Many of us have also felt the specific frustration that comes when our kids struggle—especially when it comes to reading and school. Too often, we find ourselves stepping into the role of a 'disciplinarian' or a 'tutor,' and in the process, the connection we actually want with our kids starts to slip away.

But what if the key to unlocking your child’s ability to read isn't more flashcards or stricter rules? What if the secret is actually a closer connection?

Today we are joined by Russell Van Brocklen, an expert who is helping fathers realize that they don't have to be teachers—they need to be collaborators. Russell’s approach is built on a revolutionary but simple idea: Connect with your child’s heart first, dive deep into what they are actually interested in, and use that passion as the platform for them to thrive.

Russell is here to show us how to move from being an enforcer of homework to being a champion of our child’s unique genius. We’re talking about rebuilding confidence, using 'specialist' interests to conquer literacy, and why the bond between a dad and his child is the most powerful classroom in the world.

To take the first step in addressing your child's dyslexia, visit: https://mailchi.mp/dcacd9a6f9ae/3-reasons-ebook

To be a guest on The Fatherhood Challenge visit: https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/thefatherhoodchallenge

Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr

https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge

00:04.76

Jonathan Guerrero

Every father and knows the feeling of wanting the best for their child's future, but many of us have felt the specific frustration that comes when our kids struggle, especially when it comes to reading in school.

00:17.34

Jonathan Guerrero

Too often we find ourselves stepping into the role of a disciplinarian or a tutor in the process, and the connection we really want with our kids just starts to slip away.

00:29.14

Jonathan Guerrero

But what if the key to unlocking your child's ability to read isn't more flashcards or stricter rules? What if the secret is actually a closer connection?

00:39.76

Jonathan Guerrero

We'll find out together in just a moment, so don't go anywhere.

01:25.84

Jonathan Guerrero

Greetings, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. My co-host has the day off. Today, we're joined by Russell Van Brocklin, an expert who is helping fathers realize that they don't have to be teachers. They need to be collaborators.

01:39.98

Jonathan Guerrero

Russell's approach is built on a revolutionary but simple idea. Connect with your child's heart first. Dive deep into what they actually are interested in and use that passion as a platform for them to thrive.

01:54.02

Jonathan Guerrero

Russell is here to show us how to move from being an enforcer of homework to being a champion of our children's unique genius. We're talking about rebuilding confidence, using specialist interest to conquer literacy, and why the bond between the dad is his child's and his child is the most powerful classroom in the world. Russell, welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge.

02:17.34

Russell

Thanks for having me.

02:19.32

Jonathan Guerrero

I am so glad to have you here. And my next question is one of my favorites. What's your favorite dad joke?

02:27.58

Russell

Well, I want you to imagine you have a kid. Your kid asks you, I'm just going call him Tom. Tom asks you, what's it like being a dad? What's it like being a parent?

02:38.74

Russell

Well, to answer that, what the parent does is knock on his door and wake him up at 3 a.m. and then tell him.

02:50.33

Jonathan Guerrero

Oh, wow there's a lot of truth to that, too.

02:54.58

Russell

Well, what I tell my clients who are just, you know, they're kids, they want to have adult responsibilities. I said, when you grow up, if you can do, for every 10 things you do in the day, if one of them is one you want to do, you're really lucky. The other nine are out of obligation.

03:15.38

Jonathan Guerrero

Very true. Very, very, very true.

03:18.15

Russell

Yeah.

03:19.83

Jonathan Guerrero

Well, Russell, i'm really well russell i am really i am really really curious to know how in the world you got into what you're doing.

03:20.12

Russell

Yes. So, okay.

03:28.28

Jonathan Guerrero

i know there's a story. What's your story?

03:31.64

Russell

ah Well, this is the last thing in the world I was ever supposed to do. was supposed to be a bureaucrat for the New York State government. What happened, it was the late 90s. I wanted to know how laws were made and done some class I wanted to know. So I signed up for the New York State Assembly internship program.

03:49.05

Russell

which was a really bad idea because when I showed up, I said, here's my neuropsychological evaluation. I have a first grade reading and writing ability, so I can't do the internship as it was designed.

04:00.86

Russell

Well, the speaker's office response to that was, They ordered the committee ah to – they ordered the director to come up with a committee and to accommodate the living daylights out of me. Cost was no object.

04:14.71

Russell

They were going to make this work. So they brought me over into the majority leader's program and council's office in the capital from the legislative office building. And they had no idea what to do with an undergrad, so they treated me like a grad student, which was fantastic. they um There are three administrative assistants that could help me with my horrific writing. And then for the academic portion, I gave an hours-long presentation Q&A session instead of a paper, which was standard for me back then.

