Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (3:05)

Thank you so much for having me. It is such a privilege to be back. You and I are basically co hosts at this point. This is. This is. This is. This is the best thing of my life going right now.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (3:13)

I love it. They're so easy to talk to. I'm always like, yay, Mike's on today. The book is fantastic. You know, I didn't know what to expect. We've talked several times about ADHD and executive functions. So, you know, like, I don't. I don't know what will. What will your book be like? And I love, loved it. It is so informative and it's so needed. Actually, I just talked to this man. I think he would love this book. It's called Nature in the Mind by Dr. Mark Berman. And he talks about directed attention, fatigue, and it. Mainly, it's geared toward adults, but he talks about executive functions in the book, and he talks about kids with ADHD and how when you go outside, it basically fills your tank back up of attention. So there's so many components here that are important for all kids and all adults. You know, you read your book and you're like, we can all take things from this, and even more so for our kids that are struggling with adhd. I learned about you in this book, though. I was like, I'm kind of a jerk, Mike. I. We talk like five times, and I've never been like, well, what's your story? I don't know. I usually ask other people, but I think there's just been so many things to talk about. We've never really talked. I, like, I actually didn't know about the speech language pathology. Pathology. There were so many things. I was like, whoops. So I would love it if six episodes in you would give us a little bit of your story. So you talk about you grew up, you have adhd. Many days were a struggle, especially in high school. And you talked about how there wasn't enough information out there, and so there wasn't enough help. It wasn't fully understood. So people and kids were not properly cared for. And this kind of set you on your life path.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (4:53)

Yeah, this was probably one of the hardest things about the book was actually talking about myself for the very first time. I think that's more of a method of my own design. I never wanted Grown out and our mission to be about me and my experiences. But that's, you know, that tends to be. What happens is people end up asking you about your own life and your own experiences. So yeah, I was, I was later diagnosed in life and when that happened, it all sort of. Everything made a lot of sense. All throughout elementary, middle and high school, there were a lot of struggles, especially socially and you know, attention wise and executive functioning wise. Just, just an overall maturation delay from the vast majority of my peers in terms of being at that same level of being able to interact and get things done and get involved and be good at so many different things and have that real aspect of a childhood. And back when I was a kid, you know, growing up in the 90s and in the early 2000s, you know, was there Ieps, was there 504 is like kids going to therapy or counseling or coaching after school wasn't talked about. And now it's just about the majority of kids are doing some sort of structured thing after school because as you and I talk about, we're in the middle of this youth mental health crisis and there's more kids than not. So. I started my career as a speech and language pathologist. I always wanted to work directly with students. I initially wanted to be a teacher my entire life. My mom was a teacher. She is one of the most celebrated teachers in New York state. Did incredible jobs for decades and I always wanted to be a teacher. And then I ended up working at this residential treatment facility in New York where the kids had such severe needs. They lived full time on campus and went to school on campus and really never saw their parents. So they would bring people like me on to work with them in their, in their homes, in their cottages, and also at school. And from there I learned about speech pathology. And I was like, whoa, I can actually work with kids one on one on things that actually improve quality of life. Instead of just math and science and social studies and teaching them these academic things, I can actually help them improve their life and improve their self worth. So I went and got my master's in speech. And then during my first year as a speech and language pathologist, I ended up working with this national nonprofit, this group called the Focus foundation that works with boys and girls with chromosomal disorders. And I learned so much about ADHD from these great doctors and neuropsychs. And I realized very quickly there's literally nothing out There, there's no playbook, if you will, for these parents to how to raise these kids. And they're being sent to these therapies, counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, social skills group, and nothing is moving the needle. And one day the IEP is going to go away, one day the 504 is going to go away and. And then what? And we constantly saw these ADHD kids not thriving. So I developed the Grow now model of internal skills. We did a year long research study on it and everything kind of expanded from there. All the great progress because you know, it works and it improves quality of life. Is it for everybody? No, of course not. But it's definitely something that we've been doing so far and great progress has been seen.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (8:05)

Yeah, great progress, great progress. I always see your posting about people's responses. You said. I quickly learned that the field of ADHD is incredibly small. This amazed me as it is one of the most common psychiatric disorders affecting one in every nine children and one in every 22 adults. Six million children in the US alone. So can you talk about then? This book is fantastic. It cannot come out soon enough. The Executive Function Playbook. Building Independence in Kids with adhd. That's what we're going to be talking about today. So go pre order it. Pre orders help you get the book. That's a big deal. This one's going to sell out. So if you want to get your copy and you want your copy, then you got to pre order. So the Executive Function Playbook. And then there is the Executive Function Playbook in action.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (8:48)

Correct.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (8:48)

So when we're talking about that, next time, grab both. They're going to go well together. I have 13 pages of notes on the playbook alone. This is ADHD. Hope. This is hope. So I want to kick it off here. ADHD is wildly misunderstood. Can you talk about how so many people are talking about how this is a gift and you say it isn't a gift no matter how many Instagram and TikTok videos tell you it is?

