19: Rethinking ADHD And Dyslexia Through The Simple Power Of Words

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A fast-food billboard shouldn’t be a study lesson, but “Welcome to delicious” says a lot about how language really works—and why so many teens feel lost when textbooks, teachers, and everyday speech don’t match. We dig into that gap with Mike, exploring how creative phrasing can be both inspiring and misleading, and we show parents how to turn confusion into confidence without leaning on empty labels.

We walk through what changed in modern education: less practice, softer texts, and a quick slide into diagnoses that don’t teach skills. Instead of treating ADHD and dyslexia as endpoints, we focus on building blocks that work in the real world—alphabet fluency forward and backward, common letter blends and their sounds, parts of speech with purpose, and short, daily drills that speed up dictionary use and sharpen comprehension. You’ll hear a surprising moment from an engineer who struggled with the alphabet sequence and what happened when that simple gear finally clicked.

Most of all, we make the case that parents are the key. You don’t need a linguistics degree to help your child. Start by proving they can learn—tie shoes, layer a jacket, adjust and retry—and connect those wins to language. Then run a tight routine: look at real examples, learn with trustworthy references, and practice in small, repeatable steps. As skills grow, we add source evaluation so teens can navigate the internet’s noise with a clear head and a stronger voice.

We unpack how flexible language—like a billboard that says “Welcome to delicious”—can both inspire and confuse learners, and why labels such as ADHD or dyslexia don’t replace real teaching. We lay out simple tools parents can use to build their child’s confidence through sequence, practice, and purpose.

• creative language versus dictionary rules
• why labels don’t teach or solve problems
• what changed in modern education and curricula
• the value of sequence and simple drills
• parents becoming effective language guides
• everyday wins that prove a child can learn
• the look, learn, practice routine
• evaluating sources and using dictionaries well

If you’re ready to swap labels for tools and turn study time into real progress, this conversation is your map. Subscribe, share with a parent who needs it, and leave a quick review to help more families find practical, judgment-free support.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode. Today, Mike and I are going to be going over something that helps lead to the problems that sometimes crop up for young adults, for preteens, when they're trying to apply what they learn in school or what we're talking about to the real world. And Mike found a perfect uh example of this. And we're going to start with that and then go over also how just labeling what's going on isn't really the solution. So stay tuned for that a little later in the episode, and then our solutions for that as well. So, Mike, tell us about this welcome to delicious phenomenon that you pointed out the other day.

From Slogans To Studying Hard Subjects

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Sure. So just driving around town, I noticed a billboard, and it's for a restaurant called Culver's. I don't know if they're national or not. You know, it might just be a regional or you know, semi-local situation. But anyway, culverse, it's a hamburgers and shakes type of place. And uh that's what the billboard said. It just said, welcome to delicious. And that struck me, of course, as a as a student of the language that, like, oh, that's an interesting way of putting it, right? First of all, uh, it doesn't really qualify as a sentence, right? It's just sort of a statement. Welcome to delicious. Okay. Well, not that anyway, we're we're getting we're getting into grammar terms, which we're going to avoid completely. What's a statement, what a sentence is made of, all that sort of stuff. Who cares? Uh it's just an interesting concept. Welcome to delicious. I did consult several dictionaries at home because this is what this is what I do for entertainment and educational purposes only. And delicious is usually a word that's used to describe things, right? This ice cream is delicious, this steak is delicious, okay? And it's listed in dictionaries that way and only that way. At least all the ones that I consult with. And and yet you have welcome to delicious. You have delicious being used to name something, to name like an experience. Right? The for the you know, the I the I guess they're using it to name the experience that you're going to get by going to a culverse restaurant. Okay. Well, that's fine. All right. And that's creative. That's the creative, that's a creative use of words, right? And it's powerful enough, and it's probably been successful enough that they that they they trademarked it. That that that's their saying. Like nobody else can use that, apparently. Right. That's my understanding anyway. And that is how creative writers and and you know artists use words is to get ideas across that are maybe new and and actually reach people and communicate. Right. Well, I that's that's great, but what about the person who's trying to learn new things and they're studying new subjects, technical subjects. Okay, they're studying to become a lawyer, a doctor, a rocket scientist, right? Or another um much more technical position uh and role in life would be like to the best parent in the world. There's a technical subject, even our own survival guide for parents that we give away freely, about the way to happiness. That book has some choice words that a parent is going to have to wrestle with and really, you know, look over and see how they can put it into use, right? And that's why we take people up the levels to being able to do that. But you have to be able to decipher the language when you're learning these new subjects. And it just happened to be this billboard that that pointed out to me that, like, wow, people are running into this all the time, just in general life. But when you get into studying new subjects, foreign ideas, and so forth, you're really going to have a problem if you cannot dive into dictionaries, dive into grammar books, derivation books, and figure out what is exactly being said here.