04:38.77

Russell

So they wrapped all that up, shipped it back to the State University of New York Center at Buffalo ah Political Science Department. Now remember, this was the state government itself at the highest levels that came up with these accommodations.

04:49.98

Russell

They didn't like them, so they said, we're lowering your grade from the recommended 15 credits of A-. minus What do you think they lowered it to?

05:00.54

Jonathan Guerrero

I'm really curious. What do they lower to?

05:02.84

Russell

They flunked me. 15 credits of F.

05:04.98

Jonathan Guerrero

What? Why?

05:07.07

Russell

They didn't like the accommodations the state government came up with. They were insanely crazy.

05:12.86

Jonathan Guerrero

no kidding.

05:13.14

Russell

All right. Yeah. Oh, it cost this it cost the assembly untold thousands of dollars to accommodate me, and they didn't care. All right. So at that point, but no, no, no, no.

05:23.13

Jonathan Guerrero

They didn't care. That sums it up.

05:25.65

Russell

maybe The assembly was going to accommodate me no matter the cost. It was untold thousands. Okay.

05:31.19

Jonathan Guerrero

Wow.

05:31.58

Russell

They did it because they wanted to do it and they wanted me successful. So they accommodated me with completely unreasonable accommodations and it worked out brilliantly. But the state, but the the but the political science department at SUNY Center at Buffalo didn't like it. So she so they th flunked me.

05:47.93

Jonathan Guerrero

wow

05:49.37

Russell

So my response was like everybody else who this has ever happened to was, I'm going to solve dyslexia. Well, I actually did. So I went to my professors and I said, where can I go in grad school to force myself to learn to read and write?

06:03.32

Russell

And they said, well, if you like politics, it's easy. Law school. where you read and write more than anybody. So I went, I kind of forced myself to learn to read a bit. And then my second day contracts, my professor called on me.

06:16.76

Russell

They use the Socratic method. If you don't know the answer, they will embarrass you publicly until you eventually adapt. That didn't happen to me. I responded as my professor's equal, not as a student.

06:30.01

Russell

And he was a law professor longer than I was alive at that point. We went back and forth for 15 minutes. He couldn't beat me. I couldn't beat him. Threw up his arms said, Russell, you ah you couldn't be any more correct. I have to move on to the next case in the interest of time.

06:45.21

Russell

I learned to read within a month. I learned to write within a couple of years. Then I went back, and all this was already in law classes. Then I went back to the New York State Senate, and I said, I want you to fund my dyslexia research program. I solved dyslexia.

07:01.78

Russell

And they looked at me and said, we don't do that. But then they sent me through hellish evaluation for years. Finally, it passed. And I was giving funding for two years for multi year study at the Avril Park Central School District where I went to high school right outside of Albany, New York, our state capital.

07:20.30

Russell

We took highly motivated, highly intelligent high school juniors and seniors.

07:22.48

Jonathan Guerrero

Thank you.

07:25.21

Russell

They were writing at the middle school level, one class period day for the school year. They increased to the average range of entering graduate students. They all went on to college. They all graduated. GPA is 2.5 3.6.

07:39.29

Russell

Cost New York State taxpayers less than $900.

07:43.46

Russell

We were 3x as successful as the best to select a college at the time for less than 1% of the cost. They were over $100,000. was under $900. And that's I started. Oh, and that's how i got started

07:55.05

Jonathan Guerrero

That's amazing. That's an amazing story. was What is it about the... Go ahead.

08:01.37

Russell

No, no. Yeah, it was it was it was a lot of fun. um The main thing that people don't seem to understand is, remember, we did this with severe funding constraints, which was part of what I wanted.

08:13.34

Russell

um The government offered me a lot more money, and I wanted to do it with less to show you how the cost part of it. So if you if you want to know what dyslexia is, there's a book called Overcoming Dyslexia by Dr. Sally Shaywitz.

08:26.10

Russell

I use the second edition, page number 78, figure number 23. What you will notice is the back part of the dyslexic brain has almost no neural activity, but the back part of a normal brain is extremely active.

08:39.48

Russell

But the front part of the dyslexic brain is about two and a half times overactive, and that deals with word analysis followed by articulation. So for dads out there, it's like trying to force your dyslexic kid or ADD kid or ADHD kid to do schoolwork.

08:55.22

Russell

that especially they're not interested in. It's like trying to take a kid who's, you know, the the ah what you consider the typical 98-pound weakling and trying to turn him into ah an offensive lineman for a football team.

09:08.64

Russell

It's just not going to work. You can yell, complain, push him, punish him, all you all you want, and it's going to make zero difference because that part of his brain is just, there's just nothing going on there.

09:20.86

Russell

That's the biggest thing I have to try to get through to parents.