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (9:11)

Absolutely. And don't take it from me. Take it from Dr. Russell Barkley, the worldwide leader on ADHD himself, who just recently retired, but the majority of his lectures are free on his YouTube channel. That's exactly what it is. You know, we have this whole neurodiversity movement and everyone using this label of I'm a neurodiversity affirming therapist, all of that stuff. What does that really even mean? Like, does that just mean we're going to allow individuals to sort of have these delays these struggles and not work on them so that they can be successful and improve their quality of life. You know, ADHD is very serious. It's hereditary, which means one or both parents most likely have it and it's something you're born with and it's a real struggle. You know, it's very easy to make an ADHD Instagram page or Facebook page and get a lot of followers because you can make very quirky, silly videos about how hyper you are and how much you annoy your spouse and how you had to go to the same store five times in one day. And you can get a lot of likes and shares. There's always going to be with this completely inappropriate label known as adhd. It's not an attention disorder. It's not about hyperactivity, it's not about inattentiveness. But as long as we keep making it about attention, especially in this world of fragmented attention with everyone on their phones, everyone is going to continually think, oh, everybody has a little bit of adhd. Just two nights ago, I was giving a parent seminar at one of the wealthiest, you know, most educated towns in suburban New York and one of the parents raised their hand and they were, and they literally said to me, doesn't everybody just have a little bit of adhd? And the answer is no. No, you don't. You might, you might be addicted to your phone and you might not be able to focus on your long term goals or short term goals because you're getting distracted by your phone. And for some reason we also want to push these phones on the kids. But no, not everybody has a little bit of adhd. You're born with it, it's hereditary, it's serious, and it is tied to a lot of really negative, scary income outcomes like early death, job loss, divorce rates, incarceration, all of these things are heavily correlated with adhd. And we have to take it seriously. Understand, it's not an attention disorder. It's not something that's only going to affect you in school. It's going to affect you at home with your parents. All the parents listening to this know how absolutely difficult it is to be a parent to a child or teen with adhd. And it's going to affect you in your relationships. It's going to affect you throughout your life, especially if left untreated.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (11:41)

You wrote this. ADHD is highly correlated with substance abuse, job loss, divorce, inability to live alone, automobile accidents, and early death. And then like you just said, raising an ADHD child is a daily grind. As a parent you are the child's probably their your entire family's prefrontal cortex. It's exhausting. Without you, the house would be chaos. Nothing would get done. Nobody would get to school or appointments on time. Homework would never be finished. This is not discussed enough. How parenting an ADHD child is just as stressful as raising a child with other serious disorders. This is because ADHD is serious, a brain disorder that is highly correlated to serious things. So this is really important. Like you said, it's a big deal. Also, the book is full of hope. So let's talk about all the hope, all the things that we can do for our kids and along the way we can just make life better for a lot of us. Can you just clear up the the name issue? ADHD is a terrible name for adhd. It's a developmental disorder of the executive function system.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (12:41)

So first of all, hearing you quote the book and say it out loud is like the coolest thing ever. Hearing it in your voice is just making my day. But that's exactly what it is. It's not attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is functioning developmental disorder or developmental delay. It is all about the executive functioning system. ADHD is the preeminent disorder of executive functioning, period. Can you struggle with executive functioning and not have adhd? Sure. But if you have adhd, the executive functioning system is the core deficit. And we have to remember executive functioning is not time management and organization and messy backpacks and messy folders. Executive functions are the greatest predictor of success for human beings. Period. Every parent wants their child to be able to move out of their house, get a job, keep a job, make friends, keep friends and have a better life than you did before them. They are only going to be able to do that with executive functions. And executive functioning is not your iq. It's not your gpa. It's not your SAT scores. It's none of that. It is your ability to self regulate and self motivate towards non preferred and non instantly gratifying tasks. And that is exactly at its core what is happening for today's youth and today's youth mental health crisis. We have fragmented their attention. We have stolen play and boredom away. And you and I talked about this in our very first episode. Play. Outdoor play is the original executive functioning curriculum. Schools are so obsessed with. Oh, let's get this writing curriculum, this reading curriculum, this common core curriculum, whatever it may be. There is never going to be a curriculum for executive functioning because it is experience based. The only executive functioning system is to experience as Many different things as possible, especially from birth to 18. And that is exactly what we've stolen from childhood and is their experiences. Kids are not having real childhoods anymore. Kids aren't struggling. And ADHD kids aren't struggling because they're broken. They're struggling because we've created a modern world for them that is completely incompatible with childhood.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (14:54)

There's so much to talk about here. There's so much. Okay, this just clears up so much, I think, for parents that are listening and we're going to get into this. This is why screens are such a big deal. So such a big deal. Because when you talk about non preferred, non stimulating tasks, screens are the opposite of that. And so this is just hijacking so much of what is going on with our children. One of the things that you talk about in the book, go pre order it, or if you're listening and it's already out, get it now. It's called the Executive Function Playbook. Building Independence in Kids with adhd. You talk about, and we've never talked about this on the show, I've never talked about with anyone, the non verbal working memory and verbal working memory. Can you talk about what is going on with kids with ADHD and the struggles that they may be having with non verbal working memory and verbal working memory?

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (15:42)

