This Golden Hour
In this podcast, we specifically serve new homeschool families through engaging conversations with homeschool parents and families at all levels of experience and expertise. Listeners will increase their confidence and assurance about their children's education and future while diminishing their fears. This podcast helps you know how to begin homeschooling, navigate challenges, and answer questions for all stages of the journey.
The name “This Golden Hour” has meaning. First, this name refers to the years parents have to raise and teach their children from birth to when they leave home to be on their own. As parents, we have a golden opportunity to teach and learn alongside our children during these formative and essential years of growth and development. Second, “This Golden Hour” points to this same period of childhood as the children’s chance to read, explore nature, and enjoy an inspiring atmosphere of family, love, and learning.
This Golden Hour
77. Dr. Rich Melheim and R.I.C.H. Learning
In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Dr. Rich Melheim from Minnesota. Dr. Rich is the Chief Education Officer, Chief Creative Officer, and founder of R.I.C.H. Learning. He has spoken in over a thousand cities on five continents, authored 39 books, produced 24 music albums, created seven musical comedy stage plays, and written thousands of songs, skits, curriculum pieces, comedy sketches, and cartoons. Dr. Rich shares profound insights into brain-based learning, the power of arts in education, and how parents can nurture their children’s growth through intentional and holistic approaches. From his personal journey overcoming dyslexia to creating transformative educational platforms, Dr. Rich's wisdom offers invaluable guidance for parents, education leaders, classroom teachers, and anyone passionate about maximizing human potential.
Connect with Rich
Rich Learning
richlearninginternational.org
Books by Rich
Holding Your Family Together
Resources
preskool.tv/home
Peter Senge MIT
Books
The Dance of Change
Quality School
The Scientist in the Crib
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
This Golden Hour
Free eBook Course
thisgoldenhour.org
If you see things in your kid that light up in their eyes and you can put them in a place to play with it, to experiment with it, to meet mentors and other people who've succeeded in it and other people who've tried and failed and tried and failed forward and do it. If you can use your discernment and judgment to maybe this would be a place. It can't be your deal. You let them fail and you let them meet mentors and role models and you maybe steer them toward things. And if it ends up being just a hobby that they love for the rest of their life, maybe they won't be a professional hockey player or singer or whatever it is, but you can help steer them toward a virtuous. vocation, calling, knowing that they have to be the ones to take it up and embrace it.
Tim Eaton:Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Dr. Rich Melheim from Minnesota. Dr. Rich is the chief education officer, chief creative officer, and founder of R I C H Learning. He has spoken in over a thousand cities on five continents, authored 39 books, produced 24 music albums, created seven musical comedy stage plays, and written thousands of songs, skits, and curriculum pieces, comedy sketches, and cartoons. He's the author of Rich Learning, the brilliant neuroscientist. PhD student with a Ph. D. degree in neurology and crazy effective fun of brain based learning on arts based platforms. Dr. Rich shares profound insights into brain based learning, the power of arts and education and how parents can nurture their children's growth through intentional and holistic approaches. From his personal journey overcoming dyslexia to creating transformative educational platforms. Dr. Rich's wisdom offers invaluable guidance for parents, education leaders, and educators. Classroom teachers and anyone passionate about maximizing human potential. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast. Today, we are excited to have with us Dr. Rich Melheim, who is the Chief Education Officer and Chief Creative Officer and the founder of R. I. C. H. Learning, which stands for Recognize, Identify, Comprehend, and Harness, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. So thank you for being with us, Dr. Rich.
Dr. Rich:Great to be with you, Tim.
Tim Eaton:And I noticed that you're most often referred to as Dr. Rich,
Dr. Rich:yeah, that's the brand somewhere between Dr. Zeus and Mr. Rogers.
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:Get as few syllables as you possibly can,
Tim Eaton:that's perfect. Dr. Rich has spoken in over a thousand cities on five continents, authored 39 books, produced 24 music albums, created seven musical comedy stage plays, and written thousands of songs, skits, curriculum pieces, comedy sketches, and cartoons. And I have downloaded your amazing book. He's the author of Rich Learning, the Brilliant Neurology and Crazy Effective Fund of Brain Based Learning on Arts Based Platforms. And that says a ton and I, and it resonates actually with me. So that's a brief intro to a, an amazing person, but tell us more, tell us anything you want about yourself and that we might get to know you a little bit.