09:25.05

Jonathan Guerrero

What is it about the specific bond between a father and a child that makes a dad uniquely qualified to help them overcome reading hurdles in a way a classroom teacher just can't?

09:37.50

Russell

Because there comes a point where work has to get done. And what I have found is that when it all is just stereotypically, I find this works in over 90% of the cases.

09:52.31

Russell

It's the dad that can finally force the child to do what needs to get done when the system is actually designed properly. So let me give you an ex example. This is a kind of a long answer to to this really important question.

10:07.67

Russell

ah Let's first of all talk about how do we actually just solve the problem. So the biggest issue that parents come to me with is their kids are writing a bunch of randomly placed misspelled words. Nobody knows how to fix it. Pressuring the kid is going to do nothing.

10:22.71

Russell

So do you personally know any at any point in your life, any dyslexic elementary or middle school kid writing randomly placed misspelled words?

10:31.80

Jonathan Guerrero

I actually do recall that from a few classmates of mine.

10:34.94

Russell

Okay, I want you to think about a very specific student that you know changed their name to protect their identity. What's the made up name?

10:45.78

Jonathan Guerrero

ah We're going to go with Mary.

10:47.77

Russell

Okay, now what is Mary's speciality? What's her area of extreme interest and ability?

10:54.36

Jonathan Guerrero

ah Mary would be interested in in music.

10:58.94

Russell

Okay, so I'm going to tell you in less than 10 minutes how to fix this problem that very few specialists in your state can do. Okay? First thing you're going to do is you're going to pull out a real laptop computer with a real keyboard.

11:13.59

Russell

The key thing is real keyboard, not an iPad, not an iPhone, and certainly not handwriting. Then you're going to type out hero plus sign. What are we talking about? And Mary's going to go and copy that until she gets it correct.

11:28.70

Russell

All right, then we're going to replace hero with Mary's name. So now we got Mary plus sign, what are we talking about? Then we're gonna go to a list of 10 things that Mary really, really likes, and then 10 things she really, really dislikes.

11:42.46

Russell

The dislikes is really important to answer your question in a moment. So we're going to go to the top of what Mary really, really likes, which is music. And we're we got Mary plus sign. What are we talking about? We're going to swap out what are we talking about for music. Now we got so ah we got Mary plus sign music.

11:59.58

Russell

See how we got there?

12:01.85

Jonathan Guerrero

I do.

12:02.94

Russell

Okay, now I'm going to try to fool you with two of the simplest questions you will ever be asked, and I use this on six-year-olds. And if you answer them exactly, this will work.

12:16.18

Russell

If not, you're going to get very confused and then you'll have an epiphany on what dyslexia really is. you think I can fool you with two of the simplest questions you will ever be asked?

12:26.78

Jonathan Guerrero

maybe

12:28.09

Russell

Okay, just remember you want to do this exact answer exactly what I'm asking.

12:32.34

Jonathan Guerrero

Okay.

12:32.57

Russell

So we got Mary plus sign music. We got to swap out the plus sign for a word. Here's my question. Does Mary like or dislike music?

12:46.43

Jonathan Guerrero

I'm going to say likes.

12:48.73

Russell

Okay, now go ahead and give me the three word sentence.

12:53.59

Jonathan Guerrero

Mary likes music.

12:56.63

Russell

Yes, but that's not what I asked.

13:01.08

Russell

Let's try it again. We got Mary plus sign music.

13:02.32

Jonathan Guerrero

Okay. here

13:04.82

Russell

We need to swap out the p plus sign for a word. Here's my question. Does Mary like or dislike music?

13:13.40

Jonathan Guerrero

Mary likes music.

13:15.45

Russell

Yes, but that's not what I asked.

13:19.61

Russell

Do I have you nice and confused right now?

13:22.30

Jonathan Guerrero

You do.

13:23.93

Russell

Are you ready for your epiphany on what dyslexia is? Okay.

13:27.93

Jonathan Guerrero

I am ready.

13:29.69

Russell

This is very important to the fathers out there because if you don't understand this, you cannot understand your dyslexic child. I asked, does Mary like or dislike music?

13:41.27

Russell

You did what almost every educated person did. your Your back part of your brain lights up and you you automatically added the S to make it a proper sentence.

13:52.50

Russell

Mary has nothing going on in the back part of her brain. She doesn't know how to add the S.

13:58.03

Jonathan Guerrero

Whoa. whoa

13:59.83

Russell

Yes, you would have said Mary like music because that's what I asked. Now, how do we get her to add yes? Well, again, there's nothing going on in the back part of the brain. Now, millionaire people, there are schools that serve millionaires that have figured this out.

