23: How To Help A Teen Find Purpose By Mastering The Basics

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A teen can be polite, non-rebellious, and still be drifting toward a dead stop. No goals, no interest in college or trade school, no desire to work, and no clear sense of purpose. We dig into a surprising root cause that hides in plain sight: they may have never experienced real mastery, especially the kind that comes from reading with full understanding. When learning has always felt confusing, motivation doesn’t magically appear. 

We walk through a real example of an 18-year-old high school graduate who had a diploma but couldn’t confidently read and study on his own. Instead of pushing lectures about responsibility, we start with something simple and measurable: reading out loud and finding exactly where comprehension breaks. We explain why grades and test scores can be noise, why “reading” really means understanding every word on the page, and why backing up to an easier level is not babying someone but rebuilding the missing steps. That first real win at understanding can flip a switch, turning “I can’t” into “What else can I learn?” 

From there, we talk about how parents can reduce shame, validate what their teen already knows, and use self-determinism to help them choose a path that fits their interests, whether that’s construction, mechanics, sports, animals, or something else entirely. If you’re looking for practical parenting tools, teen motivation strategies, reading comprehension help, and study skills that actually work, this conversation gives you a clear starting point you can apply right away. Subscribe, share this with a parent who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest learning barrier you want us to tackle next.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode. Today we're going to dive right into how to get the young adult, the teen or preteen, who is maybe just not doing as well as he or she should. Maybe they've fallen a bit behind or they're kind of treading water, don't really have a purpose. We often talk about the more troubled teen or youth. But today we're going to go into well, how do you just unstick someone who's maybe not that stuck yet before it gets to that point and give you some real solutions on things you can apply right now, today, at the end of the episode. So stay tuned throughout. So, Mike, why don't you throw us in there and tell us how this works?

The Unmotivated Graduate Case

Reading Aloud To Find Gaps

Why Understanding Creates Motivation

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Sure thing. And thanks for uh asking me about these experiences with this type of teenager and so forth. I'd that work with teens and preteens in this situation. One particular case came to mind. And this was a high school graduate, right? Who just was this, what can I say, just the nicest kid, okay? But he wasn't motivated to go out and learn anything or do anything. Fact is, is he hadn't learned anything. He had a piece of paper, he had a diploma that said he a high school diploma is basically a certificate of general education. But what had he been taught? Nothing. Nothing really. He hadn't mastered anything. And so for him, true knowledge or true the excitement of mastery over any individual piece of knowledge was non existent. And so he had no desire to go to college, he had no desire to go to vocational school, he had no desire to go get a job, right? Which at age at age 18, it's like that's a problem for the parents, right? So, and it was just through some connections, some friends of mine, they they became aware of this kid that was, you know, not really causing any problems at all, but was kind of borderline going to become a problem to the parents, and particularly the mom, who was, I think it was a single mom situation. I I never did get the whole family together for for a big discussion like we sometimes do. But I I wound up making arrangements with this young man to simply address his reading skills. I just thought, well, let's just start with the most basic thing that we have, which is our How to Make Good Choices booklet, which is written for eight to twelve-year-olds. And that range, that age group, that age range is based on kind of rough reading skills. A kid could read it at age six if they had the reading skills. But in this particular case, I have an 18-year-old that I was meeting with for about 45 minutes to an hour, two, three times a month, just whenever we could work out getting together. It's all we had available between the two of us. And I had him read out loud this simple booklet about how to make good choices. And I was only using it as a means of focusing in what is it that this child doesn't know? And this is a good place to start, how to make good choices. Okay, well, he's he had no record of violating, with any great degree, any of these rules, these common sense rules that are taught in the booklet. What he what was showing up was just his simple inability to read and study or learn anything at all. It took a tremendous amount of work to get him through the simple sentence structure and to identify certain words that were difficult for him to recognize and pronounce. And wow, we became fast friends, you know, because I was like the first person who ever took the time to dig into the mechanics of this is what it's gonna take. This is what it's gonna take for this child or this person to learn on their own, to become an independent learner who is studying things that they want to learn about. So we did that for some months, you know. I couldn't have spent more than 10 or 12 hours with them. And boom, he was off like a rocket. He got himself enrolled in some vocational classes, he was doing some construction stuff. He has telling me about my phone, the shop that he was working in, and he's handling plywood and stuff, and it was all very exciting, you know. And it's like, well, really, like that's all it took. A few hours of work to just break the barrier and open up the door, open up the door, the gate of knowledge and excitement of learning to this kid. Yeah, that's all it took. It did not, there was no brain surgery going on here, right? Just open up the world of learning to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