Classroom Rules Vs Real-World Language

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, totally. I think one thing that I've seen as you were speaking that came to mind for myself, and I've seen it in others that I that I've helped over the years is there can be this disconnect that develops because what you're learning inside the course room, or when you're asked to look up a word in a dictionary, doesn't match what you see in the world around you. So I know in the past I've been like, well, yeah, I've got to learn and use my grammar and dictionary and whatnot in the course room, but I'll never use that outside, really, because people don't talk that way, right? So can you speak to that a little bit and how we navigate that so that your teen and preteen actually become a competent person in life, not just in the course room?

What Changed In Modern Education

Labels Replacing Real Teaching

Grammar Isn’t Rocket Science

Comfort In Communication Comes From Tools

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Absolutely. Part of the problem with modern education, if you want to call it that, is the fact that the texts have changed. Right? They're they're different now than they were in uh, for instance, the early 1900s, when America was quite literate and people had to learn how to read Shakespeare and high-level material before they hit the farm, right? Or whatever the kids were doing, right? So education was successful, much more successful uh 100-120 years ago, and not so much today. And what's changed? Had the teachers, or the you know, is it is it the teacher's fault, the principal's fault? No, we always point this out. You know, the the far majority of teachers and administrators are there doing the best they can with the tools they have available. But the tools, the proper tools, have been taken away. And you have you have curricula publishers, for instance, one particular one that I looked up recently, that they they have they have like an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder like research unit or whatever they call it. And they and part of what they publish is ADHD assessments. Well, that's a fine thing for an educational publisher to publish. It's like let's just omit giving the kids enough practice and enough uh orientation at the early stages of their learning so that they can master it and become just avid book readers, which which can happen for anybody. Okay. Any any child has this capacity. You know, barring, of course, we've you know, there are physical limitations that some people have run into and actual barriers to things, but but don't just don't just omit to to teach some kid how to read properly and then turn around and slap a label on him and say, well, you've got this disorder. You know, that's that's just mean. Right. I think I mentioned this in some other episode where it's like that's like some natural health practitioner just telling somebody, well, you're fat, you know, and that's just the way it is. But don't worry about that. You're you you know, you have some other good qualities and so forth. It's like, well, you know, don't just don't just insult the person, right? I mean, it's insulting, you know. Well, he's just not very good at math, you know. It's like, well, you just haven't taught him math and you haven't taught him how to study, that's all. Right? So those are not solutions, right? And and the parents I just want to already jump into the solution a little bit here, is that the parents have to realize that that the resources, if they're not in the school, they're gonna have to be sought out and found. And it's not a super complicated subject. I mean, anybody who has studied chemistry has seen that chart, you know. I'm not even gonna give the the full title of it, you know, because we're not doing science class right now, right? But you've got that chart of all the elements, okay? And it's like, man, there's a lot of information on that thing. And and anybody who's taken, you know, one or two years of chemistry even at at the high school level knows quite a bit about how the physical universe is made up, right? There are not nearly that many parts of speech and parts of sentences and parts of communication in terms of learning how to use words that need to be learned. Not nearly as much. It's not a complicated subject. It only becomes complicated when it's not taught or it's glossed over and uh and taught one thing as like a bunch of rules that you need to learn. Whereas language and its use is what we use every day out there in life. The comfort with which you can stand in front of a one other person, ten other people, a hundred other people, a thousand other people and talk to them is totally dependent on your command of the language, which here in America we're using the word English. Right? And where did where did English come from? Well, you know, right? What are the different what are the what are the six, eight, ten, not a hundred, but six, eight, ten major influences on the English language, okay, from history and from current uh affairs. These are simple things that anybody can learn. And you can you can become just familiar with these tools, become a whole lot more comfortable in your everyday life.