14:15.26

Russell

I'm going to give you an example of one. It's called ah the Windward School in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. They have a 98% success rate. They would take Mary in, work with her for four to five years, and send her back as educated as any of the best private educat private schools on the planet for $75,000 a year for four to five years, and that's just tuition.

14:38.63

Jonathan Guerrero

Wow.

14:39.03

Russell

Because the student-teacher ratio is 4 to 1 to 5 to 1, and it takes two years after a bachelor's degree to become certified. All right. Yeah, it's complicated. Here's how we do it simpler with modern science.

14:53.37

Russell

what If you look at the brain again, the dyslectic has two and a half times the neuroactivity in the front part of the brain. So we need to pull this forward. But let me again make this comment to fathers out there.

15:05.42

Russell

There's nothing going on in the back part of Mary's brain. So if your other children, and the teacher would get annoyed after explaining them how to do it four or five times and then they would have it.

15:16.60

Russell

At the worst, you could explain this to Mary a hundred times. You could force her to do ah a thousand things in um and homework and nothing's going to happen except she's going to start crying. And you don't know what to do when your little girl's crying because she can't do something you've explained literally a thousand times. And I'm not joking about the numbers.

15:36.66

Russell

All right. Because there's nothing going on in the back part of her brain. But the front part of her brain is two and a half times overactive. Now, according to Yale, this deals with two areas, word analysis followed by articulation.

15:50.65

Russell

So let's go, first of all, with word analysis. What I would do is I would ask Mary, do you like or dislike music? And she would say like music. know I say, okay, type it out. Mary, like music.

16:03.26

Russell

Then I would ask Mary to read what she wrote out loud and answer this question. Does that sound generally correct? So she'd read it out loud and she would say, no, it does not sound generally correct. And I would say, Mary, fix it.

16:17.50

Russell

And then she'd go and fix it. And then we practice that for the 10 likes and the 10 dislikes. All right. Now, do you see how that's a simple form of word analysis?

16:28.90

Jonathan Guerrero

Wow, I'm, I'm trying to process what just happened because you made this little solution seem so simple.

16:36.25

Russell

Oh, it is. But now let's um let's keep going. For your listeners, they can go back and re-listen to this. okay But do you see how that's a simple form of word analysis?

16:46.52

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah.

16:47.64

Russell

okay Now we have to do articulation. So then we're going to be go because reason one. Give me a simple reason why Mary likes music.

16:58.26

Jonathan Guerrero

She enjoys listening to it.

17:00.60

Russell

Mary likes music because she enjoys listening to it. Now, do you see how the reasons are a simple form of articulation?

17:08.70

Jonathan Guerrero

Uh huh.

17:09.72

Russell

Okay, so now what we've done is we moved it from the back part of the brain to the front part where we have two and a half times the neural activity. So now we still have this huge, just the grammar stinks.

17:22.87

Russell

So we asked Mary to read everything she wrote out loud and doesn't sound generally correct. Keep going until the entire sentence does. Now we've gotten rid of the catastrophic grammar errors. and You're left with some little ones and some medium ones, possibly.

17:34.55

Russell

Teachers can deal with that. But the spelling is horrible. So we have to put down a period and we tell Mary this. Anytime she misspells the word, she has to retype the entire sentence until it's correct. And she's going to say, I'm not going to make that mistake again. And she keeps making it.

17:52.82

Russell

for about three to 13 times until it's eventually all correct. And you have to keep doing the repetition here until she gets it, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes you're only doing two sentences in a session at night, and it might take you a week to get through a sentence.

18:09.21

Russell

So what? Keep going. My competition is full-time four to five years. You're doing this part-time in much less time. So she does that and then we do the same thing ah for the other nine likes and 10 dislikes. Then reason one and reason two.

18:24.15

Russell

Each reason, we keep what it was before. So we're retyping that and we're adding a reason. 10 likes, 10 dislikes. Then reason one, reason two, and reason three, all 20. At the end, at the end And if she's still not done yet, repeat it with another list of 10 likes or 10 dislikes or go into a book she likes and gets 10 likes and 10 dislikes until this is all correct.

18:44.22

Russell

Time doesn't matter. Results do. And it's massively reed ah ah repetitive. So once you get through all that, Mary can now write a decent grammar, correct spelling, three ah three reason and sentence.

18:57.43

Russell

And here's a key point. Parents ask, what about reading? Well, if the kid can write it, they can read it. If they can write it, they can read it. Does that make sense?

19:07.38

Jonathan Guerrero

That does make sense.

19:09.08

Russell

Okay, now that's part three of the model. The first part that you need to understand is during the intervention period. This is critical for dads. You absolutely have to understand this.