That's exactly it. And this is the foundation of all executive functions. Like I mentioned earlier, Dr. Russell Barkley, you know, listen to him talk about this topic. The great Sarah Ward, a fellow speech and language pathologist. Listen to what she has to say about it. And Christine Jacobson over at Cognitive Connections. This is what every parent needs to understand. This is the foundation to all executive functions is the weakness and the disconnect in nonverbal and verbal working memory. And these are two very scientific terms, medical terms. But nonverbal working memory is literally just the visual imagery system of the brain where we make our mental movies. We hold images in mind and we manipulate them. And we have two separate aspects of nonverbal working memory. The first is our hindsight, where we make mental movies of our past experiences, things we did right and we felt great, things we didn't do very well, we didn't feel good, we learned from it. And we gain competence and confidence from our past experiences. We're able to use our past to inform us in the future, to make healthy and positive choices, not repeat mistakes and learn from the things we did in the past. Non verbal working memory foresight is the ability to visualize the future and make mental movies of what may come later, what things look like later so we can better plan, prioritize and problem solve and delay gratification. So non verbal working memory is the biggest one. If parents come away with anything from this book or anything, it has to be nonverbal working memory and your hindsight and your foresight. Because what do we know about ADHD kids? They're time blind. They're stuck in the moment. They're focused on instant gratification. Their brain is hardwired towards seeking screens and conflict. What gives me the most dopamine right now? Being on a screen and being in complete control. Conflict with mom and dad, especially mom, because I'm in complete control. Because I can, I can emotionally manipulate, argue and those things. And they're not learning from the past. Of all the times they hurt mom and dad's feelings or made poor choices and made mistakes and dealt with the consequences, they're not learning from the past and they're not forecasting into the future to know, hey, let me get the hard, boring, tough stuff done now so I can have fun later. So mental movies. So for example, if you're sitting downstairs with your child and you say go upstairs and clean your room, chances are they're going to walk upstairs, open the door to their room and get distracted by the first thing that they see and start playing with it. And what needs to happen is, is before they even get to the door of their room, they have to have a mental movie in their mind of what their room looks like when it's clean like that. Like the book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. Number one, start with the end in mind because that's executive functions. You have to have that mental movie. And then to combine with those mental movies, we have our verbal working memory, which is simply the self directed talk system, the ability to talk to yourself, have an internal dialogue and coach yourself to work towards those image. It's internalized privatized speech. In the book I refer to a lot of the Barclay Vygotskian model, which is quite possibly one of the greatest lectures that Dr. Russell Barkley gave in Canada. It's one of the greatest lectures on ADHD ever given. And the entire lecture is free on YouTube. I recommend all parents listen to it where he breaks down the Barclay Vygotskian model of internalized privatized speech. And we use our internal speech to regulate and motivate ourselves in the moment and work towards that future. So ADHD and executive function is all about attention to the future. Dr. Russell Barkley jokes, let's change the name to Attention to the future disorder. You know, we can't do that because it sounds like a bad movie, it sounds like a joke, but in reality, that's what it is. We're not aiming our behavior towards the future of what's to come, because we are. We have hardwired our entire generation, ADHD or not, to focus on instant gratification. We are raising kids based on instant gratification, which is hurting them very badly down the road.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (19:57)

You can really see with the examples that you give how this would make life really difficult. So if a child does not have that hindsight to say, this is what a clean room looks like, they're just gonna be lost. And you use the phrase brain coach. Like, I mean, my brain is coaching me all the time, you know, about this, that or the other thing. Like, how am I going to. Constantly. I'm constantly adjusting. Like, okay, I. This took a little bit longer. Like, it's just this constant happening inside. And so if there's struggles that you could see how that would affect so much, so much of the success in life, would it be helpful to do something like, you know, just. Can there be simple, simple things? Like, here we got a picture of what your room looks like when it's clean. This is the goal, you know, so. So you are. You really can. The verbiage is really helpful. Like, if you can that brain coach verbiage is helpful to. I thought because you're realizing that this child doesn't have it or it's not developed as much as it needs to be. And so you're. You're not taking the place of it, because if you take the place of it, then what happens when they become an adult? But you have to help them to.

Podcast Host - 1000 Hours Outside (21:03)

Start to develop that.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (21:05)

Exactly. And one of the biggest things that spreads this ADHD hope and parenting hope for all parents, not just adhd. This executive functioning playbook was written for all parents, not just parents of kids with adhd, because executive functions are the set of skills that are missing and fueling this youth mental health crisis. But overall, really what we have to do is we have to remember the number one tip in all of parenting is language makes dysregulation worse. The more you talk, and there's a lot of research on this, that the more you speak to a child, you are raising their anxiety, you are making things worse. Worse, you are opening the door to dysregulation, arguing, negotiation. Today's parents are simply lecturing and speaking in monologue speak to their kids far too often. It's like we all grew up watching too many episodes of Full House too much. And we got so stuck on this concept of too many heart to hearts and too many monologues. But that's not realistic. We can't constantly talk, talk, talk to our kids because so many kids today, their brain is hardwired towards instant gratification. And the second you put all the focus on them, you're giving them the stage, the spotlight, the microphone for a long drawn out argument that's really stressing you out and burning you out as a parent. But all it's doing is giving your child dopamine. So what do we want to do? We want to replace verbal prompting with visual prompts. You talk too much. If you tell a child, go put your shoes on, you're giving them two very basic choices. They can put their shoes on and hear a quick good job, I'm proud of you, or they can not put their shoes on, run around the house and have you chase them for three hours. They're going to pick the three hours of attention. You sit down with your kid in an attempt, in a good hearted attempt to help them with their homework. But your presence fuels dysregulation. They'd rather get into a five hour fight with you than do five minutes of homework because that's what gives them dopamine, that's what gives them instant gratification. And the more you talk to them, the more you engage with them when they're dysregulated. They're avoiding the very task they didn't want to do in the first place. So we are going to create visuals. We get a picture of our son or our daughter doing their homework at the desk. We get a picture of what their room looks like when it's clean. We present it to them, we hang it up, we point to it, we do whatever we have to do to fuel their non verbal working memory. Every single tip in parenting has to be founded in some sort of science of non verbal working memory. The images fuel the action.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (23:44)

Yeah, so this is all in the book. There's even like this pyramid of what you're trying to get to. You have a prompting model, you know, talking about verbal and visual and gestural and modeling. And there are these brain coach prompts that you're helping them to work through. Very explicit, very helpful in the book, and very helpful to understand they do not have a sense of what has worked in the past. And so you could see you could see how this would affect marriage, you could see how this would affect in the workplace. And so this is helping them to, to have to develop their own brain coach so that as they work through their own life, they have got all these skills and prompts. I love. This is one of my favorite parts. You had a list of the dangerous and addictive screens.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (24:30)