That's so awesome. I think it's so interesting. Like you said, that's all it took. But it had never been done before where that young man had really duplicated something that fully that then inspired him to do other things in life or get interested in life. Can you talk a little bit about that phenomenon? Because that's something I've experienced and seen in others who apply these different aspects of study technology that we use with so many people. How how does that occur that, you know, instead of hammering and telling the person they've got to go get a job and don't be lazy and all this stuff, you just taught them to read something really simple and it took care of itself.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Sure. Well, we could probably just go back to things we've talked about in other episodes, like the importance of grades and test scores and all this sort of thing, and your attendance record and all whatever. None of that stuff matters at all. And even the mom, as an interested parent, was trying to, like, well, you know, yeah, he's not that good of reading, but we we we want him to, you know, get his grades up or whatever. It's just okay. All that is is just simply some misinformation that's been given to the mom, and just probably years or decades or a whole lifetime of just wrong focus, that's all. Right? There are only certain skills that matter in the long run. And reading is one of them. Okay. Reading is one of them. If you can get somebody to read and read, and by read, okay, let's just make sure we cover this for the thousandth time. Reading, by definition, is straight out of the dictionary. Certain dictionaries will say it this way, looking at and understanding the words on the written page. Looking at and understanding the words. So if there's one word out of ten, or two words out of ten, or five words out of ten that the person quote unquote reading doesn't really understand or see the relationship in and doesn't have a full grasp over. Okay, it's like, well, I don't know, that's like the it's like having somebody sit down. That's like putting a knife and a fork and a spoon and a plate of food in front of a child that is six months old. It's just gonna be a disaster, right? That's not gonna work out well, right? It's ridiculous, right? So you have to be able to teach this person, whether it's a child or an adult, whomever, how to read and understand everything that they're looking at on the written page. They totally understand 100% of what they're seeing in front of them. And if you can get them to experience a 100% understanding of what they're reading, that's exciting to them. That's never happened before, right? And so it might require backing them up six grade levels or whatever, or going back to ABC or something. Doesn't matter. Get them to realize that they can really, really, really know something. And then they start to get interested. What else could they know about? It's just a natural, that's natural. They have to experience, though, winning at knowing something. Knowing means mastering it, understanding it, really getting it. They totally got it. And then all of a sudden, they just start looking around and they want to know about things. They want, that's natural. They want to grow up, they want to know about things. So then you can then start to guide them into learning about things that they want to know about. And that'll be, of course, different for any child. They've seen different things in life, they've become, they've paid more attention to dogs because there's lots of dogs in their neighborhood. Well, let them study about dogs. Let's get lots of books about dogs. Let's start with hopefully something that's third grade about dogs. Some dogs have spots, some don't. You know, whatever. Whatever it is, let's get them, let's have them having fun reading books about dogs. Some other kids are gonna be look reading about farm machinery. Somebody else is gonna be learning into more interested in baseball, whatever. Who cares? Let them study whatever they want to study, let them read lots of books on the subject and just and then go out into the world and experience that stuff. Awesome.

Helping Teens Find Their Path

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah, I like the fact that you're again, it's that self-determinism point. You allowed him to read and understand at his own level. You do that with other people, and they're going to naturally reach out and want to understand more. Now, what would you say to the parent who has maybe a teen, whether they've graduated yet or not, who like how could they use what you just went over to help the child or young adult find their path rather than make sure they get on the right path? Like, how does that work? How does that apply to what we're going over here?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Well, my approach has always been to first of all validate or recognize that the child is capable of learning. The child, the adult, uh people I've had people with master's degrees that I have to be very careful to acknowledge that, okay, like you've got a lot of information up there in the old noggin. And to sort of frame it this way that you're not dumb or stupid for things that were not taught to you. Okay. There's nothing wrong with you, or there's not some chemical imbalance or or stupidity going on with having not been taught how to repair, let's say, a small engine type of machine or like a riding lawnmower. I mean, it was, I think I was in my feet before I was presented with a non-functional riding lawnmower by a neighbor who went through them like, I don't know, like I'm not sure what analogy would come up, you know, but uh he just would get get these things given to him by friends of his and then he'd use them up and spit them out, and they just didn't work anymore. And he wasn't any good at fixing these things. He could fix, he could repair and restore vintage cars, vintage vehicles, right? He could do that. But a riding lawnmower, he had no time or or interest in trying working on it. He honestly he just couldn't didn't know how what to do with it. So he he asked me if I wanted this thing, and we had just at that time bought a property, a couple acres or whatever, and uh, and I was like, yeah, that'd be great, better than that little push mower that I have, but it didn't run, it didn't work. So I called up a couple buddies of mine. Fortunately, I know how to study. One of the ways to study is to call up some friends and ask them some questions and get some get some get some terminology down here real quick, you know, and like, well, what's this and what's that? And start finding out the nuts and bolts of something. And, you know, before you know it, I had invested about a hundred dollars in this thing and and rolled up my sleeves and got my my hands and wrists all greasy and stuff, and I dove in and I I got this thing operational. Well, okay, that was great. I was able to do that. But did I feel stupid that at age 50 or 50 something or other that I'm I'm now finally learning how to do what many kids that I knew when I was young learned how to do? Nope. I just never studied it before. That's all. And that's the sort of empowerment that you need to give that child. Okay, there's nothing, they're they're not dumb just because they never learned what a sentence is made up, or they're not dumb because they can't take books apart that would that would you know give them the confidence to become a lawyer, an engineer, and anything high-level training. Okay. They were not taught that. They were not taught that stuff. And let's back it up and let's go, okay, good. So we're gonna teach you some things that you just never were taught. And let's go back to basics on this thing. And let's make sure that they can master reading. And above all things, that comes down to where the words mean and what's the level of sentence structure or just simply the level of language. Like, do we need to back it up to kindergarten stuff? Do we need to back it up to third grade reading level, fifth grade reading level, whatever's comfortable, and let's let's let them back up and move forward and and and bring it up to a point where they go, oh my God, I could learn anything. I'm a master of reading. Good. Now they're off and running.