Dr. Rich:I was. Born a slightly dyslexic ADDDDDADHD kid in a little house on the prairie in the Dakotas. My mom was a teacher who read to us every night, sang to us every night, and did our prayers every night, and just paid all kinds of attention.
Tim Eaton:Yes. My
Dr. Rich:dad was a preacher and a storyteller, and oh he told all kinds of crazy stories. When I was young, I had to go to special reading class and I didn't remember that until I was in my 50s. I was with Marianne Wolfe, Dr. Marianne Wolfe at Tufts University at the Dyslexia Lab. Interviewing her on another topic and she helped me understand I was actually dyslexic and I didn't even remember, but when I took special reading class when I was a kid, I was special. I got to go to special class.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:I realized that my eyes were a paragraph down and my words were still stumbling and fumbling above and they had to teach me to slow down, right? And pretty much my whole life. Whenever I get in trouble, I have to get into the slow down mode. I spent a dozen years as a youth pastor and the two significant events in my life were two suicides of kids in my youth group a month apart from each other. And that changed me from a Pied Piper to a systems thinker. Started reading Peter Senge at MIT, his book, The Fifth Discipline and his book, The Dance of Change. talking about how to create healthy systems, knowing that you have to get your vision straight. You have to build a vision team. You have to push power to the edges. You have to get everybody involved in the creation and the what works, what doesn't work, how do you make it better? And you have to build what he calls a learning organization where everybody is looking at every piece. Working on their own key piece, but everybody has positive input to help make it better. I changed my model from youth pastor to how can I help key people, the most powerful mental, emotional, physical, spiritual influence a kid will ever have as a parent. You cannot outsource. You can, whatever happens when you lie down and when you rise. You'll realize from the neurology of sleep, Moses was a neurologist. Whatever happens when you lie down and when you rise as the most powerful effect on a kid, shaping who they will become shaping, can they lie down and sleep in peace shaping? Can their dreams get solidified? The new thing of the day gets solidified with what they already knew. Most powerful educational moments of the day or when you lie down and when you rise. And so I started working with parents. My, my sweet spot in those days was adolescence. I just love working with teenagers. It's absolutely crazy. And when the pituitary kicks in and the hormones start going nuts and the brain begins a rewiring process from the back to the front, rewiring all the autonomic stuff, all of, their bodies look like they're 21. Hey, treat me like an adult, but they're fully developed. Prefrontal cortex won't happen until they're 25 or 26. About the same year that our car insurance rates go down, no, no coincidence. But they may look like an adult, they may be able to make babies like an adult, but they're not going to be an adult for another 10 years. And somebody has to be the adult in the family. Somebody has to be, what is the prefrontal cortex, which is the judgment center and the gatekeeper and the ones who put longterm over, short term gratification. Our challenge today is a lot of parents have abdicated the role of the tough guy, but somebody has to be there
Tim Eaton:to
Dr. Rich:be the one who puts the gatekeepers on them until they have a gatekeeper on their own. And somebody has to repeat over and over the core messages of value and love and peace and patience and kindness and generosity. All the things that you would call Judeo Christian principles, somebody has to be there going over again and again. You don't teach a kid to swim by paddling out to the middle of the lake and throwing them in. You have something hard to hold on to so that they know it's there and they can push off and they know they can come back, push off and come back. Somebody has to be that solid thing.
Tim Eaton:That's really good.
Dr. Rich:The parent knows. because of their own mistake. If you survived adolescence you are eminently qualified to, to do this because you know, some stuff the kid will never know until they get their full judgment. However, the things you do over and over and over, just like muscles, the more you left, the more capacity you grow to lift, the more you reinforce the key things they want. Don't just hand them everything, give them challenges. The more you do your highs and lows at night, and that's one of my big things I've been pushing for 30 years, checking in with your kid every night. What worked today? What was good today? What was a challenge today? You can, you will build a different brain if you pattern the things you want in it. And as the neurologists say, myelinate the neurons when they are young and when they are old, they will not depart from it. Yes. We'll see what you'll get what you practice. Yeah, so I got into that. And I tried to help parents do and be what they promised God they would do and be when they first held that baby in their arms and not outsourcing the key when you lie down and when you rise. So that was a core thing in my life in ministry. The second most pivotal thing was having our two babies after 10 years of infertility.
