Is ADHD a Diagnosis or a Stress Signal? | Roman Wyden

Join the conversation beyond the episode inside The Gentle Year Facebook community — a thoughtful space for parents seeking clarity, encouragement, and real dialogue.

In this episode of The Gentle Year, I sit down with Roman Wyden — author of ADHD Is Over and host of the podcast and documentary by the same name — for a deep, thought-provoking conversation about childhood diagnoses, parenting, stress, and responsibility.

When Roman’s son was diagnosed with ADHD at age seven, he was told what many parents hear: that the condition is genetic, lifelong, and best managed with medication. Instead of accepting that narrative at face value, Roman began a decade-long investigation into what ADHD actually represents — not as a label, but as a lived experience within families, schools, and modern culture.

Together, we explore:

• Why ADHD may be better understood as a nervous system response to stress rather than a fixed disorder
• How labels and diagnoses can shape a child’s identity and self-esteem
• The difference between blame and responsibility in parenting
• The role of school environments, family dynamics, and chronic stress
• Why “managing” behavior is not the same as understanding it
• What informed consent should look like when it comes to children’s health and education
• How parents can reclaim agency without shame, fear, or perfectionism

This conversation isn’t about denying children’s struggles — it’s about asking better questions. What if a diagnosis is less about what’s “wrong” with a child and more about what’s misaligned in their environment? What if slowing down, reducing stress, and changing systems could be just as powerful as any intervention?

This episode is for parents, educators, and anyone willing to challenge conventional narratives and look deeper — with curiosity, nuance, and care.

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Transcript

[ 00:00:01,766 ]Welcome everybody to another episode of The Gentle Ear. We are here with a very special guest, Roman Wyden. Roman, thank you so much for being on the show today. Will you please introduce yourself to our amazing audience? Yes, thank you. Hi, Nikki. It's good to be on the show. Thanks for having me. My name is Roman Wyden. I am the author of ADHD Is Over, and also that's my book, and also the movement ADHD Is Over, which includes a documentary, the book, and the podcast. This started about 10 years ago when our oldest son, Kai, at seven years old, got diagnosed. I should say we had him diagnosed because we wanted to know what they, or what the system says about my son because the school had said, you know, we think he might have ADHD, you should get him tested.

[ 00:00:51,029 ]So we did. So anyway, that whole process started a 10-year research project that just, I got inspired to look into what this thing really is because I always knew it was a label. It was a, you know, abbreviation, four letters that stand for, you know, abbreviating four words that were made up by 15 experts in a boardroom. So I wanted to know what's beyond that. So that's, that's kind of what brought me here and today I coach, I'm an alignment coach So I help people align areas of their lives that are out of alignment. That includes working with families that have neurodiverse children. And I continue to grow as a father because parent, the parenting job is never over and no one's ever graduated. So yeah, lifelong journey. Fantastic.

[ 00:01:36,109 ]And did it strike you as odd that a school was saying that your son should be diagnosed with ADHD at seven years old? It didn't strike me as odd because, first of all, I didn't know too much about it. I had heard about ADHD, didn't know anything about it, didn't know what age it starts, how long it lasts, what it is. So for me, it was a bit like, oh, I guess it's one of those disorders like dyslexia or something that has to do with learning. It's coming from the school, so I guess we have to look into it. So I was a bit naive, or I shouldn't say naive. I just wasn't as deep into it as I am today, right?

[ 00:02:11,758 ]I probably was as deep into as most parents are that have never been told their child has ADHD. They just kind of know it's kind of adjacent. Yeah, I know of it, and some kids are crazy and whatever, but that's all you know. Yeah, that's really interesting. Was there anything about the label itself that scared you as a parent? Or I know that in your life, you talk about your research going down this rabbit hole of ADHD. What did the diagnosis feel like to you at the beginning? And then what did it eventually evolve into many years later? I think for me at the beginning, I went straight into defensive mode. I went straight into like, I'm the dad. This is my son.

[ 00:02:49,366 ]I'm not just going to label him with something that says broken or, you know, damaged or not smart, disordered. So I did that. My ex-wife, my wife at the time, who was in the room, she started crying. And I think this is very common. And some men do that, too. But for the mothers, it's really hard when you hear that, right? There's a lot of emotion. There was a then And nowadays, just because we've seen our son blossom and we've seen him, you know, you can call it, I don't like to say heal, but he's basically dissolved his ADHD symptoms over 10 years. We've done it together with no medication. And so today, I see the diagnosis more like, you know, an opportunity to dive deeper, like a check engine light in the family.

[ 00:03:42,586 ]And so therefore, it's not necessarily a traumatizing, you know, like it's not a diagnosis that would shock me today. Right. I would just be like, oh, there's something going on with his behavior that clashes with the environment, in this case, school. Let's look into it. It just wouldn't be such a big deal. But of course, when you're in it and you're first given the diagnosis and it's your child, you're just like, oh my God, this is horrible. You know? Yeah. You mentioned that your wife cried when the diagnosis was given to you guys. Does it sometimes feel like a diagnosis is more about you as a parent than it is the child? You know, not really. That's eventually what we got to and I'll unpack that because that could be misunderstood.

[ 00:04:32,459 ]It's not at the beginning because they really talk about your child and your child's brain. Right. So conventional experts tell us that, oh, it's genetic and, oh, it's a brain disorder and, oh, it's for life and medication is the only way to really manage it. I've just debunked all of that with my book and in the podcast. And I've had countless experts on that back me up. I'm not an expert myself. I'm not a psychiatrist or a doctor, but essentially you know, it's it's one of those things where they just they just try to slap the label on there and go, OK, that's your child and he or she is broken and then as a parent you are kind of told, well, it's genetic so I can't really, it's not my fault right So what I've come to find out over time, especially following the work of Dr.

[ 00:05:24,106 ]Gabor Maté closely, is that parents can take responsibility for a lot. I'm not saying for everything, but in essence, I call it now stress management. If as a parent, you can manage the amount of stress that enters your family system, but especially for the what I have come to find the sensitive child— and not sensitive in a bad way—their senses are just very open to receive a lot of information. Especially, they have to be, can use the word protected. But as parents, especially for them, we should manage the amount of stress that enters their, you know, orbit, if you will, because that is going to make a difference. We've seen that make a difference. So then, it's not the parent's fault, but we have a responsibility and we actually have some power.

[ 00:06:14,505 ]We can actually do something about it, even though we're told it's genetic because then it's like, well, there's nothing you can do then. The child's broken. I'm just going to like listen to the doctor and give him a pill. Right? That is not, in my opinion— and this is my humble opinion based on the experts I've interviewed and the research I've done—that is not the full truth. That's not how it works. It is definitely more of a genetically handed down sensitivity than it is a disorder, if you will. Interesting. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? What is ADHD? That's a great question. So there's the thing that's the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, right? So, you know, hyperactivity, can't pay attention, impulsivity. So the typical description, right?