Health Labels And School Labels Compared

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Absolutely. Absolutely. I really like that you point out the simplicity of it in how this isn't something that has to be super complicated. And once you do get the right solution to help the child, then or anybody seeking to improve their education, it becomes easy. Another analogy that came to mind, you know, because we both are into natural health and whatnot, and there's a doctor that I recently worked with and am working with in helping him with some different things. He did this presentation on the kind of how carefree and slap happy we are with labels in medicine.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Uh-huh.

The Alphabet Drill Breakthrough

SPEAKER_01 11:54

And he says, Yes, you can have this really amazing sounding label that tells you exactly what disorder you have, but you're no closer to fixing it. Really, you just now have something that you can say why you feel so terrible. That's great. I feel like it's the same with these labels like ADHD, ADD, you know, okay, good. Now my child has been labeled. Now, that doesn't bring them closer to a solution. Drugging them doesn't help at all. In fact, it's the reverse, in my opinion. But using the tools that you're you you're going over and you and I are discussing is what it's like doing the blood work for a person. You're like, okay, well, this is high, this is low, this means this. Now we're going to put you on this type of diet or whatever. Obviously, I'm simplifying things, but the same concept applies. There's a limited number of language parts and ways of approaching it. And once those are down, you can figure out what's missing and just kind of fill it in. Is that a fairly accurate or correct analogy?

Beyond Labels: Learn The Sequence

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. And and uh you you reminded me of uh a particular student that I had, he was doing some alphabet drills. That's part of one of the one of the classes that we have available, it's part of one of the books that we have available. But uh there's only 26 letters, right? And if you don't know them forwards and backwards, like if you can't sort of count, so to speak, from Z back to A, and if you can't go from A to Z without singing the song, but just actually just straight say these are the letters. Okay. And if you don't know sort of like what the middle of the alphabet is and what the uh what what letter comes before this letter and what comes after this letter, you're gonna you're gonna be awful slow in looking up words and stuff. And I remember this this this guy, this a grown man with with technical credentials under his belt. In other words, he was a persistent fellow who had pushed forward in his education and gotten some engineering type of right and and practical knowledge of the physical universe. He was doing the alphabet drills, learning the alphabet forwards and backwards. What letter comes before this one, what letter comes before before that one, what what comes after this letter, what comes after that letter? And in the middle of it, he blurts out, oh my god, because when when I'm asking him, you know, let's just go real simple, what letter comes after B? And he's like, uh E, you know, no, you know, it's not right. Just the simple sequence, right? You should probably know it. Right? You you know how to count from one to a hundred. You can count backwards from a hundred to one, zero, right? You should be able to go forwards and backwards with the alphabet. And and he's doing this in the middle of it, getting a bunch of answers wrong on the on the drill. He's he goes, oh my god, you're giving me ADHD. Or no, what did he say? No, he said that was sorry, that was the wrong one, the wrong label, you know. They're all silly, but he says, uh, Mike, you're giving me dyslexia. Right? I'm getting him dyslexia. Like, no, no, we're curing dyslexia by actually teaching you the alphabet, right? There's there's there's a beginning and an end of the alphabet. There's middle ones, there's stuff, and you should know where they are. Why? Just so you can find them, and then and then also that's just one step towards learning, then all the letter combinations like th which has two different sounds, like the and thick. Okay, simple. There's not a billion of these things, it's just but there's a certain sequence and moving forward and and learning them. And just, you know, say dyslexia or this or that or the other thing. That's not helpful. Let's just back up and learn this stuff. That's all.