Yep.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (24:32)

But you specifically are like, it's not all screens, but here's the list of dangerous and addictive ones. Video games, especially online computer games, YouTube, social media, smartphones, tablets, virtual reality games, screen based Alexas. I was like that's basically all of them. But that the only, you know, that TV is not that big of a deal. Older video games are not that big of a deal. Active movement games like the just dance type things, Kindles and audiobooks and smart watches you talk about. TV was always around when we were kids, but it didn't keep people from getting outside and doing things. So we've talked about screens quite a bit, but I mean it's always worth talking about because the AI is here. I just read a study that said 20% of high schoolers have an AI relationship.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (25:18)

Oh my gosh, 20%.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (25:21)

One in five screens are experience killers and experiences are how executive functions are developed. So it's not only it's a lot of things, it's a self regulation, but it's also the fact that it is, it is taking away so much from them. And then you talk about the blue light and you talk about ed tech in general. If parents could just nix the screens, they would solve so many of their problems.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (25:46)

Correct. And there's one thing keeping them from doing that and it is pure fear. So the fact that the, the, the fact that the very thought of removing screens from your child's life instantly gives you debilitating fear is the exact sign that your child is addicted and you need to step in and do this. You know, never before has there been a material good, just something sold by a company, an organization, a corporation that has completely fueled depression, anxiety, suicide and just taken over every single day life. And all of these adults who are addicted, we have fully developed brains. Our brains develop until 30 years old. We can have a family, have a job, take care of ourselves and be addicted to the phone. And most adults would tell you, hey, if I could, I would throw this phone in the ocean and never see it again. It's had more of a negative impact on my life than a positive. And just because we're addicted, we wish that upon our kids and we want Them to have is just, it is so obvious. Never before has there been a product that literally has mountains and mountains of evidence about how horrible it is and how much it impacts people. And we continue every single day to turn a blind eye towards it and create all these fake negative cognitive distortions to keep it in our kids lives. If there was a. If you walked into a store and you saw a product and you walked in in the aisle and it says oh, this product may cause suicidal thoughts, detachment from reality, increased aggression, diminished self worth, would you buy that product for your child? No. But parents are doing it every single day and introducing it into their lives because they are absolutely getting duped by the marketing that this is going to make your child more social and make them fit in and make them ready for the future and prepared for a tech field. Tech field life. This has been the sickest science experiment done on human beings of all time. It is absolutely sick and twisted that we are pushing this on our kids. Younger kids are getting more screen time. The American child gets less outdoor play than people who are in jail and they get their outdoor free time. It is every single experience that is meant to be experienced for kids and teens have been stolen by the Internet. And the fact that we even call it a phone is all part of big tech's amazing marketing to begin with. This is not a phone. This is a supercomputer. Stronger than whatever laptop or computer you had when you were in college or you had in childhood. It's a full on computer. It's like calling a cigarette a lollipop. Basically it's the exact same thing. Like what are we doing? The evidence is there. We know screens negatively hurt in kids and teens. The white matter, the gray matter, the cortical network organizations. We know it's negatively impacting the brain. Brain rot is real. It's not some trendy term. It literally is brain rotation. You know this is happening to our kids and it is fueling depression and anxiety. And every single day parents are signing their kids up for therapy and counseling so that person can teach them skills to manage their phone, can teach them to be able to be on their phone less. That is never going to happen. This is not like mowing, getting your, getting your lawn mowed or getting someone to clean your house for you. This is not something you can delegate onto another professional. You brought the phone, you brought the screens into your child's life. You are the only one who can take it out.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (29:25)

But what if the kid wants to be a YouTuber?

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (29:28)

Then there that is this is exactly what I deal with on a daily basis. If they want to be a YouTuber, they can start working on that when they're 17, 18, 19 years old. The percent chances of becoming a YouTuber are the same percent chances of becoming. You know, it's probably even harder to become a YouTuber than it is to become an astronaut like we all want it to be as kids. It is insanely hard to make money off of YouTube. I have thousands and thousands of followers on YouTube, and I've never made a penny off of YouTube, so it's not worth it. It's fueling it. Please ensure it is your job as a parent. Parents, as Dr. Russell Barkley says, parents are shepherds, not engineers. You shepherd your child through life. You don't engineer someone. Parents don't have that much power to engineer a genius or an athlete or whatever. You shepherd your child through life and ensure they get as many experiences as possible. Do you know what's more important than a gpa? A young child that knows multiple languages, that plays a musical instrument, that really loves art, that has really great interests, that loves to have face to face socialization, that loves to exercise, that loves to be outdoors. All of those things are more important than grades.

Podcast Host - 1000 Hours Outside (30:42)

Yeah, they are.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (30:43)

Dr. Arthur Brooks has a book coming out in the spring, and the basic premise of it is about the right. Like, none of us are living in the right hemisphere of the brain. And every single thing that you just said, which is socialization and the art, those are. All right. Hemisphere. And all this other screen stuff that we're doing and schoolwork is all left hemisphere. And it's contributing to extreme unhappiness, both for adults and for children. All right, let's talk about reading and writing. So you talk about written expression and reading comprehension can be difficult for kids with adhd. You say there's no success in reading and writing without strong executive function, which that makes homework hard because a lot of homework is based on reading and writing. Can you talk about why and maybe some ideas of what we could do about that?