[ 00:07:00,626 ]And those are behaviors. If you think about it, those are the, they call it the symptoms, but it's really observed behavior. So you have a child that acts a certain way. Well, if you want to ask, what is ADHD? Wouldn't it make sense to find out why is the child acting that way instead of saying, well, that's why the child has ADHD, because they're hyperactive and impulsive, right? Because you can go in a circle. You can say I could ask him and say, well, why are you hyperactive? Because I have ADHD. Well, why do you have ADHD? Well, because I'm hyperactive. So it's a it's a sort of a, I call it the vicious cycle that you can't get out of until you say, wait a minute. Why is the child behaving that way?

[ 00:07:42,545 ]And so I found it to be sort of a a nervous system expression through behavior. Right. A nervous system has been stressed. Therefore, the brain has been wired a certain way. Then the behavior is a certain way. And then we label that behavior as a symptom. And then that symptom is a disorder. That's really what's happening underneath. And I've taken this apart many times. Many experts have basically said in so many words, yes, that's what's happening. You know, there's details and there's neurobiological aspects. You could talk about the dopamine receptors and all that. People get lost in that stuff because ultimately it doesn't matter. You can actually rewire a brain until, you know, old age. That's neuroscientific fact.

[ 00:08:24,465 ]So when people say ADHD is for life, they're basically ignoring science, you know, and same with if they're like, well, it's a chemical disorder, chemical imbalance, which has also been debunked. The brain is always chemically imbalanced and balanced. Every moment of life, it goes back and forth, right? So question is, what could be done in order to rewire a child's brain such that their friction with the environment is not as strong anymore as it used to be, right now? And you said a great thing. You said something about, you know, at seven years old, like, you know, did you believe that? I don't want to paraphrase; I can't paraphrase. I'm butchering what you said. But basically, at seven years old, they're in a phase, right? They're in a phase of their life.

[ 00:09:10,746 ]So, if we just label them then and say you have ADHD, and we believe that's still valid at 21, which a lot of parents do. And again, no parent shaming. We just have to realize kids move through phases. And what's a big deal for five years is no longer a big deal in year six, for example. Right? So my son, he's now 17. He's no longer hyperactive; he's no longer very impulsive. Now, he's probably still impulsive. I'm still impulsive. You know, I'm learning. I know many of my friends are impulsive. We're human beings, right? We get an impulse; we want to act on it sometimes too soon, then we learn, right? So, and he's really, he can pay attention. He's now in a, he's doing a year of high school in Ecuador, where his mother is from.

[ 00:09:53,239 ]He wanted to do a year down there to learn Spanish. His grades are in the A's and B's. He's not a straight A student. And I always told him, I said, look, you don't have to be a straight A student. Just do the best you can. And I believe he is doing the minimum, and he's still an A, B student in a pretty challenging school environment. And that's a kid that was told at seven years old that if you don't take medication and you go with the program, you're not going to finish high school. And I have no doubt he's going to finish high school I mean, he's doing amazing and he's already had a job, made money. You know, he's a very smart guy.

[ 00:10:27,444 ]He's very unique, but he's also very sensitive, meaning he senses a lot of things, and he's very unique in that way and not weird or anything. It's just, he's the kind of human that, you know, his operating system takes in a lot of information, and he's learning how to manage that. And that's kind of what you do when they say manage ADHD. It's not just give pills and, you know, label them, but really it's like, let's figure out what makes any environment that they live in less stressful and teach them some skills where they can. And it's not so much a skill like how to not lose your key. I can teach you that and you'll never lose your key again, but that's not what I do for a living.

[ 00:11:10,040 ]You know, I try to shift perspective so that you realize, oh, with a kid like that, you have to teach them to set boundaries for themselves. If something's too loud, too many, too much input, too stressful, too much homework, too much this, speak up. Let's create something that works for you because there's always a possibility of doing it differently. Right? So we have to advocate for them to become their own guardians, uh, to, to keep out stress and to, uh, essentially advocate for what they need so they can feel more calm and not act frantic. Right. Absolutely. Did you medicate your child when he was diagnosed? No, we never did. What was your guys' response? Um, I was an absolute no right off the bat.

[ 00:11:54,610 ]And I'll tell you why, it's a slight, a little backstory and I'll, I'll make it as short as I can. When he was three, at some point he had had a cold and it seemed to be kind of a pneumonia or something stronger. So we went to the hospital and sure enough, it was some, you know, pneumonia type of lung cold. It was severe. We went to the pediatrician afterwards and then he said, oh, well that's because Kai has asthma. And we were like, oh, really? And so that was the first quote-unquote disorder that landed in our family when he was three. And we were just like, okay, well, what do you do? You give him inhalers and trust a doctor. Okay, let's do it. Right, so we did that.

[ 00:12:36,368 ]And then about a month later, we were in Ecuador for a family trip and Kai was bouncing off the walls, but like he already, you know, technically he already was because he was a pretty energetic kid. But this time I was like, oh my God, like there's something wrong here. This is not the energetic kid. This is like speed demon, you know? So then I did some research on the ingredients of the inhalers and I just, what I read, I was just like, wow, this is some intense stuff. Like how do we know that's not going to mess with other things in his body? Now, this is not an anti-asthma inhaler message, right? I'm not promoting that. I just trusted my intuition that there's probably something going on that for him doesn't work.

[ 00:13:21,410 ]So let's take him off of those inhalers. So we took him off of inhalers and mind you, Ecuador, where we were in Quito, is pretty high elevation. So it's already hard to breathe, right? So I was a little bit like, oh, hopefully it's going to be okay. But if not, we still have them right here But so we tried one day off, two days off, ended up the whole two weeks, no inhalers. He was fine. Came back to the US, went back to the and said, look, we're going to discontinue these meds. I'm sorry, or the inhalers. And the doctor was like stunned. He's like, no, you can't do that. You're going to damage your kid's lungs, his future. He's blah, blah, blah, blah. He gave us the whole spiel.

[ 00:13:57,407 ]And I was like, I'm going to have to go with trust on this one. And so again, I'm really proud of myself for trusting my intuition at that time because moving forward, Kai ended up playing soccer, cross country running. He's never been out of breath ever. There's never been a moment where, and again, I'm not saying there's other kids out there who might have severe conditions and they have to take inhalers. All good. This is not a me versus them. This is just for me, there was an intuitive hit that this is not what it is, that there's more to the story. And so fast forward, when the ADHD diagnosis happened, I was already questioned. I was already in that like, yeah, I'm not going to do medication.

[ 00:14:39,239 ]That's not my first line of defense, right And so, but what I also did for the documentary, and we're still working on that, but I tried all the medications that they would have subscribed, like prescribed to him, right? So, I myself said, I'm going to take some Adderall and Ritalin and a few others I took to see what it feels like. I want to know what would I be giving my son, right? Now, that's a little risky. Most people might say, well, you're crazy. I'm making a documentary on ADHD. So, I was the father, and I was like, I'm going to try it. And I tried it, and oh, my God. I mean, it's like speed, some of it. Some of them are so intense, they so intensely change your presence, your consciousness, your awareness, right?