19:21.93

Russell

I'm gonna give you an example of my most successful student ever, my most motivated student ever. And you have to you have to get this or it just won't work. I met Casey when she was 10 years old at the end of fifth grade.

19:34.52

Russell

ah She turned 11 over the summer. And just so parents know, I never saw anybody like Casey before. I will never see this again. It's a one-off edge case. Casey was interested in Theodore Roosevelt, so I assigned her a book called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which won the Pulitzer.

19:48.93

Russell

It's 900 pages approximately. It's at the 10th grade to first-year college-level reading, and Casey was reading like and so like she was in second grade. I gave her a very simple reading program.

20:00.98

Russell

I typically do writing first, but she wanted to do reading. Her choice She like she ah closed her door for three hours a night for six months, most of the day during the summertime, going through that simple process. At the end, she she could she knew every word in the book. You point any word, she would tell you the dictionary definition. She jumped eight grade levels in six months, and I worked with her for 15 minutes a week.

20:29.14

Russell

That's not the point. The point is when we moved from a book that she loved to one she hated on her mother's instructions, she said her motivation dropped about 50%. The most motivated kid I ever worked with.

20:42.90

Russell

Most kids who are ADD, ADHD, or dyslexic, you get outside the speciality, which is about everything in school. Their motivation drops 75 to 90%. This will not work.

20:54.14

Russell

So during the intervention period, and parents, it's better for you to do this. Work with your kid and what they're interested in. Get a book with an accompanying audio book a couple of years ahead of where they're ah where they where you want them to grow into and use that.

21:10.26

Russell

Next. when And just remember, that's just for the intervention period. Next, and this is key, this is that this is part two of the model. I want you to think back into high school.

21:21.37

Russell

If I were to ask you to do this research question, what effect did Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream speech have on the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s?

21:33.05

Russell

Do you kind of know just how to go to the library, start looking up books and start working on that project just from those instructions?

21:40.80

Jonathan Guerrero

I could probably figure it out.

21:42.49

Russell

Yeah, okay. That's because school teaches us big picture, and then eventually we get down to the details. Well, the dyslexic brain is opposite. So if you ask a dyslexic in their speciality, in their area of extreme interest and ability... Do they have ideas flying around their head at light speed, but with little to no organization?

22:04.88

Russell

They're going to say yes. So what we have to do is to force the dyslexic brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. Here's how you do that. For the Martin Luther King example,

22:16.79

Russell

we would We would have to start off at a very specific point and then eventually go out slowly. We would ask what personally compelled Martin Luther King to want to give his famous speech.

22:27.61

Russell

Once you do that, we can figure out where where what it is by just going to his biography and finding the answer. That answer will give us another question, which gives us an answer, which gives us a question. That forces the dyslectic brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output.

22:44.25

Russell

So the three rules are in the intervention period, start off start off with a kid's speciality, get a book, an audio book in that area a couple of years ahead of where you want them to be, teach them from the specific to the general word analysis followed by articulation.

22:59.06

Russell

Parents ask how successful this is. I like to use a an example of the my upcoming book. It's called If you write, you can read. Okay. And it's about read. um And Kimberly. I met Kimberly on December 27th of 2024.

23:16.66

Russell

ah She's yeah she's ah a very religious homeschooling mom. Bible is very important teaching her kids to read. She has some college. ah She spent 700 bucks to have the state of Ohio test her children.

23:30.39

Russell

Her four mainstream gen ed kids, she taught to read brilliantly with traditional methods, but she failed horribly with read and she was very concerned. Read was reading at the 11th percentile, writing at the fourth percentile.

23:44.86

Russell

So I worked with her for a half an hour a week for the next eight months. Read, um she worked with him for an hour and a half a week, three half hour sessions. Most parents do 10 to 15 minute sessions for the next eight months.

23:58.68

Russell

Then Reed's friends over the summer asked him to go to public school with them for social reasons. So in ah early August, he was in a public school getting retested. Even if Kimberly doubled where he was in December, he would have been placed in special ed away from his friends on Happy Kid.

24:16.79

Russell

Well, that didn't happen. His reading jumped from the 11th percentile to the 64th. His writing jumped from the 4th percentile to the 65th. His grammar jumped to the 97th percentile.

24:29.30

Russell

Now, what happened there is I asked Kimberly where he was a couple of weeks ago. He's in mainstream classes, getting mostly mostly A's and B's. Kimberly did what every parent dreams of in under nine months on her own part-time.

24:42.84

Russell

But the finally, now with that background and how to answer your questions, what is it that fathers can do to get their kids to do the work once you're doing it properly based on how their brain is designed?

24:56.36

Russell

That my kids tell me i am very cruel because what I did is I remember those dislikes I asked the first one. I tried to have parents say, what's your chore that you hate the most?