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (31:28)

Absolutely. And this goes right back to what we just talked about. When you read. When you are reading something, what do you have to do while you read? You tell me.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (31:37)

You have to visualize.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (31:38)

You gotta visualize.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (31:39)

You know, Dr. Nicholas Carderis came on, and I actually was shocked. This is the first time I ever heard of this Mike. He came on and was telling me that. That he has. So Dr. Nicholas Carders wrote Glow Kids, and he wrote Digital Madness, and he deals with young Adults mainly, I think, who are addicted to screens. You know, he only used to work with people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and his whole business model, like he has an entire business model based around kids who are addicted and young adults who are addicted to screens, can't launch and addicted to gambling, pornography, video games, social media and the Internet. So he said, and he was shocked that he had these young twenties, young men that would come in and say, when we read a book, we have no mental imagery. None, you know, so like in your mind when you're, you know, when you're visualizing Harry Potter flying through the air and a Quidditch field and the, you know, like everybody has this mental imagery, right? And he's like these young men said, no, we have nothing, like nothing happens in our brain when we read these words. And I just thought, well, first of all, that would be really tricky for school, but even just for the enjoyment of life, like to not have that, it's just, I thought it was really sad. And obviously you can see how that would make things very hard. And a lot of childhood is going toward someone else's imagination.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (32:56)

Yep.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (32:56)

Being shoved into our brains and so we don't have to have any mental imagery.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (33:00)

This is exactly it. You know, there's a, there's a long list of reasons why screens are so dangerous, why they are a drug. Obviously they hardwire the brain towards instant gratification. They deplete your brain of all the dopamine you have. So spending five minutes on your phone, on a video game, whatever it may be, and then you have to go do homework and then you have to brush your teeth and then you go to sleep. They are incredibly dysregulating. They hardwire the brain towards instant gratification. So anything that's not instant gratification is basically impossible to do. But one of the big things that people don't even realize is screens are stealing our boredom. So we don't have to use our imagination and they are creating the images for us. So why, why sit there and make mental movies? Which is the foundation to all executive functioning, which is the foundation to all self regulation and self motivation towards non preferred tasks, which is the foundation to all success and independence in life. We wonder why our kids are so depressed. We wonder how they're not ready for life. We wonder why we lead the world in college, dropouts and failure to launch and all of these things. Because we're so focused on grades and homework. Grades and homework. Those things are meaningless unless you are independent and you can self regulate and self motivate towards non preferred tasks. And you can persevere through boredom. What do we do when we play? What do we do when we're bored? We use our imaginations, we build our mental movies. All of the kids whose parents didn't give them a phone sit on the bus ride home and they visualize their day, the past day that they just had, and they visualize the future and all the things they want to do later. And they're building that muscle every day through play and boredom on how to regulate, how to motivate and strengthen their non verbal working memory. Visual imagery system. The second you introduce a phone into a child's life, screens, online games, things like that, they no longer have to be bored, they no longer have to do non preferred tasks. Everything revolves around the addictive drug which is the screen. So reading comprehension means you have to visualize. And we, we are seeing this all over. We're seeing people graduate and then go back and sue their school district because they're completely illiterate. We're seeing, you know, libraries now are empty, kids can't read, college students can't read. And we have professors leaving, leaving the field in droves. The reason why is because we don't have a strong enough of a visual imagery system. Kids everywhere, ADHD or not, we stole boredom, we stole play. They sit there to read, they get five pages in, they have no idea what they just read. They have to go back and do it, which is incredibly stressful, dysregulating thing. So we need to get back to play and boredom and executive functions if we want our kids to be literate.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (35:55)

You have written. Executive function is the imagination. And writing is difficult because it's slow. It is a meticulous process that requires an extensive. And it really does actually I'm not a huge fan of writing because it is hard. An extensive amount of planning and internal organization to have the information travel from your brain down your arm to your hand where you will write or type. This task requires an absolute ton of self regulate, self regulation, self motivation and frustration tolerance. Nothing about writing is instantly gratifying. In fact, it's quite the opposite. And then, I mean, here's the tricky part. Now ChatGPT can write your paper for you. Oh my goodness. It's just, it's like here's the loophole.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (36:36)

So bad. It's, it's so, it's so incredibly bad. And this is, and you mentioned AI chatbots and AI girlfriends and AI relationships and the fact that we're like allowing access to these things. You know, at the end of the day it's the Internet. So you talked before about good screens versus bad screens. You know, introducing a Super Nintendo or a Nintendo 64. You know, back when those were in kids lives, they were able to play it and still go outside because it wasn't connected to the Internet. Every time I do a presentation on the danger of screens, there's always someone who raises their hand and they're like, yeah, but I had a Game Boy that was not connect, that was not connected to the Internet that did not allow for endless loops. Yeah. So that's. And the people who made that game, that Game Boy game didn't have a team of psychologists. Psychologists on their team on how to make it as addictive as possible. There's a reason why the Ultra wealthy, the 1% send their kids to tech free schools and don't give their kids screens at all. The wealthy 1%. Yeah. Setting.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (37:40)

And they did it from the very beginning. They did not wait 10 years or 15 years for the data to come out. They knew.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (37:47)

Correct. Yeah. And, and a lot of people. I just put up a post today about how ed tech has to go and I already have 30 angry messages. Yeah, but my son has dyslexia. He needs it for his accommodations, all of those things. So okay, they can have a computer. It doesn't need connection to the Internet. So to utilize. I understand there's learning differences and they need to be connected to, you know, to those sorts of things. But there's no reason for them to have access to YouTube. For YouTube to be one click away or chatgpt one click away to utilize. Accommodations based on your learning style. Yes, you should have accommodations based on your learning style. Sure. But having a laptop with access to the Internet. We all know as adults, the Internet is an absolutely sick, twisted, disgusting place. It is just, it is the most unregulated thing in the world. If, if the Internet was a real place. I remember there was a sketch comedy show when I was a kid that where the, with a guy, he was like, imagine the Internet was a real place. And he went and it was just disgusting that he left. And it was like that's exactly what it is. But we're giving kids unfettered access to the Internet every single day by giving them a phone, by giving them a computer. Or they can access it on their video game system. But we're too afraid to let them walk down the street. We're too afraid for them to go play outside without us. Keeping an eye on them all the time. And we wonder why they grow up and they're not independent. We talk about how hard it is to be a parent today. It's because kids are so dependent. They're not gaining independent skills the way we did as kids. And the reason why is because they're not having the experiences. We're not letting them grow. And then you're dealing with a kid that six, seven months into the school year, still can't get to school on time, still can't do homework by themselves, still can't make friends, still can't make weekend plans, still can't go out and do things because we're not letting them. We are giving them devices that are delaying crucial skills.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (39:45)