[ 00:15:23,276 ]Everything, like I sometimes, certain times I didn't feel like myself. I felt like I'm inside this shell called Roman, and I'm just doing what's in front of me. So, I was very productive, that's true. But I just, I was like, I can't possibly in good conscience give my child those drugs. I can't. And so, there's a few times along the way, you know, every three years we would be like, should we do it? Because he's struggling again at school, like he had his moments, right? But we never, it never felt right, and we never have, and I'm glad we didn't, because I just don't know how his body would react. And by the way, just want to say to the parents listening, we often hear this thing like, oh, well, you know, only 30, I think it's like 30 some percent of the kids have severe reactions to, don't quote me on the number.

[ 00:16:15,538 ]I'm not a numbers guy, but it's a lower number, 25 or 30 percent of the kids that have severe reactions to ADHD medications, right? So, the parents see it as, oh, 25 percent, 85. Well, that's low, right? Well, what it actually is, it's 50-50, because your child is either going to have a reaction or not. You don't know their system, right? So, I always say it's a little bit like playing Russian roulette, but with three bullets. Would you still play? I wouldn't. One bullet If I had to, okay, I'll go for it. But three? No. So, I always tell parents, just be aware that there will be side effects. There's usually some side effects. Track them well and see if they become a little too intense and they want to give you a second medication, or now they want to give you a sleep medication, or now it's one for anxiety.

[ 00:17:07,693 ]That's when I go, stop, like take a break, you know, let your child maybe change schools, maybe do homeschooling for a while. They're phases, and eventually you may not even need it, right? But again, it's all unique to each situation, so I don't want to give advice. I would just say be wary that the side effects are real, and there are some really severe ones, and some that may not even show up until the 20s or 30s, you know? Absolutely. In terms of dealing with that pushback, what did you face when you were making decisions that sort of went against the grain of what we're traditionally told about ADHD? You know, nothing's changed. It's still the same today. Ten years later, I still get pushback all the time.

[ 00:17:50,891 ]You know, when I present my book or talk about my podcast, people go, oh, what, you mean it's not real? And I always say, no, it's not that it's not real. We've made this thing real. It's called ADHD. It's a label We've created it. Now it's real, but the struggle is the real thing. The struggle is what's actually happening. Nobody can debate that, right, that a child is struggling. And so in that case, the pushback has always just been like, well, are you sure you're not doing the wrong thing? Are you sure you're not hurting your child? Or, you know, some, I forgot who it was, but some parent at some point posted online and said, that's child abuse, right? I get where they're coming from. Hey, it's my child.

[ 00:18:33,264 ]You know, I'm not, you could ask my son, have you been abused? He'd be like, what? What are you talking about? Right. But I get it. It's anytime you go against the grain, there's going to be pushback. And that's why it's really important to trust as a parent, trust your intuition, because as parents, we know, like, you know, there's the famous saying when sometimes when you have like a school shooter and they ask the neighbor or even the parents, like, well, did you, how did you not see this coming? They're like, we had no idea. They're trying to say, like, no, everything was fine. So we did not see it coming. But that's actually more of a statement of like, we just weren't really that present.

[ 00:19:17,769 ]Like we didn't know, we didn't see it coming, right. And I say this because it's a bit like if, as a parent, you're fully there and aware, and you're with your child, and you're, you're moving along with their say medication journey, you would know instantly if something's off or you would even know before that and go, I don't think my child needs medication because I have parents reach out to me all the time through mostly the podcast. And they'll say, oh my God, thank you so much. I feel so alone because everybody says we should medicate, but now I know there are many out there who don't. So there's definitely a pushback, and there's also definitely sort of an outcasting of, oh, the hippie parents.

[ 00:19:59,775 ]Oh, those parents who, yeah, what are you gonna do, like needles and meditation? Good luck, right? Well, those two, by the way, work well, but you gotta try things out. Yeah, absolutely. If you had followed the conventional path, I know this is a hypothetical question, who do you think your son would be today, or how do you think he would, what would he be like if you had followed a conventional path? Yeah, it's that great question that you'll never be able to answer truthfully, but as a guess, I would say his uniqueness would have been flattened out. He probably wouldn't have spent a year abroad doing high school. A lot of kids don't do that. They do that in college or, you know. He probably would have been a bit more dull.

[ 00:20:54,359 ]He's an extremely creative and interesting guy. Maybe he would be even more obedient than is necessary, especially in today's society with AI and everything that's coming. It's like obedience is not gonna fare well. The nice guys or the good people might have to shake that off, and he might have become somebody who just follows orders and does it really well, ensuring everyone around them is pleased. Mom is pleased. Mom loves me because I'm sitting still. The teacher's not complaining. So mom loves me, right? So we're getting into family psychology, where and I have a background in that as well. Relationship coaching is where, you know, he might've become one of those guys who pleases more than he should, you know? Yeah, absolutely. That's really interesting.

[ 00:21:42,999 ]Now, I believe that the second letter in ADHD or the second D stands for disorder. Is that right? Yeah. Okay, I just want to make sure that I'm getting that right. So when you hear the word, I would say attention deficit, the deficit and then the hyperactive disorder, yeah. So when you hear the word disorder, do you think there's an impact that that word has on a child's self-esteem, internal world? And did you tell your son that he had a disorder? Great question. You have all great questions, but this is the mama of questions because that's what I've been arguing for a long time with these experts who say, no, actually it's, we need that word. It's, you know, psychiatry. It's like a shorthand, right? The DSM basically is all about mental disorders.

[ 00:22:33,300 ]So if we were ever gonna change that word, we would have to change it even at that level. But let me get into it. So yes, there's been studies done, and one of them is in my book about the damaging, you know, effects of the word disorder And before I knew that, and even if there weren't studies, I always said to myself, you know, and we might still do that for the documentary, to go out in the street with a camera and a microphone and go interview people, look for single people and ask them a few questions. Hey, we have some questions. Can we ask you, would you ever date a disordered person? Do you think they would say, oh yeah, absolutely, of course?

[ 00:23:18,040 ]Now you'll have a few virtue signaling people who'd be like, yeah, of course. Yeah, everybody's equal, but let's face it, it's not a positive empowering word. It doesn't have the meaning that society has given the word disorder is negative, right? So when a child receives that word or the disorder, even if they're too young to speak energetically, they know what's being put into their lap is kind of hot and heavy and dark, and they're supposed to hold that, and that's just part of who they are right now, right? So we said, we're not gonna tell our son he has a disorder. Now over time, he of course found out what ADHD is, so he knew it was a disorder, but we just said they wanna do some tests because you struggle at school.