Parents Must Become Language Guides

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I I'm so I'm always surprised when I, you know, talk to someone who's used the technology that we use for a study and whatnot. And they'll give little stories like, oh yeah, they told me I had dyslexia, but actually they didn't know my alphabet. Or, you know, they always said I had attention deficit disorder, but actually I couldn't concentrate because I didn't understand grammar. You know. Well, these type of simplicities, they you kind of have to experience it for it to be very real that that's the way it is. Because even after years of doing it and knowing it myself, it wasn't until I really dived in and started working with others and seeing the results they got that it became even more real. How easily handleable these different labels can be, etc., right? Absolutely. One thing you have mentioned, I guess, many times probably, is that a parent needs to know these things so they can work with their child and you know help them understand the simplicities and not get caught up in the confusions that can come up as one tries to learn. Can you speak to that a little bit as it relates to what we've been going over?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Sure. The parents, in all likelihood, were not made to be masters of the English language themselves, no matter how far they went in their education. Okay, they could have be highly, highly trained. Well, I run into, you know, doctors and engineers and people with master's degrees all the time who don't have who could not, let's just put it simply, who could not pass an examination on an elementary language uh elementary school level language test. Okay. Yes, you can become a doctor, yes, you can become competent, you can maybe even run a successful business. But when you're trying to help your child with their homework, or you're trying to help their child understand why they're having difficulty in school, it's gonna require becoming an expert at that level of instruction. And it comes down to these simplicities. And so the first thing that the parents are gonna have to realize the first the first thing that's gonna open up the gate to a solution is the parents will have to realize that they they are gonna have to learn this stuff so that they can help their child.

Start With Wins: Proof They Can Learn

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Makes sense. Don't have that barrier thinking you know all about it, and and therefore you're not able to help your child as much as you possibly could if you learn more. Yeah. Okay, great. And so let's say we a parent listening to this has a teen or preteen who's confused about the way words are used and also maybe is on the verge of being labeled something. What would be a really simple practical step they could take away from this episode to start helping their child without getting into labels and drugs and other solutions that don't work?

Look, Learn, Practice: The Simple Formula

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Well, let's let's find out what the child actually can do. Let's get the child to realize that they can learn. So let's take it out of the department of let's forget about the alphabet and how many letter combinations there are. Let's not worry about that. Can the child tie their shoes? Yes, they can. If they can tie their shoes, probably the parent helped them learn how to do that. Right? And through lots and lots of practice, they became very good at it. Okay. If they can tie their shoes, untie their shoes. After walking around for a while, they realize that their left shoes not quite as tight as it should be, so they can undo it and redo it and get things synced synced up, you know, so they match. And okay, wow, they're they're an expert. They they know exactly what needs to be done to tie their shoes the way they want them tied. Okay. Well, let's get them to realize that you know, can they can they can they dress themselves? Do they know how to put a shirt on? Do they know how to, for instance, hold the sleeves of their shirt or sweater or whatever while they're putting their jacket on? These are complex actions, right? I mean, it's not maybe quite as complex as flying an airplane or playing golf, right? But it's it's it's it's stuff that had to be learned. Okay, and let's validate what they can learn and and get this the student, the child to really believe that it is possible for them to learn by pointing out the fact that they have learned so many things. Okay. Let's validate that and then establish a purpose for learning new things. And I think that's that is the entrance gate to creating teamwork at learning new things.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

That's so awesome. I'm sometimes inspired after we have these talks to go learn new things. I think that's a good sign.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

It's quite fun learning new things. I mean, there's there's adventures, you know, you do, you're gonna run into things you don't know. That's that's part of the adventure. You go, oh wow, what the heck was this? I didn't realize I didn't know this. Okay, well, yeah, but if you're comfortable experiencing that, okay, then then you just go, okay, there's something here to learn. This is just a learning opportunity, that's all. And then you keep moving forward and you learn it and you practice it, you make some observations, ask questions, look stuff up on reliable sources of information. There's lots of you know, hokey stuff on out on the internet, but there's some there are some plenty of useful places to find information, especially if you've been trained in how to evaluate information and sources of information, which we do get to in our later instructional programs. But you can start by looking, just looking, observing, learning all about it, clarifying everything you can clarify about it, and then practicing. That's the simple formula. Look, learn, and practice.

Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Awesome. Yeah, I look, learn, practice. Yes. I think with what you just said about starting. Of that entrance point and then getting that purpose going and then look, learn and practice. You know, pretty much the world is open for any young adults, teen, preteens, taking for their going after and achieving what they want to. So, and that's what I love doing these episodes. I always feel, you know, as a nonprofit, we're really trying to reach as many of the next generation as possible by helping parents who are shaping them. And I think bringing these simplicities to to everyone is is so powerful. So, anyways, thank you for that, Mike. I've been inspired. Great. Thank you everybody for listening. Be sure to stay tuned for our next episode. They do come out every Sunday. And uh feel free to reach out to us anytime. We're here to help you.