25:08.57

Russell

And these kids who just tell them, know, And the parents don't always know that. And then if they won't do your do their work, i so I tell the kids, and dads are really good at enforcing this better than moms most of the time.

25:21.98

Russell

And I'll give Reed's example. Reed decided he was going to stop doing his work. So his mother said, what What he really disliked was cleaning the rabbit cages. And she said, well, im I stopped cleaning the rabbit cages so they're extra funky. You don't do the work. You're going to have to go out and clean them until you decide to change your mind.

25:39.67

Russell

And I told Reed, please don't do the work. I want your mom to video you cleaning the rabbit cages. And I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. Everybody else will laugh.

25:50.10

Russell

Ten years later, when you're in college, everybody's still going to be laughing at it. It's a great thing. And you will... absolutely hate it please don't do the work then he decides to do the work fathers are uniquely qualified to stand over their kids and tell them you are doing this until you change your mind it is exceedingly evil exceedingly amusing and it works

26:03.47

Jonathan Guerrero

Huh. Huh.

26:22.14

Russell

Kind of a very long answer to your question, but I can tell you the old, i can remember when I was a kid and I did something, well let's just say I did something not horrifically bad, but bad enough.

26:34.55

Russell

And my mom would give me the worst words any kid want didn't want to hear. Wait until your father comes home.

26:43.30

Jonathan Guerrero

uh-huh

26:44.38

Russell

And then she was especially cruel because she would wait until after dinner and then tell him what happened. And here I am dreading this through dinner.

26:54.81

Russell

And, you know, so, but I'm just saying this method um of getting the kids to do things is extraordinarily effective. But remember, you have to focus on how our brains work so that it gets them to do what is needed and not just pound away on how ah Gen Ed kids are taught because that no matter it's it's like asking again ah skinny hundred pound kid to be an offensive lineman.

27:21.68

Russell

It's just not going to work.

27:24.73

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

27:25.11

Russell

You have to apply through it Yeah.

27:26.78

Jonathan Guerrero

going up Going off the rails on this a little bit, if we really go down what you're trying to do, and yeah, yeah, we're getting into dyslexia and we're getting into reading, but you're you're solving something else.

27:39.58

Jonathan Guerrero

You're solving a fatherhood engagement issue. If we really read between the lines, what you're also doing is solving the connection issues between fathers and their children. If they follow your method, for your method to work, connection has to happen.

27:59.58

Jonathan Guerrero

There has to be engagement. There has to be lots of time spent. They actually have to know their kids really, really well, which once again requires time.

28:11.00

Jonathan Guerrero

And I find that really, really fascinating and amazing.

28:11.58

Russell

Yes.

28:15.22

Russell

Well, here's the other thing. you don't, you, you do better threatening doing this than actually doing this. You only actually force it if they just still won't refuse.

28:27.90

Russell

Like, let me give you an example.

28:27.93

Jonathan Guerrero

Mm-hmm.

28:28.98

Russell

I had a case where my client was, he was the eldest and he was one of those kids who had to have everything perfect in his room. I mean, he would make a military drill sergeant in the barracks happier than you can imagine because everything was just perfect.

28:45.43

Russell

But he the two things he hated most was a messy room and his younger sister telling him what to do. So this he he just stopped doing his work. So his dad and mom took him up and told his younger sister to mess up his room while he watched.

29:01.98

Russell

And then she ordered him to clean it up. then she Then they said, do it again. and his younger – and they're videotaping this with their phone. i mean, this is just perfect. And their younger daughter is having the time of his life. After they were done a second time, the dad said, do we need to do it a third time?

29:18.65

Russell

Do we need to do this tomorrow? Do we need to do this every weekend? We won't keep doing this until you do your work. He said this was cruel. This was this was this was inhuman. But he went back to doing his work. And 10 years later, when he was in college, you know we would all watch it. we On the 10-year anniversary, all watched it.

29:38.78

Russell

And everybody's cracking up. He's like, that's not funny. And everybody laughed even more. So you're kind of forcing them to do this with a sense of humor. But again, Reed, every time we threatened that, he knew it was going to happen. He just went back to his work. And most kids will go back.

30:00.79

Russell

Or you do this once. And if they try to scream, okay, I'll do my work. No, we're going through it. I don't want to deal with this again. Okay. And everybody else, the other thing, they find it really amusing.

30:10.99

Jonathan Guerrero

Yep.

30:15.38

Russell

The kids never do. Even decades later, they say, it's All right.

30:20.25

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah.