[ 00:24:03,239 ]You may have some difficulties learning. We're gonna figure out how to support you. And sure, I think somewhere along the way, there was a little bit of damage done because he was tested, and he then knew what ADHD was. And there were certain talks about the IED in schools, and so, you know, I will never be able to prove how much damage was done. But if I did it over, did it all over again, I would just say, no thank you, we're good, we're going to just look at the challenges, we're not going to label him or even test him, you know. I just felt I wanted to know, and this became the project. But yeah, it's, it's a disempowering label, it's not an empowering label, and I know a lot of experts argue that, no, no, once you own it, it's like saying I'm an addict, once you own it, and then you can, it's like, no, I'm sorry, not in this case, that doesn't work.

[ 00:24:54,218 ]And last thing I will say, to kids, to your question, you know, kids, especially when they're really young, they're formed, right, through external opinions, and from parents, from teachers, and when you tell a kid your disorder and there's something going on with your brain, I'm sorry, but that's, that's going to last a long time. Like I've, I've interviewed some adults who said, I'm mid-30s, married with kids, I still, still think there's something wrong with me And you know, there's another thing that I will just end with, where on the internet, a lot of people always say like, oh, finally I got diagnosed, and I'm so glad because now I know what's wrong with me. Well, what's wrong with that statement? You know, they were looking for what's wrong with them because they've inherently felt that there is something wrong with them.

[ 00:25:41,908 ]Now they have a label, a word for it. Now they can say, oh, so it's true, I am broken, right? So I get that logic, but it's not empowering. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that some diagnoses function as a form of social control? Oh, I love that you bring that word in here. Yeah, I think, I mean, inherently, it's all about human beings trying to label things and put them in boxes because then we feel safer, right? Then you're like, who am I dealing with? Oh, ADHD kid? Okay, got it, not just crazy, unpredictable, what is happening, right? Social control is a big theme right now with, obviously, AI and then digital IDs coming and all that stuff at the sort of grander level.

[ 00:26:27,835 ]But if you think about psychiatry, and I know a lot of experts I've interviewed and some dear friends that write about this, it is controlling people, you know, it is controlling young children to sit still and obey in a classroom that reminds us of the factory model, right? Comes from the Industrial Revolution to produce or to teach, you know, productive members of society so that they can sit down, do what they're told, and deliver the goods. Because if they're impulsive, and they can't pay attention, well, you're going to be outcast. You can't work there, right? So when we still have the school system, in essence, honor that same structure, and that's outdated, and a lot of kids, and I could go more spiritual too, where I feel like a lot of the new souls or the new children that arrive today, their systems are so much more sensitive.

[ 00:27:24,915 ]So they're more likely to go, this is bullshit. Sorry for cussing. No, you're fine. You know, they look at the current school system, they're like, what is this? I don't like it. It's boring. I don't want to do it. This is not, you know, and so instead of making the kids the problem, we should look at the systems that they have friction with, right? Whether it's the family system. Like I said, it's like a check engine light. You've got to look under the hood. What's actually really going on? You don't put a duct tape over the check engine light, hoping it's all going to work out fine. You have to look under the hood, and it's the same with ADHD, and I think it's the same with these kids who just basically are telling us this is a too loud and too stressful of a world.

[ 00:28:11,869 ]Interesting. If we did remove labels like ADHD, or we at least change them to be maybe a little bit more accurate to what a person's lived experience actually is, what do you think that would force parents to have to confront? Well, everything, right? When we started our research, we quickly realized that, oh, first thing I came across was this idea by Tom Hartman, who wrote a book called 'Hunter in a Farmer's World,' and it's basically like there are two types of brains, and there are shades, but there are two main brains. One is the ADHD brain. It's the hunter that needs to take in more information, keep things safe, go get food for the village, and almost dies, but gets up, and he's just like he has to take in more information to survive, right, to bring food back to the village.

[ 00:29:07,731 ]The farmer is there planting crops regularly, and they know what they're doing. They have a system, and they patiently wait, and so they're more like the accountant who's managing things. They don't need to take in that much information, right? So that was his theory. So we started there, but we quickly realized, yeah, but why is a brain like that? They're not born like that. There wasn't genetic information there that was convincing that God would make broken brains, right? Or brains that just can only be used that way. So we quickly went into the childhood trauma kind of theory, if you will, which is, if you take the word trauma out, because a lot of parents are triggered by it, it's a really intense word, but stress, right? Like you could have a stressful birth.

[ 00:29:52,454 ]You could have even jaundice, which is stressful to anything that's stressful to the system for this unique child, because for the other unique child, jaundice might not be enough of a stressor to cause what we later call a mental disorder. So we can't say, well, that child had jaundice and they don't have ADHD. It's every unique child, right? So when we found out that all these stressors are really impacting the nervous system and ultimately wiring the brain for the child to behave a certain way, we're like, well, then we need to go to the source, which is stress. And we need to try to see where have we put stress on our children or where have we made them feel unsafe or what is too much. And is this the right school?

[ 00:30:36,459 ]And are we feeding them the right stuff? Are they watching too much media? All the way to our marriage was on the rocks. And now my wife then is now my ex-wife. We even had to look at that and go like, whoa, what's happening here and clean that up. And not saying divorce is always the best way to clean it up. I mean, there are obviously marriages that are saved, but parents have to honestly look at every area and is this really working because if it's not working, it's leaking stress. And I wish there was a better word. Trauma is too intense, but stress sounds very, well, we're not stressed in that area. We're just not connecting. That's stress. If you're not connecting with your husband or wife, that's stress that leaks.

[ 00:31:23,411 ]Children can pick that up It might be stress in the form of, I feel unsafe because my parents aren't loving with each other. Are they going to absorb this idea of stress? And it's usually because they don't feel safe. They don't feel loved. And later it becomes, I don't want to be here. I need to check out. I'm bored. And so these are the same kind of, call it lineage of hand-me-down stress that if we don't disrupt that, yeah, then there's going to be a disorder. Things are going to be out of order. Yeah. If you had to give ADHD a new name that describes your lived experience, what would you call it? I thought about this many times, and I have some in my book.

[ 00:32:07,775 ]There's no need to go in there now, but people can ask ChatGPT too. It's an interesting exercise. I've done that for myself. I've had a hard time deciding what I would do. If I would go and lobby to change the term in the DSM, I would say— and this is another great example— I would first start dropping the D, right? So you have attention deficit hyperactivity. You're saying that's kind of something they're struggling with, right? So we're closer to stating the behavior that we want to change without labeling it something that's broken or something that's bad, right? And the idea came from the military because when um veterans would come back and they would be diagnosed with PTSD, eventually they would say, I don't have a disorder. I have PTS.

[ 00:33:05,447 ]I have post-traumatic stress. It's not a disorder. And I'm really glad they did that because it made me feel the same way. I'm like, look, these kids, these kids have also a form of childhood, you know, traumatic stress. And so to call it a, you know, we could get together a bunch of cool advertising agencies and have a DSM meeting and say, what would you, what would you call it? The next step would be for me to take it out of the DSM so it's no longer a disorder. People always say, well, that's impossible Well, homosexuality was actually, um, considered a disorder in the DSM up until 1983. So you go, huh, that's not that long ago, you know? Um, so it's doable. Like, could we take it out?