Tim Eaton:And
Dr. Rich:we had been at the male clinic fertility clinic. Doing everything you could possibly do to make a baby all the laparoscopies and hysterosalpingograms and major abdominal surgery and endometrial laser treatments and nine months on one drug and six months on another drug. We did everything you could possibly do to make a baby. And at the 10 years mark of our marriage, a little home pregnancy test turned green and blue in front of our eyes and we laughed and cried and kissed and Hang on to each other in the, and said, wow, we get to be what we want. And then, Oh, we're going to be parents. Now what?
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:So what happens when you get what and I resolved after going through that, I wanted to be the best dad I could possibly be. I wanted to parent by intention. And if you were going to write a screenplay. I take classes for a movie guide in Hollywood on screenwriting and advanced screenwriting. And one year we studied Pixar's method of writing a screenplay. They write the first scene and the last scene before they write anything, they write the first scene and the last thing scene, and then they take the character on a journey and the challenges are there, the antagonists, the protagonists, the people you pull into the, to, to the event and the bigger the challenge, the greater the movie, no conflict, no story. So you parents who have little ones that you still have some power over, you know, to, to uh, five minutes before bedtime. Okay. We're going to do our highs and lows tonight. If you're a person of faith, we're going to do our, scripture, we're going to touch in, we're going to pray. Whatever you want that kid to be on the day they walk out of the door and on the day they take their own babies home from the hospital. And on the day that they go through the challenges. That life will throw at them if they have any life at all. And on the day that they walk from your grave, first screenplay card, last screenplay card. And on the day when they take part of you with them as they walk from your grave. What do you want them to take with you as they walk from their, your grave and as they walk toward their own? You are hardwiring that you are building that character, that resilience, that virtue. You're building it every night. You wouldn't have. Think of not feeding your child tonight. How could you starve them emotionally or spiritually? You would not think of sending them out in the cold without a jacket on you clothe them And how could you not clothe them with all those things that you know, they need the challenge today is so much of parenting which for most of human history was in a tribe or a clan or a community that was all needed. The elder was needed, child was needed. You weren't sending them off for eight hours a day somewhere else. Today there are so many influences. You can do everything right and still lose or appear to lose.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:If the scriptures are true and train up a child in the way they shall go and when they're old, it doesn't say when they're 16, it doesn't say when they're even 32. But whatever you hardwire, it's like a water dripping on a rock carves a channel and it may be very dry for a very long time. But if it rains again, the water's going to the channel because they know what's right. They teach bank tellers how to recognize counterfeit money by saturating them with the real stuff. And if you really know the real stuff, you can
Tim Eaton:identify the false.
Dr. Rich:And so I think what we need to do. Pull out our best self. Not, I'm too tired tonight. I don't have time for this. No. This is the one thing of all things. If you are blessed with a child, this is the one thing that you can't neglect. You want to do right. And you don't want to pay somebody else to do it. So those are the two shaping things for me. One, the two suicides when I was playing to take the kid away and outsource their life. And then becoming a parent myself and trying to figure out parenting by intention and what would I want my child to walk away with when they walk away from my grave.
Tim Eaton:Wow. That is so much goodness. I love what you said about you just cannot outsource that role. Like it's, you just can't. And then I love your idea of repeating the core messages of. of value and things that are of priority to a family. And I hadn't thought of it that way, but you had a couple of metaphors there. The one about don't throw them out into the deep end. They need something they can hold onto and push off of. And that is so reaffirming as a parent, because like we're in the throes of that right now. Our kids range from 11 to 20 and we have six children. And, especially in the middle years that you're talking about that prefrontal growth that is immature at that stage, like that really is something because parents right now, because technology is happening so fast, we are so ill equipped to respond to it. And culturally and societally we have jumped into it instead of like cautiously treaded and it's good. There's so many good advantages to the technological advance but we have, for example, just given the iPad as if it was the babysitter. And then the repercussions of that. Are are showing up and will show up more powerfully in the future. And so we have to be able to like you said, check in daily with the highs and lows and assume that role as parents. And I love your idea of the first and last scene. That is, that's one way to say that it's begin with the end in mind and work your way back. But but I love that idea of, if you're going to write this script, not that you're going to be controlling, but that you're going to be intentional as a parent, like you said. So thank you for all that wisdom. We could stop there.
Dr. Rich:So if you look at a really great movie, a really great screenplay, there are three acts and act one launches the character out to the quest, whether it's Bilbo Baggins, and the ring, or it's Mel Gibson, the Patriot, and he's a pacifist and his kids get killed. Or whether it's Star Wars and Luke, everything is done and I have to go on my quest. Act one is getting ready and launching on the quest.