30:21.34

Russell

I had one of my kids, one of the original kids I tried this on. Then he got married, okay? And then he was a father. and he said, what's so funny? His wife said, are you kidding me? This is the funniest thing I ever saw. She wanted a copy. So anytime he wouldn't want to get up to do his turn at three o'clock in the morning, like my joke with it, because they had a kid. She's like, do I need to show that video to your to our kids? You're evil.

30:50.87

Jonathan Guerrero

yeah

30:51.93

Russell

He finally shut up about it when his minister said, yeah, your family's right and you're being a spoiled child. Oh.

30:59.84

Jonathan Guerrero

Nice.

31:00.54

Russell

o Ministers have that effect on kids, are young you know young young adults when they're like that.

31:04.89

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah.

31:07.99

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah. Well, Russell, your methods really, really work. you can People can go to your website and find all kinds of testimonials there. it It really, really works. They can do this the expensive way, the long way, or they can do it your way, which is much cheaper and actually works in less time.

31:28.25

Jonathan Guerrero

How do they find your information? How do they find your website? How do they get their kids started?

31:34.74

Russell

Well, the best thing to do is just go to, what there's a platform called school, S-K-O-O-L.com. ah We host things there because it's, ah and just type in dyslexia classes and you'll find us.

31:48.22

Russell

ah The person that teaches our course, her name is Angela. Angela has a master, she's a certified elementary school teacher in the state of Texas with a two year master's degree and 11 years of teaching experience.

32:00.82

Russell

And then when she had her daughter, she quit to become a homeschooling mom. She's very religious. OK, and they use the Bible for everything. She has taught her son August to go through this material.

32:13.98

Russell

So she's there every week to answer her questions. My competitors don't do that unless they're charging something absorbent. We had to lower the price to the, you know, so it's affordable.

32:25.72

Russell

um And we're we were there for as long as you need us. We take just so to leave you with this. Parents ask, how far do we go? I'd like to tell you about ah very quickly about a student I'm working with. His name is Grayson.

32:39.09

Russell

Grayson is in the 99th percentile for math and science. He's not dyslexic in the least. ah He wants to get his PhD, work for NASA to terraform Mars. So we have to get him to publish a journal article.

32:52.47

Russell

ah these are These are what professors do. They usually don't do this until you're done with your doctoral dissertation. Grayson's a little younger than that. Our goal is to get him past a desk rejection, actually reviewed by peer reviews, top people, and then have that rejection.

33:09.61

Jonathan Guerrero

Maybe early

33:10.15

Russell

i i talked to a ah board member from from MIT who i was on one of his podcasts, and he's going to try to connect Grayson at the right time with one of their professors.

33:21.72

Russell

How old do you think Grayson is right now?

33:26.56

Jonathan Guerrero

20s. What? maybe early twenty s

33:29.88

Russell

Grace is 10.

33:32.15

Jonathan Guerrero

what

33:33.59

Russell

Yes, we're teaching his dad, who's a program manager, who was another podcast i was on to teach him to do this. So, yes, that's how far we go. We go up to the we go right up to doctoral level materials and everything in between.

33:48.89

Jonathan Guerrero

wow

33:51.19

Russell

Yes. The last thing that I was creating for Grayson, I had to, these are these are peer review journal articles. These are the highest reading you're going to do.

34:02.36

Russell

I reduced it, the reading level to 11th grade, but the content at the second year college level. So that's where Grayson is now. um So we don't just work with the selected kids. We work with everybody.

34:16.44

Russell

And we use a book called The Craft of Research, Context, Original Problem, Stable, and Solution. Sold over a million copies and it's designed to teach PhD students to do their doctoral dissertations. We have to train students to go through a version of this in high school because Because that's what the professors are demanding when they're freshmen in college.

34:35.67

Russell

And if you're worried about artificial intelligence, if you can do context, original problem statements, and solution, original solution, you can work with AI. If you can't,

34:46.46

Russell

I don't know what's going to happen with these kids. 40% of the college graduates are underemployed. Basically, they're doing jobs a year they could have done with a high school diploma. They wasted four years on economic value.

34:57.30

Russell

All right. If they don't know how to do this stuff. So we're accelerating things like crazy. Grayson's an extreme example of that. Another gen ed kid we're working with, ah his name is Alfred.

35:09.14

Russell

He's interested in hawks as um hawks as ah ah predators. So I wrote him a customized 17,000 word curriculum.

35:20.68

Russell

Now he's 12. He's your standard STEM a future engineering kid. i He's reading at the 11th grade level. The content's 11th grade. And we also do this for dyslexic. So just giving you an example of ah of how far we go. We do context, unique problem statement and solution, original solution.

35:41.56

Russell

um And that's what the professors want before they step foot in college.