[ 00:33:55,668 ]And could we just say, but honestly, the answer is no, because it's such a mega, mega complex, right? The ADHD industrial complex or psychiatric or medical complex is billions and billions of dollars in. It's not going to happen, not until I've passed away. And hopefully at some point, but it's going strong. So that sometimes discourages me. I'm like thinking I can call it whatever I want to call it, they'll just laugh at it, you know But somewhere in the take the disorder out. And then if I had to make a choice, I would somehow say more of a sensitivity, friction issue, you know. Interesting. Interesting. What does the word neurodivergent mean to you, and do you use it to describe your son? I never used it. I don't like the word.

[ 00:34:49,503 ]I get why it's there. A lot of people use it. You know, it's basically like saying, oh, you divert from the norm, right? You're not like the normal brain. But that's again saying there's a normal and there's you. And neurodiverse means, I mean, it's what we all are anyway. Each of our brains is so uniquely different than the others. So we're all diverse We're all on the diversity spectrum of the neuro, so it kind of doesn't make sense either. So I always say, look, can we just call it like neuro unique? But even that doesn't make sense because, of course, your brain, Nikki, and my brains, they're unique. So do we need to say water is wet? Not really. I know what they're trying to do.

[ 00:35:34,103 ]I always feel bad because, look, basically when you tell someone this kid is neurodiverse, it's a nice way of saying like they have a disorder, you know, like an attention disorder, right? In that way or autism But it's still kind of putting a lipstick on a pig, you know, it's like, I'll say something nice that includes everyone. But I just still want you to know that they're the not-so-normal ones, right? That's why, to me, the term is outdated too, and we could use something new, right? Absolutely. Yes. Thank you for that. And I just want to take this moment to inform the listeners that this podcast episode is brought to you by Turning the Tide Tutoring. And if you are interested in educational services and extra support, please visit turningthetidetutoring. com.

[ 00:36:23,924 ]And Roman, I want to switch gears with you for a second. You used the phrase radical responsibility earlier in our conversation. Why do you think that that idea makes some people feel uncomfortable, especially when it encourages them to go against the grain? Or why is this such a hot button issue in this age where we should be questioning things more often than not? That's a great question again. The short answer is that we live in a society that does not fully value or maybe understand what it means to be fully responsible for your own life. And how do I know that? Because it's not really taught in schools. And it's very simple, like it can get a little metaphysical, but let's say something happens to you. You have two choices.

[ 00:37:21,844 ]You can either say I'm a victim, or you can say this happened to me for a reason. So let me respond powerfully: responsibility. I have the ability to respond powerfully, as powerfully as I can. And that's it. That's the end, right? So if we said, for example, somebody breaks up with you, you're in a relationship; they break up with you. You could call them names. You could say like, you know, F them, they're this and that. That's why. Or you could just say like, huh, interesting. Somebody broke up with me. I wonder what that's about. And then you could blame them 100% and say, well, they were this and they were cheating and they were this, whatever. Or you could be like, I'm going to be 100% responsible, not 50-50, but 100 over there.

[ 00:38:10,404 ]I mean, it's the partner's choice if they want to do the same. But on your end, if you said, I'm 100% responsible that this happened to me in my life, and I will look deeper, again, go under the hood and see who I've been in this relationship that might have caused someone to break up with me. That's your work. That's your side of the street. That's called, I'm going to take responsibility for my part in it. That's not hard to teach kids; kids get it. If we taught things like that, not just out in the playground, oh, you hurt this child and now we're going to do nonviolent communication. That's all great. But no, I mean, in a classroom talking about responsibility, integrity, accountability, all these things.

[ 00:38:54,883 ]So long way to say, we don't have that understanding in society. What we think it means when someone says, hey parents, your child has ADHD. Let's take full responsibility. What they hear is, it's my fault and they're being blamed. And this is what blows my mind because, and I mentioned this in my book, there's some experts, top ADHD experts, the top in the world. One of them is Russell Barkley, and he keeps blaming Gabor Maté, whom I'm more fond of, who talks about how much parents actually can do in the case of ADHD. He calls Gabor Maté a parent blamer. And when you listen to what he actually talks about, he's not blaming; he even says all the time, I'm not blaming parents.

[ 00:39:38,556 ]I'm giving them an opportunity to take charge of their lives and their children's lives and to actually be able to do something. The other side will tell you it's genetic, it's nothing you can do, so you can't be responsible for something like that, right? So it baffles me that the top experts still think that there's no difference between blame and responsibility. Because whenever somebody says, " Hey, I'm responsible for this," they're just stepping up to say, " What can I do?" Versus, " Don't blame me, it's not my fault," that's defensive, right? One is creative, you can do something, the other one's defensive. So that's kind of, I know that's a long answer, but that's where I would love parents to step into and go like, " Okay, what can I do here?" Don't blame yourself, but what can I do here?

[ 00:40:25,536 ]There's gotta be more than I can do than just give a pill. And yes, there's a lot more. And in our case, we've flipped our whole lives upside down for our son, and it was a lot of work and we tried a lot of things. It was a lot of trial and error, a lot of new technologies, and this and meditation, and acupuncture, and this therapy, and cranial sacral massages. Like we just tried everything we could get our hands on. Now we didn't do it all at the same time, and not everything was expensive. So I know a lot of people don't have money to do all this, but you do what you can, and it's gonna make a difference, but it's gonna take some time. It doesn't happen overnight; it could take years.

[ 00:41:02,275 ]It's a choice, right? Interesting, if parents truly accepted full responsibility, what industries would collapse? Damn, Nikki, you're bringing them on; I love it. This is great Well, first of all, a lot of them, right? So pharmaceutical industry, it's a huge, it's a big one because I think in the sort of psychiatry, pharma connection there, it's all about like, look, there's nothing you can do. Sorry, you just gotta take this pill or you have this disorder and it's your brain. Even though we've seen so many medical miracles, we still, as humanity, sort of lose sight of that. And we go, well, in this case, I guess there's no miracle. I'm just gonna do it, right? There's so much more we could be causing and doing by taking responsibility and doing the work.

[ 00:42:03,276 ]So pharmaceutical, psychiatry, but really, I mean, a lot of them, a lot of the things related to even like education, a lot of the big institutions, even colleges and places like that where it's like, well, this is what you're learning and that's it. And these are the things you can do. You know, there's, yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I haven't thought this through in terms of what specific industries because I've only really looked at psychiatry, pharma, education, obviously parenting, but that's, yes, it's an industry, but it's not the same, right? It's not like a mafia there, I said it. Anyway, that's funny. Do you believe that children are mirrors of their environments? I would say it's slightly different. I would partially yes, but that's because their brains develop in relationship to the environment.