Yeah. And then it just gets worse and worse. Listen, if you're a teacher, I would be having all kids. This is what I would do. I would have all kids write all their papers in class. No computers. We're going to write on a piece of paper with a pencil or a pen. We're going to write in class because the writing process is important. It's important for their brain growth. It's important for them to learn what they think. There are tons of ideas now. There's the executive function playbook and there's the executive function playbook in action which continues the ideas. But there's ideas in the first one and then there'll be continued ideas in the second one. And there are like pages and pages and pages of ideas in this book specifically related to reading and writing.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (40:22)

Help.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (40:23)

Because this matters for the kids. You wrote real life activities just can't compete with digital stimulation. When a child's world shrinks down to a screen, it inevitably leads to loss of hobbies, learning opportunities and varied life experience. That is where the burnout starts for the parent. So this is incredibly important that your kids are reading and writing and the book is going to help you get there. You talk a lot about ed tech. That 38 out of every 60 minutes are spent off task when kids are allowed to have lecture laptops during lectures. And you wrote quite possibly the most common horror story I hear that really scares me is pre K and kindergarten students doing work on iPads. What are we doing? Why are we all just accepting that this is okay? How are we not jam packing the school board meetings to ensure this is this never happens in any classroom ever. Why would little babies need to do educational assessments and tasks on high tech devices? Our most vulnerable population of children is being negatively affected by adult greed. So go to the School board meetings. Your kids should not be having these laptops. They do not need them. They can write with pen and pencil and they can read actual books. And parents have to stand in the gap for the kids because this matters a lot. You brought up homework. Okay, so you say grades and homework are not the most important thing. And we've done no grades or homework.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (41:39)

Love it, love it.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (41:40)

I just, you know, and it feels like a little bit of an experiment. You're like, I guess I. Here I am experimenting on my kids. But let me tell you about the outcome of the experiment. Our oldest son is 17. He's 17 years old. He's a senior in high school and he signed up this year to do some dual enrollment. He's taking college classes. So I mean, he's never taken a test. He's done zero homework. We've never graded him. So then you think, okay, you know, he's got this college. There's seven weeks long. Like they're pretty fast, they're fast moving. Seven weeks, he's taking several at a time. I'm like, can you make sure you get all the things done? There's due dates anyway, he just finished his first two. There's two seven week classes that go at the same time and he got both A's. So I was like, guess what? All that stuff we skipped didn't matter. It didn't matter. Oh my gosh, it didn't matter at all. And we spent all of childhood like playing and having IT experiences and having friends over and doing some schoolwork, but little in comparison. An hour to two a day, sometimes skipping it completely, you know, sometimes more. If it's snowing and like free freezing cold outside, I mean, sometimes you do a little bit more. Lots of reading, lots of time in the kitchen, lots of just living life. And I, you know, I thought, I didn't know Mike. He started the classes, ended last week. Seven weeks long. And I thought, these are college level courses. Here's my kid who's never taken a test and it did not matter at all.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (43:00)

Basically, we have all been sold a lie. We have all been sold this whole idea that homework and GPA are going to determine the rest of your life. There's a great book called the Homework Myth that breaks down how homework has little to no impact on information retention and assistance later in life. So all. Every single day. Most of the people listening to this podcast probably get a huge rush of anxiety and stress in the hour before their kid comes home from school because they know there's about to be a three hour fight over, you know, very minimal homework. And in reality, it's not helping, it's not important, it is not worth toxifying your child's relationship towards. And the biggest thing is, first of all, why are you making it your responsibility? Think of all the things that parents do now that just increases their anxiety, increases their parenting fears because they are so worried about themselves. You know, I need my son to get his homework done. I need my son to have great grades because it makes me feel good as a parent, like I'm succeeding. This is what we're doing with all these parenting influencers and parenting gurus, is every single, every single thing your child does is a reflection on you, you know, when in reality it's how many different experiences are they getting? How do they treat people? What do they do when they go into someone else's house? Can they, you know, shake someone's hand? Are they interested in the arts and the music and, you know, positive different things? It's not just their grades and their homework and where they rank amongst their class and are they taking honors classes and AP classes? All of that is so minimal. And every single one of you listening to this right now, you can think of a nice handful of kids that you went to high school with that weren't in honors classes, weren't in ap, weren't doing the best job. And they're now living their dreams and pursuing something. They have a family, they have kids living a perfectly healthy life. So we have to get back to what it is. We were sold a lie about school and grades and we need to give them a phone, we need to give them laptops, we need to give them tablets. Because the future is tech, the future is technology. But human beings and children are not lab rats. We're not putting them, you know, more homework and more work is not preparing them for life. More screens is not preparing them for a screen filled adulthood. It's not like, oh, I'm going to grow up and become a cardiologist. I have to do heart surgery every day from birth to 18 years old to prepare for my future life. We have to remember these are human beings that don't know anything about this earth, don't know anything about life, don't know anything about other people. All they know is their home, their mom, their dad, and structured school. We have to be a community again, a society again, where kids are having experiences. You mentioned earlier, screens come into a kid's life, they lose interest in basically everything. You know, I can't Tell you, every single time I talk to a parent and they tell me about their kids behaviors, behaviors, behaviors. And I'll say, oh, you know, right around, you know, what age did they start? And they'll tell me the age and I'll say what else happened at that age? Did anything come into their life? Oh, yeah, that's when they got the phone. That's when it happened. In the access generation, there's that great cartoon of parents holding a gift about to give to their kid. And they say, well, it was nice knowing you these past 14 years. You know, enjoy this phone. And that's exactly what it is. Every parent right now think to yourself, can you think of two different versions of your child before the phone and after the phone? And don't, you know, put your head at night and be upset that the pre phone version of your child is gone. You can get rid of that phone and get your child back.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (46:37)