Handling Stigma And Going Back

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, that's such a good point. I've I've actually seen that kind of stigma about, you know, it's I'm done because I don't know something, or, you know, my friends are gonna make fun of me, or whatever, you know, in an adult maybe just avoiding it instead of diving in like you did and figuring out how to, you know, fix a lawnmower. Now I know who I'll call when I need to do that. But so how do you navigate that with, you know, young people? They have the stigma about I don't want to go back and have to redo things. People think I'm dumb, I'm not a baby, or whatever comes up. Is there a way of approaching that that you've found to be successful?

Education Failure And Practical Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 14:30

It's really just a matter of making it known what's important. And that child and that child's future is what's important. You are important, Johnny. And you're and you just have to know, this is just an educational piece of information for the parents, that you have to know that that child has somewhere within them, no matter what's going on, whether they're just stuck in the C's and D's of grades in school or they're already over into the rebellious behavior and whatnot. And it doesn't matter how many, you know, driving under the influence tickets they've gotten by the time they're age, 16 and a half or whatever. Okay, that's that's how that's where it goes or starts to go. It doesn't really matter what's going on. That child has somewhere within them the desire to grow up and be their own person and to run their own life and to be in charge of their own life. And not in a rebellious way, like I'm gonna show you, but they just they want to be in control of their environment. And so you have to just foster that and emphasize the fact that they do want to learn things and get them to recognize the fact that through all the failures to learn, all the Bs and C's and D's and things, it needs to be brought to light that they have learned certain things. They know how to tie their shoes, they know how to dress themselves and make themselves look presentable. Those are things that were learned. They didn't know how to do that when they were six months old. They know how to do that stuff, and they don't have to be corrected on that stuff too often, hopefully. You're not wearing that to school, right? There are things that they know and recogn and recognizing and validating that and getting them to them to see that they have actually learned things is a starting point. And then and then going to, okay, there must be things that were not taught to them. That's now making it difficult to learn, you know, steps 25, 26, 27. You don't know, maybe even, maybe the parents don't know what was missed, but you just might have to take it on faith at first, and you can reach out to Ryan and I in the various ways that you can for help and assistance and finding out, like, well, what are the steps between four, five, and six and twenty five, twenty six, and twenty-seven. Well, we've been doing this a lot of years, and that that right there speaks to the fact that the parents have to have have to go through that learning experience, the learning step of like recognizing there might be something to learn here. Okay. It's not, it's not a parenting defect that the kid was not taught well in school. Schools used to teach kids really well back around 1905. And one of our guests, Barbie Revere, talks at length about that. Right? You can go check out that episode. It once was done, and it's no longer being done. So this is not a parenting defect, it's a slow demise of education defect, and we're now dealing with it. And yes, we have the purpose of one day having every school in America and then around the world create graduates who are competent at everything they've studied, which will be different for every child. Okay, it's not going to be the same. But in the meantime, we can take any individual child and we can back them up and teach them that knowledge is possible, that mastery and understanding is possible. Having so much knowledge and and and certainty about an area that they have judgment and can choose and pick. And this is the athlete that's going to choose their future coach and evaluate which coach they want to have to teach them the things that they need to learn. Okay. And whether that's athletics or engineering or whatever, employers, wow, you know, eight out of ten employers are going to be more or less on your side, and 20% are not. You better before you get into the workforce, or or or once you enter the workforce, you're gonna have to go through that learning curve and that learning experience. And what about coworkers? All these things need to be learned, but they first have to learn that they can learn. And so let's back it up and give them a win and some mastery over something like reading, some simple math. Let's give them wins, okay?

Key Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Very powerful. And so pervasive. I love it. Yeah, it applies to everything, literally. Yeah. Okay, great. I think it's a great place to end off. And these are tools that any parent can now take and empower your child by helping them find that understanding that will help them get to the level of being interested in whatever their path is. So all the links to things we've mentioned will be in the show notes and how to reach us. So always check there if you want to get in contact or check out anything we've talked about. Thank you for being here today, and we'll see you in the next episode.