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:The problem is it's almost always a tragedy that launches you on the quest in a movie. And maybe in life. Maybe it doesn't have to be that. Maybe it can be, I'm excited. I'm going to take the world on, but there has to be a cutting of the umbilical cord. There are a lot of helicopter parents three text messages a day or no risk, no reward. It's almost always something launches you. And if you begin with the end of act one insight, how would you want to launch? on that day when your kid and you work with homeschoolers. And I just applaud anybody who's not outsourcing that most pivotal. It's not just the information, it's life formation, right? I'm not going to buy this crap. You wouldn't pick up and eat anything off the sidewalk. You wouldn't let your kid do that. And yet you're letting stuff come over their airways and they're ingesting it through their ears and their eyes. And it's poison. A lot of it. Some of it's good, but you just don't let anything into that precious amazing brain.
Tim Eaton:It's just not fair to them. They're not ready. And how could they be like, we're not ready in so many ways.
Dr. Rich:And yeah. If you begin with three ends in sight, So what do you want the day to look like when they head off into the world? Maybe they're going to a college, although that's, I grew up, everybody had to go to college. And when someone had to drop out and go to New Zealand no, no, you're going to finish and get that degree. They can't take that from you. It's like you catch a football in the end zone. You're on the board, buddy. They're not going to take that from you, kids should go and become a plumber and get paid to learn to become a plumber. And. Be making 140, 000 instead of owing 140, 000. But whatever that is, based on their gifts and their talents and their aptitude and that can make a living, but more important can make a life. Making a living is one thing, making a life is an entirely different thing. Making a living is a subset of that making a life. How do you distinguish,
Tim Eaton:how do you distinguish it? I know that's loaded, but how do you distinguish? Because I like that point.
Dr. Rich:Making a living is more about money that pays your bills, right? And that's a subset of making a life. Making a life has to do with a great vision. And your gifts and talents and calling
Tim Eaton:the
Dr. Rich:word calling and the word voca voce voice are the same root word in the Latin through calling is a voice that maybe comes to you multiple times. Maybe you'd be good at this or have you tried this? It's something that you've tried and you might have an attitude to persevere and to take it on. Cause you really want it. And you might have an aptitude. I've got some gifts and talents and where I don't have gifts and talents. I have some passions that will, get me there. I was in Hyderabad, India, three months ago, and I was meeting with a bunch of uh, cartoon companies to try to see who's going to be part of our rich learning community. Metaverse worlds that we're building and my backpack was slightly open and I had a copy of my book, my rich learning book, which is free online, by the way. And this 11 year old kid says, Oh, excuse me, sir. You appear to drop it. So he hands me the book and I said, Oh, wow, thank you. That was very kind of you. You know what? Do you have anything to read on the airplane? No. Here, read this. So I made an 11 year old Indian boy do it. And he sends me back a note saying. I've always been interested in the American space program. There's a space camp in Washington, D. C. Or something, but I don't know how to get into it. I had just met Nancy Conrad, whose husband, Pete, was the third man to walk on the moon, and I had asked her if she'd be a judge. We're building a school in the metaverse. It's a space station. And there's a tower of math and a tower of science and a tower of virtue. And I asked, would she be a judge of the art designs and everything? So I was able just from a kid reaching out and being nice, I was able to connect an 11 year old who has an aptitude towards something with the kind of people who could get them to space camp and maybe, help move his life. If you see things in your kid that light up in their eyes and you can put them in a place to play with it, to experiment with it, to meet mentors and other people who've succeeded in it and other people who've tried and failed and tried and failed forward and do it. If you can use your discernment and judgment to maybe this would be a place. It can't be your deal. One of my favorite kids in in my first church. His dad was the hockey coach and he was goalie on the, the state team and all that. And by the time he was a senior, he hated hockey and quit and his, drove his dad nuts. It wasn't his, it was his dad's. We cannot live vicariously through our kids. We should not. We shall not. Thou shalt not live vicariously. But if you can see they have an aptitude and then you start putting the Legos in Oh, do Lego is a metaphor. You start putting things within their grasp.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:You let them fail and you let them see, meet mentors and role models and you maybe steer them toward things. And if it ends up being just a hobby that they love for the rest of their life, maybe they won't be a professional hockey player or singer or whatever it is, but you can help steer them toward a virtuous. vocation, calling, knowing that they have to be the ones to take it up and embrace it. I don't know how we got off on that.