[ 00:43:08,616 ]So whatever externally comes at them, at their systems, right? That's how the brain develops. That's how the nervous system and the being develop. So in a way, you could say yes, if there's a stressful event happening in front of them and they're reacting stressfully, then it's a mirror. So yeah, I would say that that is a good way to put it, yeah. Interesting. Is chaos being normalized in modern families? And is that the reason why it's easier to fix the child than to fix the lifestyle? I think so. I think, you know, medicine and psychiatry have sort of compartmentalized the child or the brain or, you know, trying to find, you could say that the glass of water to put the pill in, right?

[ 00:44:02,756 ]And not look at the whole ocean and be like, hey, what could be done here? So I think chaos, I don't know if it's normalized. I mean, partially, yes, through, you know, TV shows and movies and the internet, TikTok, and, you know, it's just everything's chaotic and faster and crazy and louder. And it's like, so partially it's normalized that way And then partially, it's also a result of, again, our lack of education around taking responsibility, being in integrity, being a stand-up human, right? Being good to people. There's a lot we can learn that we haven't learned yet. And I myself, I'm 55. I'm still, I'm just in a phase. In the last week, I'll be very vulnerable here. Like I'm questioning everything. I'm like, what am I doing? Who am I?

[ 00:44:57,416 ]Why am I doing this? And what's going on? And, you know, we get these phases in life where we just doubt, like, am I going to have a good life? Is this still going to turn out? But I think it's because, again, to your earlier question, like there's a lot of confusion in the world right now. So I'm reflecting that confusion back, right? And bringing it back to this point is like, you know, I don't know what the answer is. But I know it's something like, you know, chaos does not feel good. We know that. Nobody wants to be in chaos. Now, it feels good to certain nervous systems because they grew up that way. So they think chaos is what they need. But that's not going to lead to happiness.

[ 00:45:48,775 ]So we need to realize, or not realize, but we should start to figure out, like, how can I reduce chaos in my life? And this goes back to the earliest question, right? We talked about, as parents, removing stress from their children's environments. That is full-on responsibility, and that's powerful because you can do that as a parent. There is so much you can reduce. And, you know, sometimes I talk to coaching clients. I'll work with them for a few sessions, and they're like, all is good. And I'll have them do a questionnaire, rate the areas of their lives in terms of stress, and they're like, yeah, yeah, good, good, good, yeah, pretty good. And like four sessions in, one of the parents will say something about AA, and I go like, oh, you're an AA.

[ 00:46:36,681 ]Well, no, I was, but not anymore. Do you still drink? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we still drink So in one case, both the parents were still drinking. Now, I don't know the extent of how they behave, but kids can pick that up, right? So it's a bit like, unless parents say, okay, the buck stops with me. Like, okay, we're going to look at every area. And that's why I love coaching my clients because it's radical, right? If you don't go to a coach, you're just going to be in life going like, yeah, it's pretty good. I don't know, whatever. But if you have somebody go like, okay, rate this area, how's your marriage? How's your love life, intimacy from a scale from one to ten? If it's a six, there's stress there.

[ 00:47:17,589 ]Or exercise or television or whatever area we look at. If there's stress, there's something that the parent can do. Now, it takes work, right? It takes commitment. It takes accountability. It takes making mistakes and owning them. And that's something I've learned. If I can leave also one big message too inside of this question, it's for parents to always take responsibility, even with their kids, even if they're little. And you're the parent to say, hey, I'm so sorry. Mommy just lost it. I got angry. It's not about you. I'm dealing with something. It's from my own stuff. I love you. And I promise you, I'm going to work on not getting angry like this again. Then you may do it again in a week. But then you clean it up.

[ 00:48:02,556 ]You have to keep cleaning it up, and eventually becomes the new wiring. And so then there's change, and now the kids have less stress. But it's a lot of work. I know why people take pills; I get it. I thought about it many times, and then I just couldn't. I was like, I can't throw this project away and just give him pills. And now he's fine. The whole thing dies. I'm like, that's not intuitively what I'm up to. But anyway, long answer, but yeah. I appreciate that you mentioned sometimes feeling confused. And is this whole journey you're on worth it? What made you pick up the torch in the first place? That was really just an intuitive hit. I mean, I did have a mentor of mine.

[ 00:48:46,059 ]I had my own coach, and he said, 'Hey, you should just start a podcast. Just interview people about it.' And I was like, 'That's a good idea.' So that's, that was kind of the main torch was the podcast. I think that's the, if I had to let go of two and keep one, I would keep the podcast. At the beginning, I thought the film was more important, but podcasts are so easily accessible, and I love interviewing people that way. It's live, or at least when we record. And so that was my torch. Oh, I can already be out there speaking, sharing, you know, and it was all based on intuition of like, I think I, life or God or whatever you want to call it, wants me to do this.

[ 00:49:27,530 ]Guess I'm doing it. I know exactly what you mean. What environmental or external factor that affected your son, your son's ADHD surprised you the most? Can you say that again? What environmental or external factor that affected your son's ADHD surprised you the most? Surprised me the most. Yeah, school. And when I say surprised me the most, I think that's the one factor that parents would never question, right? Because you hear that, oh, this school is really great, right? But we're not listening for this. School is really great for my child. We go, this school is really great for my child to get into a better school later, to get to the Ivy League track, to make a lot of money, to be happy, right? That's what parents are saying.

[ 00:50:25,182 ]We're not just simply looking right now. Is this school actually good for my child? Do they feel happy there? Are they stressed or do they like going there, right? That was the biggest surprise when we switched schools. Because once we decided, we got them tested, we looked at the test, we said, we're not going to do meds. And the school said, well, we suggest you go to a different school because we don't think he's going to get the benefits of the school. Fair. Okay. So we went to a different school and it was a child-led school. It was called Play Mountain Place in California. And it was, when I first heard about it, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Because my friend told me about it.

[ 00:51:10,617 ]She said, hey, why don't you send your sons to the same? Because we had two kids and we wanted them to move at the same time, same school. And she said, you know, they just, they make mud balls. They make swords out of newspapers. They take naps. They read, they do whatever. There's no homework. There's no classes. They just do whatever they want to do. And I was like, what, how are they going to learn? But something inside of me said like, well, that could be kind of cool. And it's also drastically different, so maybe that's what he needs, right? And so we went there and sure enough, it was amazing. I mean, his nervous system calmed down.

[ 00:51:46,689 ]He didn't feel the pressure and the stress of homework and classes and remember what time and go and pick up your bag and did it, right? And then another cool thing happened. And again, this is to your question, like, I was surprised that the changing the school was such a big deal. And also, the results were amazing. And one of the results was really cool because, you know, he was playing Pokémon cards with other kids that he loved Pokémon cards. And there was another game called Yu-Gi-Oh cards. And so they would play them, and he was still young. He was, I guess, seven at the time. And, you know, he was, they were having a good time. And one of the things they told us when he moved there was that he hadn't really learned how to read properly.

