go interact with peers face to face. And I do get my screens to shut me up and keep me quiet and so my parents can calm down. That's the biggest problem, and that's what parents need, is set the bar high and recognize that when your child is having these big emotions, it's because they are kids. And if they have ADHD, times it by 10, they're going to screen more, they're going to complain more, they're going to negotiate more. It's just how it works. But that means that you need to be an even stronger parent. So all of these worries you see on social media that if you step into your parental authority, it's going to damage your child's relationship and they're going to hate you. If you take their screens away, they're going to lose all of their friends. It's nonsense. This is exactly why every single family we've ever worked with, that we've helped them fully eliminate screens. I screenshot their testimonial to me and I post it on the Internet for all to see, for them to see. Mike helped me to remove screens. I was absolutely terrified. My face turned ghost white. I didn't want to do it. Mike and his team gave me the tools to do it. And oh, my goodness, why didn't we do this sooner? I have my kid back. He now has actual friends. He now has joined multiple clubs. He's now taken up a musical instrument. His grades have improved, his nutrition has improved, his sleep has improved. It happens literally every single time. They don't lose friends, they gain friends. If you as a parent are under the impression that your child's only going to have friends if he has Snapchat, if he has Fortnite, if he has Roblox, then you have fallen hook, line and sinker for big text marketing. When has a child think about being a kid? Are you going to stop being friends with someone because they don't have Snapchat? That's nonsense. Friendships are not reliant on an app. All of these different things. So the number one thing I want parents to take from this episode is this needs to be a true call to action and recognize the technology that you give your kid may seem innocent and may seem fine, but it is fueling the argument for all the kids in your neighborhood to say, he's got the screens, why can't I? And this competitiveness and this fake social aspect of it is fueling this addiction and fueling this youth mental health crisis. We need strengths in numbers. We need neighborhood PACs of wait till 8th, wait till 9th, preferably wait until 18 for a smartphone and social media. And those things there has to be never.
- [56:57]
Ginny Erich
Well, I would imagine there will be kids that will never do it. It's a small number, but there's adults now that are going back to dumb phones or no phones at all. Or like there's like the. There's all sorts of alternatives. So, you know, it's possible that there'll be a cohort of kids that just don't even ever do it at all.
- [57:13]
Mike McLeod
That would be amazing. But the number one thing is neighborhoods and communities need to work together. We need multiple groups of parents to go to the PTA meeting and every single one of you opt out of the school laptop. You know, look up the EdTech Law center, look up Emily Churkin, the screen time consultant and get all of the information you need to opt out of the school laptop. EdTech and Personal School laptops have been an absolute failure and they are making a broken education system even worse. And it's our neurodiverse kids and our ADHD kids who are the biggest victims of this mess. So please start to communicate with your neighbors more. Don't be afraid to say, I gave my kid too many screens too soon. I made a mistake. I need to get out of this. Therapy is not going to fix it. You know, talking to the best therapist in the world seven days a week is not going to make your kid want to be on screens less. You brought them in this world, only you can take them out. Get a group of like minded parents together that are ready for a change. Get a neighborhood pact going. I read an article the other day. There's a whole community in Maine where the whole town has gone to landlines. No smartphones, no Internet connected video games. It can happen. Talk to your neighbors. Join a pact.
- [58:33]
Ginny Erich
Wow.
- [58:33]
Podcast Co-host
Wow, is that powerful.
- [58:35]
Ginny Erich
I really have been thinking about this these five hours. You know, if. If a child truly does have about.
- [58:40]
Podcast Co-host
Five Hours every single day after school.
- [58:43]
Ginny Erich
I want to envision that as like robust and vibrant as possible. You know, what, what could that look like in terms of outdoor time and reading and social time and responsibilities? And in all of those cases, they'd have the opportunity to fail. So they get the gift of failure. All of those. Constantly give that to the kids and.
- [59:01]
Podcast Co-host
It could just be so much more.
- [59:03]
Ginny Erich
Exciting and full than it is. And so it's just interesting. The conversations constantly are reminding me I need them. You know, we got kids in these teen years. So they're constantly reminding me to like, to the call to action, which is like, you know, to hold the line in certain, in certain parts and to know that it's going to make such a big difference. The books are coming. They cannot come soon enough. January 6, 2026. The executive function Playbook. The Executive Function Playbook in action. Activities and exercises to support kids with adhd. It's interesting to me, Mike, that all of our conversations, and I know you do such amazing work for families whose kids have ADHD and you're helping them with these executive functioning skills, but this.
- [59:45]
Podcast Co-host
Is for all kids.
- [59:46]
Mike McLeod
All of them. This entire generation needs this so, so badly. The kids are hurting. The kids are hurting and they don't have the language to show it. And we have to all, every single parent, every single adult needs to look in the mirror. The kids are hurting because of the world we gave them. This is our fault. Me included, everyone included. We are a part of this. We have brought all these screens. We have removed play, we have removed boredom. We have over therapized them. We have treated these kids as if they are incapable unless we do everything for them. And then we wonder why they are failure to launch later in life. Because we stepped in, saved them from failure, saved them from struggle and didn't allow them to experience life. What happened to self worth? What happened to grit? What happened to resilience? Time to go back to quality of life. We created this world for our kids. It's time we flip it back to the world they deserve.
- [60:47]
Ginny Erich
Otherwise. You're calling Daisy Bug?
- [60:49]
Mike McLeod
Yes. Rent a Mom.
- [60:51]
Ginny Erich
Yes. I just think even the name is so funny because it's like it's childlike, you know? Yeah, yeah. Rent a Mom. Rent a Mom. So yeah, this matters. And you're. You are helping. I mean, I see the post on a daily basis, like it's changing people's lives, completely changing their lives.
- [61:09]
Mike McLeod
And this is it. A thousand hours outside is the cure to the youth mental health crisis. We've said it again. This is it. This the mission. This is exactly what the world needs. Not more tutoring, not more therapy. It is a thousand hours outside that is the movement that is going to allow our kids to be ready for this ever changing, scary world. The world is different. We are more divisive. We are more split as a country than ever before. It's, it's scary how much adults are criticizing each other and how much adults are scared of each other and don't trust each other. And when we create this world, what do you think? How is it going to trickle down to our kids? We need to fix this because the kids are hurting and it's our fault and we got to change it. And a thousand hours outside is how we change it.
- [61:57]
Ginny Erich
Yeah, it'll do it. It'll do it. Read a couple books, too. Read them outside. And there you go. Mike, thank you so much. I'm so excited for your new books. I haven't gotten a chance to read them yet, but I'm sure I will pretty soon and then hopefully we'll be back on talking through the highlights of the book and the workbook that are coming out in January. Thank you so much for being here.
- [62:16]
Mike McLeod
Thanks for having me.
- [67:53]
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