35:48.92

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah, but nobody's doing this. Nobody, i mean I'm sure you already know this, but nobody is doing this accelerated program. You're the only one.

35:56.92

Russell

No, no, no, no.

35:57.80

Jonathan Guerrero

You're the first and only I've heard that's doing this.

36:00.54

Russell

No private school touches the craft of research, but I can tell you when I presented in New York City in 06, the professors told me two of your students, remember these were the super kids, went from middle school level writing to 70th percentile of entering grad students.

36:14.07

Russell

We don't care. We want the craft of research. So I had to figure out not only how to teach the craft of research, I had to make it so simple that parents who have no background in education can teach it.

36:27.03

Russell

That was fun. Took about 20 To get it right. So, yeah, we're the only one doing this. And I can tell you – so I want you to think about what we do with Grayson.

36:39.13

Russell

um when We're going to submit – our goal is to keep having him submit his art his work to a peer-reviewed journal. They reject things two ways. One is a desk rejection, which means you just didn't fit the criteria. This is this is slop, and they just reject it.

36:55.77

Russell

If it's good, if you did a really good job, it'll then go up to ah an outside person, outside senior professor. Okay. And then they will reject it for some list of reasons, but that's an invitation to come back and correct it.

37:10.65

Russell

You can either do that and then but a certain percentage of those will get published or you go to a lower journal, but you can still get it published in a lesser prestigious journal, but it's still peer reviewed.

37:22.52

Russell

All right. So what our goal is with Grayson is to is to connect him to a professor in that area and for him to say, probably when he's around 14 for another four years from now, here's the article I want to get published. It was rejected for these reasons.

37:38.90

Russell

Can you work with me to get this published and watch their draw their jaw drop? Because Grayson is about a decade too early for this.

37:48.91

Jonathan Guerrero

Wow.

37:50.01

Russell

What do you think that might do for his chances of getting into college?

37:56.11

Jonathan Guerrero

he's goingnna he's gonna have a lot of options.

37:59.99

Russell

Yeah, and the option he wants is to get a meagerly, comparatively, meagerly paying job at NASA to terraform Mars. He doesn't want to work at SpaceX.

38:11.35

Russell

He wants to work for NASA. Okay. All right. and So that's the first step. And then the professor can work with him. If it takes five years for him to publish, who cares? Then he should do it once or twice more in his doctoral work when he eventually gets there.

38:27.58

Russell

And then that'll make him an excellent candidate for NASA. So that's the most extreme end of what we're doing.

38:36.06

Russell

And I'm doing this because this is what professors told me they wanted 2006. and two thousand and six Remember, i just so I just had these kids write average of every grad students, and they're telling me at that point, that's not good enough.

38:49.21

Russell

We want something far more impossible. Oh, by the way, we're going from the best special ed teacher in the school district to parents who have no no background in education whatsoever.

39:00.21

Russell

And to give an example again with Kimberly, she had some college. And yet we I had to be successful with that. Drastically better results and make it drastically simpler and much cheaper.

39:13.14

Russell

How fun was that?

39:18.65

Jonathan Guerrero

Oh, wow. That's, yeah. So much fun. So much fun. ah Well, um this is the part I was anticipating that's always frustrating. We're up against the clock and the clock always seems to win.

39:34.42

Jonathan Guerrero

There is so much to unpack with this. Dads, you're probably going to have to listen to this episode several times to process everything just like I am. There is so much here, but please do. It is worth it.

39:48.86

Jonathan Guerrero

So as we wrap up today's conversation with Russell Van Brocklin, I'm left with one powerful takeaway. Our children don't need us to be their teachers as much as they need us to be their champions. The next time you see your child lost in their favorite hobby, whether it's a game, a sport, or weirdly specific obsession, don't just see it as a distraction.

40:11.13

Jonathan Guerrero

See it as an open door. Step through that door, sit down beside them, and build a connection first. The learning will follow. You can find more of Russell's work and his resources if you just go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

40:26.81

Jonathan Guerrero

That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com. Go to this episode and you're looking for the episode title, Connection Before Curriculum. Connection Before Curriculum. Go to that episode, look below the episode description, and the links that Russell mentioned will be posted right there for your convenience.

40:44.81

Jonathan Guerrero

Dads, here's your simple challenge. You know this is the fatherhood challenge, so you're always going to get a challenge. Go find out what your kid is a specialist in tonight.

40:55.98

Jonathan Guerrero

That's it. Go figure that out. And we'll see you in the next episode.

41:04.41

Russell

Okay. Was that what you're looking for?

41:14.42

Russell

Hello?

41:16.06

Jonathan Guerrero

Hang on the shower outro is playing. Let me, I got, let me play it one more time. Hold on one second.

41:20.12

Russell

Okay.