[ 00:52:31,684 ]He just wasn't a good reader. And they said, well, now you're going to a school where there's no classes and no homework. Jeez, how is your son going to learn how to read? I was just kind of like, I trust that it'll work out because we had meetings with the school and they assured us, don't worry, it's all going to come in time. So one day I go to the school, I go into the room, the big room, and they're all sitting on the ground playing Pokemon cards. And it was my son's turn and he reads off the cards. And I was like, wait a minute, he's reading. And it hit me at that moment that, and the teacher later confirmed that, she said, look, he's really interested in playing the game.

[ 00:53:09,226 ]He needs to be able to read it, so he had a reason, an intention for learning to read and learning to read quickly because he really wanted to play. And so in that moment, it hit me. It's like, that's what true education is. When there's a need for you to learn something, you'll learn it. You can. We have that power. We're human beings. The brain works that way. And so not to say every child would thrive there, but I actually think, yes, they would in time. What it takes for a parent to do that and take a child out of traditional education, put it in alternative education, it takes an immense amount of trust in your child that they will learn what they need to learn when they will learn it or when they have a need for learning it, right?

[ 00:53:57,329 ]And that sort of takes a bit of the helicopter parent. You know, you have to drop that into the background and go, I'm just gonna allow my child to unfold. And that's scary, I get it. I mean, very scary. But so that was the biggest external factor that I think impacted him in a good way and would have impacted him in a negative way had we continued to shove him into the schools that we thought were right for him versus really looking at what's actually working for him. What would you say to parents who have a harder time putting that implicit trust in a system that is so far removed from what their own personal experiences were in education What would you say to those parents?

[ 00:54:47,749 ]Ooh, it's gonna sound very esoteric, but I've been doing more research myself into trust, what trust is. First, you have to trust yourself before you can trust another or something else, and it inherently comes down to trust in life, right? You have to trust that you're okay, that the universe, or God, or whatever, the unexplainable has got your back, meaning that yes, your kid will make it in life. So I would say it's really working on trust. Do some research. There's a great book I'm reading; it's actually called Intimacy, but it's about trust in oneself and trust in others. And through that book, and I thought I was reading about intimacy. I actually learned through reading the book that it's about trust.

[ 00:55:43,509 ]You cannot be intimately connected with someone, and this has nothing to do with physical intimacy, but just intimately be in communication with someone if you don't trust yourself and trust them, meaning if you don't trust yourself, you can't trust them, so the intimacy is reduced, right? So I know that's esoteric, but really it's about, I would say the advice would be let go of the reins just a little bit. You don't have to let go of them fully, but try it out. It's a little bit like a trust fall. It's funny that that word's coming back. It is a very tiny trust fall that you know you'll survive, so just stretch yourself a little. Again, that's why people have coaches. That's why people go take seminars.

[ 00:56:25,770 ]I'm often in seminars where they have coaches that say, I know you only do 10 minutes of meditation. Today, do 12. It's just a little stretch. Just stretch it a little bit, and I can't guarantee it, but I'm pretty sure you're gonna see some early results that might have you then stretch even more and trust even more, and suddenly next thing you know. That's probably why I was able to do that and take my child out of traditional and put in an alternative, because I had already lived a kind of stretchy life where I would always push the boundaries a little bit more and try new things out and somehow trust that I will be fine. That would be my advice. Just stretch yourself a little. Let go of the reins.

[ 00:57:06,669 ]Start trusting more. Yeah, that's an excellent point of view, I think. Back to the original point you made about the inhalers and how you looked at the ingredients, this concept of informed consent has been on my mind for a very long time since 2020. What would true informed consent actually look like for parents who were considering different conventional options for their children who may be suffering from some sort of illness or disorder like asthma or ADHD? Again, what would true informed consent actually look like in your opinion? Can you say more about that? Because I do think I know where you're going with this, and I've had a lot of my colleagues that are involved in true consent in psychiatry or in, I guess, government leading back to medicine.

[ 00:58:14,009 ]Say more about that when you say consent as in not having to take the meds or in what area of ADHD, for example. Yeah, appreciate the clarification. What I'm thinking is, back in 2020, we were told to wear masks. And I had no issue with wearing the mask. If anybody told me I had to wear a mask in their facility, that was totally fine with me. I respected everybody's needs, wants, and wishes, and things like that, because I've recognized that there's lots of emotions about what was going on. And there's also fear, and there's just a lot going on. However, that did not satiate my curiosity to understand what the mask was doing And then I ran into the concept of informed consent, which was basically that any medical device, any medication, anything that someone is telling you to take or do or use or wear,

[ 00:59:32,050 ]they must provide you, that practitioner must provide you with informed consent, meaning that they must inform you or tell you of all of the possible symptoms and repercussions that are known and associated with this particular treatment that they're enforcing, or they're, I shouldn't say enforcing, but encouraging. And so I asked myself, was I given informed consent when I was told to wear this mask, which according to the FDA and different resources that I had looked up, this mask was considered a medical device? It wasn't just a thing that people wore; it was considered a medical device. So by law, or I probably shouldn't say by law, but by the protocols that are written, we were supposed to have been given informed consent, meaning we were supposed to have been told all of the possible ramifications of wearing this medical device, such as could this potentially induce asthma, could this potentially lead to other types of diseases or ailments from breathing in more carbon dioxide and things like that.

[ 01:00:51,436 ]And I said to myself, well, none of those things were told to me And again, I had no issue wearing the mask; it was fine. We were going through something; it is what it is. I just go with the flow; I'm not going to stress out about it. That's all I can say about that. But we were not given informed consent; that is what I know for sure. So, in terms of your, not battles, but your experiences with ADHD and asthma and going down the rabbit hole of all these different types of ingredients, the informed consent piece just means, were you informed enough about all the possible information and ingredients of these things so that you could truly consent to what you were doing?

[ 01:01:37,325 ]Because when we were going through what we were doing, whether you chose to wear a mask or not, nobody that I am aware of consented to wearing it under informed consent. They may have consented to wear it because they wanted to; that was their own choice, fine. But were they informed? No one I know of can say that they truly had informed consent. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that and thanks for spelling that out; I can totally relate to everything you said and felt the same way. And I will say, and this goes for anything medical, psychiatric at such a high level, it's a wild west of studies. So when you ask a doctor, so ADHD medication, okay, can you give me the information of side effects, for example, it's already different from doctor to doctor, psychiatrist to psychiatrist.

[ 01:02:32,230 ]They're like, oh no, that study, that's, yeah, don't listen to that, that's not a good study. Well, which one, you know, this, yeah, doctors will say, well, no, it's like very low side effects, you don't have to worry about it, right? That's as far as the consent goes. They'll, in a way, it's like they're admitting that there's side effects, right? If they're saying like, oh, don't worry, it's a small number, or yeah, there's some side effects, whatever, you can read the label, that's as far as they go. Well, guess who wrote the label? The pharmaceutical company. So, you know, we'd have to look at, and I'm not, this is not for me to pitch my book, but we have to look at alternative books, just like my book, and go, okay, so Roman's mentioning a few studies in there and side effects of medication that don't easily come up on Google or ChatGPT.