I loved the wording in the book when you talked about and at 14 is late.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (46:41)

Yeah.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (46:41)

Honestly here. Yeah. For. It's been nice knowing you these past 14 years. I mean in a lot of families it's like, it's been nice knowing you these last eight years. I mean it's getting younger and younger. But you have this part where you talked about when you tell the parents, okay, I've worked with all these families who have successfully eliminated screens. Hundreds of hundreds of families you've worked with who have successfully eliminated screens. When I first told them the screens had to go, they all had the same face, absolutely frozen in fear, blankly staring at me, stone cold, so unbelievably scared. How could they not be? This is a difficult thing to do and to endure because they're scared of the withdrawals. But you know, they all. 100, 100. They come back and say, we're so glad that we did it. And so you give, talking about the homework, then you give advice.

Podcast Host - 1000 Hours Outside (47:26)

You.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (47:27)

Actually, I've not heard this advice before. First of all, you say limited to an hour. But the second piece of advice you say is do it away from the home.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (47:34)

Yes, Correct.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (47:35)

Talk about why.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (47:37)

And that's all part of it because I'll tell you exactly why. Because what are kids, ADHD or not? Mostly ADHD kids. Constantly seeking out screens and conflict. Where are the screens at home? Where is the conflict at home? What better person to have conflict with than mom and dad? Mom and dad. So it's. They are always going to be seeking screens and conflict over doing homework. The parents, mere presence of them being there when they're supposed to be doing homework gets them dysregulated, gets them want to create a fight, start negotiating, gain control over a situation with the parents simply being there. Why does homework have to be on parents shoulders every single day? Parents get so stressed over having to do homework with their child. Why is that being added to the list of parenting in today's world? Why can't it be done at school during a free period after school? Why can't we get kids together to do some ADHD body doubling and have a homework buddy to do your homework with? Why can't it be done at local libraries? And that's another thing that we've seen so much success with. We have opened parents minds where we work with a parent and we'll say hey, get that on the IEP, get it on the 504, that all homework is done at school and that school laptop never comes home and it works.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (48:56)

Or there you go, come on. That's the answer. No homework at all. That's the answer. Why do we need homework? John Taylor Gato says it takes 50 to 100 hours to reach functional literacy. 50 to 100 hours at the right age and stage. So your kid has to be old enough, but not like they're two or sometimes not five, sometimes not even nine. But then they can go on and learn anything they ever want to learn in the, the, the history of the world. 50 to 100 hours to functional literacy and kids spend 15,000 hours in school during their K12 education. I'm like, why do they need more? Why would we give any more time than 15,000 hours to this homework? I think it's ridiculous. Anyway, I would like to announce that our children have done zero homework and are successfully doing college courses. So you know, I know that's not for every kid, but hope, maybe it gives you a little bit of hope to push back against the system or to come up with ideas like that. Yeah, all homework must be done at school. We are not bringing these laptops home. We are not bringing these iPads home. We are not doing any edtech for sure in elementary for sure. I cannot even believe it. I did talk to a parents right here in the school district near me that brought me in to speak. I was like, why you bring me in to speak and you're also giving iPads to kindergarteners. It's kind of wild. Okay, so homework out of the home. That's a fantastic idea. You use the word vortex. This is a great way. Oh yeah, the argument vortex. The homework vortex. The Bedtime vortex. Can you talk about why it's so easy to get sucked in and what maybe a parent could do instead?

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (50:31)

Absolutely. And this is this. A lot of this goes back to the work of my great podcast co host, the ADHD parenting podcast, the ADHD Dude, Ryan Wexelblad. Part of his parent training program is the discussion of the argument vortex and the negotiation vortex. And we have to remember the ADHD brain, you know, and you know, a lot of other kids who don't have adhd, it is negative attention stimulation. They get dopamine from negative attention. ADHD kids, their brain feels better when they hear, stop that. As compared to good job, I'm so proud of you. Because the negative attention keeps the attention on them. It gives them a sort of a sense of control and it gives them the stage and the spotlight which they seek. So they seek negative attention. They struggle with boredom, which is another reason why you don't want to bring a phone into an ADHD child's life. 18 and 18 and below, because they already struggle with boredom. So they're sitting there bored. They can't self regulate, they can't self motivate. They look for a screen. If a screen is not available to them, they are going to look for negative attention from parents. And parents are the main reason because they are the only two unconditional love relationships in the child's life. So to the black and white rigid ADHD brain, it's basically like, wait a second, here are these two people that I can say absolutely unspeakable things to that I, that I would never say outside of this home or to anybody else. And they're still going to tuck me in at night and buy me my favorite snacks and give me the WI FI password and take me places I want to go and do all these things. That's basically what it is. And that's one of the biggest things we're seeing now where it's negatively impacting social relationships. So at home, there's no semblance of a 50:50 relationship between parents and kids. It becomes all take and no give. And kids learn, I can treat you poorly and you're still going to do for me. And then that ends up translating to the, to the school where now we constantly hear kids say things like, oh, I can't be friends with him. We have nothing in common. He doesn't listen to my directions. And we see kids getting overly bossy during recess and trying to control every situation where they can't sit there and have a back and forth dialogue and listen to someone else's thoughts, perspectives and ideas. Because they're so used to dominating everything in the home with their parents and.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (52:58)