Tim Eaton:No. Cause you were talking about making a living and making a life and that, and I think what you're really highlighting there is making a life. And I asked about distinguishing those, The principles there apply so relevantly to um, homeschool parents, because what I've noticed. Especially among the mothers. Is that they do that. They do that naturally. They see the sparks in their children, and then they go and they facilitate it to the nth degree, whatever the kid is interested in. And that's how they're developing learning because they're actually interested in it. And the, this idea of whatever fires together, wires together. If learning is not meaningful, then it will not be embedded in our characters or in our souls. And it's scientific it wires together and it fires together because there's meaning behind it. Otherwise we're just regurgitating things.
Dr. Rich:If you find the stuff that really lights them up, and then your job is more to be the curator. of the Museum of the Mind. You know who they are. You held them in their arms. You quieted them at night. You changed their poopy diaper. And by the way, you can always remind them when they're a teenager, they're going to be changing your poopy diaper one day. If they give you too much stress and you have premature Alzheimer's. You can see and be searching out what really lights them up. The curator The museum doesn't put everything they have in the basement out. They put certain things in certain places at certain times to create an experience, a multi dimensional mental model of an experience.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:And the job of the teacher is to have the children lead you to where you want them to go by putting the things. How about this? How about this? How about this? And if you can get to the point where you have to tell them to stop, turn that thing off and go to bed or, whatever, my dear friend, John, a home and was CEO of school of rock. For a while. Yeah. And we asked her about the teaching theory of school of rock. They get kids who never played a guitar or a piano in their life. Eight week later, eight weeks later, they have taught them D, G and A and they're on stage playing, smoke on the water or whatever. You never have to ask them to study again. Once they get excited about it, right? And part of that is you have a band. So if you're a parent with one kid, make sure they have a band and make sure their bands have an equal mindset that you do that, we're going to expose them to this and this, but not that and that. And They, there's practice towards something you don't just learn to learn you in school of rock. You have a show in our preschool design and if you want to sneak peek at 500 preschool songs we wrote for our early learning project. It said preschool with a K P R E S K O L dot TV slash home. We ended up writing 500 preschool songs. Using, goofy music and funny music and fast music and slow music and all these other things, but if you can get into patterns with whatever it is you're trying to learn, and if they're going to be creating and showing something at the end of it. So say you have six kids eight kids. I'd never do 12. Jesus had a small group of 12 and that was one too many. Make sure that you have at least a small enough group and have a goal at the end. You're going to show something. You're going to show it to the world. It's going to be a concert. It's going to be an art show. It's going to be a show and tell it's going to be a science fair. I like the six weeks of work and a seventh week prepare and show it and don't move on to the next unit until. The kids can show it. Had mentioned Peter singing in the book. The fifth discipline is pivotal in my education journey. The the book, the quality school by Bill Glasser was also pivotal. Glasser wrote a book that said in the quality school, everyone is the teacher in the quality school. Everyone is the teacher. If you're the only teacher today in the room and you're trying to compete with this,
Tim Eaton:Good luck.
Dr. Rich:You're trying to compete with 15 second Tik Toks and the kids are grazing. Oh, this is interesting. I might go to a long form, click and go. I might spend 45 minutes with, this video of somebody constructing a whatever. But good luck. You can't do that. And by the way, that dopamine fixed too much dopamine ends up toxic.
Tim Eaton:Yes. It's
Dr. Rich:like too much cortisol, too much stress ends up toxic.
Tim Eaton:Yeah. Too
Dr. Rich:much dopamine. You need more for the next 10 more. It's addictive. You need more for the next 10. Don't even play that game. Don't be the only can't
Tim Eaton:compete. Yeah.
Dr. Rich:Give them a little something and then say, okay, now work on this with your team. Now come back and teach me something. Interesting. And we're not done until you can teach me. Cause I don't know, this until you can teach me if you can teach me. Okay. I think, you know what? You're never bored when you're the teacher. You're often bored when you're the student and the show isn't good enough.