[ 01:03:13,180 ]You have to dig deeper and, you know, now you can go, well, whose study is more valid, right? You'll never get consent, or consent's the wrong word here, but agreement that this is the study we're going to use unless the money interest groups like the pharmaceutical companies or the psychiatry establishment say, let's use this one because this one shows it's not that, the side effects are very minimal, right? So the answer, it's a long answer. The short answer is like, it's not gonna happen anytime soon. And it never happens that way when a parent is sitting there with a psychiatrist getting the medication for their child, they've gotten minimal consent, like probably very minimal. You know, and a lot of times now the parents come to the doctor and say, hey, our son has ADHD, can you diagnose him?

[ 01:04:10,617 ]Because they saw a commercial or somebody on TikTok. So they're never gonna even ask for that. They're just gonna be like, I know what's wrong and I know this works, so right? So it's different than when you have an emergency like in COVID, the case of COVID, where I always tell parents, ADHD is not an emergency. You don't have to act fast. You're not messing up your child's life by waiting six months or to do another school for a year. Try that first, you know? Then you can do research on meds and if you still wanna medicate, great. But even when you do research on medications, most parents don't do the real research. They just go, which medication? They look at the side effects. They go, okay, well, people say it works, right?

[ 01:04:54,457 ]But you don't read, like Dr. Peter Bregan is somebody I interviewed. He's an expert in pharmacology and pharmaceuticals, especially ADHD and SSRIs. There's a whole part in my book about where he says, like, these are highly addictive. They're a schedule two on the DA's list of drugs, actual drugs, not medication. And Adderall and Ritalin are in a schedule two along with meth, fentanyl, and cocaine, right? Addictive, so it's kind of like, well, who do you like? Who has the, oh, no one has the answers. Everybody's trying to say it's not that bad. Let's just, don't you want good grades for your kid? So just take it, you know? I hope this kind of answers your question, but it's a good question. It does, it does; I appreciate that.

[ 01:05:44,438 ]Well, this conversation, I could ask you literally 99 more questions, and we could be here all night long. As we wind down, I have two more questions for you, and the second to last question is, what do you hope and also fear most about the future for children? So, what do you hope for the future of children, and what do you fear most for the future of children? Wow, that's a big question. I hope that more parents are waking up, and they are, I know that, but still a hope that more parents are waking up and realizing that we've been conditioned from an early age to believe that there's always a savior, whether it's the person to be in a relationship with, or this job, or whatever, and then the government, right?

[ 01:06:40,537 ]Someone's going to come and save me. That's childhood trauma stuff. Someone's going to come and save me. And of course, when that someone or something shows up, you will do whatever they say you should do because they're the savior, right? You depend on them. So there's a dependency. So I hope parents are waking up to see that dependency and to see that we've been told, essentially also a lot of lies, not everything's a lie, but if we could just kind of wake up to that, then our children will wake up to that. So my kids, I can already tell they're very aware. They question things. They'll see something about ice on a TikTok and they won't just go, ice is bad or ice is good. They will research.

[ 01:07:27,197 ]They will look at different points of view and then they'll make up their own mind. And I always tell them like, that doesn't mean it's right for the case. It means it's right. It's your truth. That's how you feel. And then just stay open what other people say, right? And so I think if we do this, if we train our kids not to be so conditioned like we were, then I have hope for kids. The opposite, of course. What I fear is that they're gonna get sucked into this whole social media AI universe where they will consume more than they produce. And that, to me, is the crux right there. If you can produce just a little bit more than you consume, I think you're good.

[ 01:08:17,517 ]But if most of your life is about consumption of content, or just obviously anything, that's gonna lead to depression, suicide, all the stuff we're already starting to see with kids. And so my fear is that that continues more predominantly than what I described before, which is the waking up to like, oh, this is a whole system and a machinery that's trying to condition us. And I hate to say, watch The Matrix, but really it's a metaphor. But like, we're being harnessed in a way to give not attention, not a energy like in The Matrix, but I already gave away the pun, which is attention. Attention is the energy. Attention is the most valuable commodity we have individually, and it depends where we, who we give it to.

[ 01:09:10,976 ]So I hope that children and parents will wake up, children will be awakened to being more autonomous, independent, and really are careful who they or what they give attention to. Yeah, I appreciate that. And when you said the savior complex or waiting for someone to save you, I can't help but think that Hernan Cortes showed up where the Aztecs were. The Aztecs were fully waiting for a savior, and then all of a sudden, it led to their annihilation. So, you know, the moral of the story is that, is, yeah, no, that's a very good. I will say one more thing, if I may, because of the tutoring reference. Tutoring was a big part for our son to transition from a child that education to now traditional because now he's back in traditional.

[ 01:10:00,317 ]And, but it wasn't, it was like six months of tutoring twice a week, and our kids are now ahead of their class, even though when they first got there, they were a little bit like, 'We're doing what? Homework and all this stuff' But like in six months, they excelled. So I will say tutoring for me is something I recommend. It's hugely, it's made a difference in our son's lives. And so just wanted to say that. Yeah, appreciate that. It definitely made a difference in mine, which is why I do it now. So in addition to the podcast and other things, but last question for you today, Roman, and I always ask all my podcast guests this exact same question. So it's totally open to your interpretation. And the question is, what do you think is the most valuable or important education that a child could ever receive?

[ 01:10:53,416 ]That's a great question I would say has to do with social study, psychology, and behavior. Like I said, responsibility and integrity are those kinds of basics of the ontology of the human being, to know yourself and your patterns and see other people. And so you can pick that up in many different ways. It could be through filmmaking. I'm a director myself; I went to film school, so I had to study humans and how they react, tell them what to do, and what it looks like and stuff. So any education that emphasizes on human beings, and the only thing I can think of is ontology, where you really dig into what it means to be human and teach kids those insights. That, to me, we could teach just that for six years and nothing else, and they would be fine.

[ 01:11:46,537 ]Yeah, absolutely, I appreciate that. Well, Roman, you are absolutely welcome back to the Gentle Year anytime. I know that our guests have really gotten a lot of value out of this conversation with you and your expertise. We appreciate you and what you're doing to challenge the status quo. And where can we find you? Thank you as well. I just want to say that thank you for having me on, and you were just great to be with, and your questions were phenomenal. So thank you, you brought it out of me. People can find me on adhdisover.com That is the project and there's information about the book, the podcast, and also the film. And then Roman Wyden, myfullname. com is my coaching website. So I respond to anyone.

[ 01:12:32,397 ]Sometimes it takes a few days, but it doesn't matter. I'm open to talk to people and answer questions and connect and suggest and refer, whatever. So please send an email or leave a note on the website. Okay, well, that wraps us up for today, guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Gentle Year. We got a quick commercial break after this and then you can flip onto the next episode. So we really appreciate you guys for listening to us today. Thank you so much, and you guys have a blessed night. Thank you, Roman. Again, we appreciate your time. Thank you.