With their chat girlfriend. We've gone one step further. We're in it. It's here, you know, that this is a whole new realm of issues. You know, if we thought that there was issues before, it's almost like, you know, you said earlier, the future is technology, which so many people say. I think the future includes technology. But, but technology is, is going to take care of technology in terms of, you know, AI is going to write all the code and deal with, with all that. So people who are like, oh my kid's gonna be a coder or like, no, they're not actually, they're not going to be. The future is relationships. The future is hands on life. That's what all the books are saying in terms of careers and things like that. You're gonna have to have good people skills and you're gonna have to have hobbies and, and things about you that are enticing. So you talk about them getting out of these vortexes. Vortices.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (53:47)

Yeah, vortices.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (53:48)

Vortai get out of them by disengaging. You say it's so difficult. You have to stay regulated and you have to kind of ignore and walk away and not respond to their attention seeking behavior because you will then teach them that negative actions do not provide a dopamine reward. That's the big deal.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (54:07)

Yeah.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (54:08)

You have to teach them that negative behavior will not provide them that dopamine rush and that there are better ways to get mom and dad's attention. So you say it takes a lot of willpower. Homework is a major anxiety producer for parents. It doesn't have to be. It takes a lot of willpower and strength for parents to stop being so over involved with homework and with any of the other things. You have to find the inner strength to stop micromanaging your child's academic performance. Back off completely.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (54:34)

Yeah, this is, this is all part of the ADHD paradox, what I refer to as the ADHD paradox of, of parenting a child. So the child has their executive functioning disorder. They can't self regulate, self motivate towards non preferred and non instantly gratifying tasks. So parents today with their parenting algorithms and parenting as a science and you're a failure as a parent. You're a failure as a parent. Parents get dysregulated by their child's lack of an ability to self regulate and self motivate and they adopt this constant mindset of nothing gets done unless I step in. So then they unintentionally become a helicopter parent where they're constantly on their child, prompting, prompting, prompting, language, language, language, attention, attention, attention. Because the parent thinks nothing gets done unless I step in. They'll never get to school on time unless I'm prompting. They'll never get homework done unless I'm prompting. They'll never do anything unless I'm prompting. So the parent then prompts, talks too much to the child, hovers during, during morning routine and homework. And the ADHD brain, which is conflict seeking and stimulated by negative attention, they get the dopamine from further avoiding and having the parents as their audience. Then this helicopter parenting continues due to the continued EF delays, executive functioning delays until they graduate high school. And then we have what we're seeing all over today. ADHD or not. Graduating high school, 18 years old, college diploma. They look back on their first 18 years of life and they realized, hey, I never did anything by myself because my parents became so permissive and helicopter parents, they helped me through everything. Then all of a sudden it's bye, have fun in college. And they leave the first semester because they know they can't do anything on their own.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (56:26)

And what a sad thing, what a sad thing. What a sad thing for the kid. And then also, you know, it just makes things so tricky for the family unit. 1000 hours outside is mentioned in this book. Oh yeah, right next to Timber Nook, which I loved because I love Timbernook. I think there should be one in every single county, if not every single school district. The book is called the Executive Function Playbook. Building Independence in Kids with adhd. I absolutely loved it. It is hope for your kids with ADHD and a reminder to all of us that screens make dreams and talents die. Mike, I can't wait till we talk about the Playbook in action. Go get your copy today and we'll be back soon.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (57:06)

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Podcast Host - 1000 Hours Outside (57:08)

Before you go, I want to share a five star review that came in the Day After Christmas. This one's from the United States. This is my number one parenting podcast to listen to and this review is way overdue. Been listening since 2021 and I love everything about it. Ginny's enthusiasm is infection and her book recommendations are top notch. I have so many books on my wish list. Too many to catch up. I've learned so much from this podcast and have seen dramatic change in my family by decreasing screen time for my child and for us adults. I honestly don't know if I would have made changes if it wasn't for this podcast. Super grateful to have this available for free. Thank you Ginny for everything you do for our kids. If you'd like to leave a review, I would love to hear from you. And you just might hear your words read right here on the show. Sharing an episode with a friend who needs this message is another powerful way to keep it moving. And don't forget to join us and others around the globe in 2026 on the 1000 Hours Outside journey. Grab a free tracker sheet at 1000hoursoutside.com trackers and check out the Kickoff pack which is inside the 1000 hours outside Mega Bundle. While it's still available, the link is waiting for you in the show Notes until next time. May you find extraordinary moments on orange.

Podcast Intro/Outro Singer (58:16)

Ordinary paths get outside, open your eyes Feel that sunshine kissing your skin Throw.

Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (58:23)

Your worries out to the wind.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (58:28)

Climb.

Podcast Intro/Outro Singer (58:29)

Some trees skin your knees Feel that grass on your feet again get out there and take it in. Oh, it's a beautiful world Ain't nothing on the screen that's ever gonna beat this view oh, it's a beautiful world and I just want to share with I just want to share with you this beautiful world Such a beautiful world.

Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (59:09)

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Jenny Urch - Podcast Host (59:26)

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Mike McLeod - Guest, Author and Speech Language Pathologist (59:29)

Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Fairy Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.

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