Tim Eaton:Yeah
Dr. Rich:we have spectators and audiences. Spectacle, spectator. We have people just watching us, audience, audio, people listening. Forget the game. You don't want a single spectator or a single audience. You want teachers. You don't want consumers of information. You want prosumers of innovation. And so give them something, give them the toys, give them the Legos, give them the. Here's nine things out of the kitchen to make me something that's edible and let them be the teacher. Let them be the creator. The other thing Glasser said in the quality school is on graduation day. He only had three criteria for a quality school. He said on graduation day, every student can speak intelligently about the subject they've studied. Every student can write intelligently about the subjects they've studied and on graduation day, every student can teach. the subject they've studied. That's a quality school. How could this happen unless they've been doing it all along? Yeah. So quit being the teacher. And if you're homeschooling, do not be the teacher this year. Be the curator of the Museum of the Mind. Know where you want to put them in the last act of this. And start putting the things in the way, create team learning, and make sure, and I say, yeah, six weeks of learning and you got a week to put all this together and show me something.
Tim Eaton:And then show something. What a great pattern. Are you familiar with Charlotte Mason? Because a lot of that sounds like some of her philosophy, and I love the idea of what you're saying about put things in front of them and expose them to things, I was the dad when we were early homeschooling that I was like, who's leaving these piles of books everywhere? Let's put this stuff away. And my wife just really rebuked me and I'm glad she did because she was like, what are you doing? You're ruining what I'm trying to create here. Here I am trying to clean a house. And this goes well with one of your quotes, which I love if I can read it. You said, in order to make a difference for the children around the world, we must first make a difference in the world around the children. That to me speaks to environment and like you said, facilitating learning and helping them to become teachers and it goes along also with your idea that the richest tools we have are free. And it's not like we have to do these crazy things, we just have to get out of the way in a lot of this.
Dr. Rich:So from a neurological perspective in order to make a difference in children around the world, you first must make a difference for the world in the world around the children. From a neurological perspective, one single neuron firing doesn't mean much, but what does it touch and what does it touch touch, touch? Every neuron is connected between. 10, 000 and some of them 100, 000 other neurons. And a new piece of information is not like a bit stored on a computer chip. New learning is not on a chip. New learning is an array of flashing, a firing and a wiring of an electrical chemical exchange across a vast cosmos of other neurons. Yes. I can see a single photon from a mile away. The human eye can see a pinpricked hole in the colorless sky from a mile away. But that one little prick doesn't really mean much. That one little pinhole, it's what surrounds it. And what
Tim Eaton:is it connecting to?
Dr. Rich:What does it connect to? And your job as a parent is to put the good stuff around them. And that goes in a holistic way. Who are you hanging out with? What are you reading? What are you watching? What are you dwelling on? If you're dwelling on the negative is going to dwell in you and our brains are wired a little more toward the negative because we don't like pain and we don't want to get eaten and die. So we're very cautious, but you can't create that explorer positive I'm going to go out and create new things kid with a frightened kid who just sits in that one little spot. So what can you put in their immediate vicinity? Starting with babies. What, how can you enrich the sounds?
Tim Eaton:Yeah. Starting in the womb,
Dr. Rich:starting in the womb because your ears are fully myelinated in the womb. The baby will be born already knowing the voices that speaking love speak lovingly to it. The baby will be born already knowing your dialect. The baby will already have a positive affinity toward the music. The baby will be born knowing who a noise mother and lowers and raises her cortisol level. There's a book called The Scientist in the Crib, or The Scientist in the Cradle, where three social psychologists got permission to grab babies at the moment of birth to try to find out what do they already know? And it's astounding what the baby already knows. If the voice that has annoyed mother through the pregnancy, if that face comes and starts talking, they'll look at it and they'll look away and they won't look back. If the voice that gave mother comfort and lowered her cortisol level, and gave her a massage and, they're going to stare at that face longer. Kind of like, Oh. I like you because my mom likes you, right? Okay. There's so much that you can start with before you're even born. My joke is you have a womb with a view. The kid already knows what's going on. And and from nutrition. To self care, you gotta put the oxygen mask on your own face before you can put it on others. 30, 000 feet, you're going to pass out. You'll be no good to anyone if you don't take care of you. You got to take care of your marriage and your internal support structure. And that's why highs and lows every night.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:I need to know what's going on in your world. And every morning, when you lie down and when you rise and my wife And I do. And we've been married. 45 years. We check in every morning. I go out on my sunrise walk and read and pray and take photography and write a children's song every day. And by the time I get home, we sit down in this little. Garden we've built and we look at our day, what you got on the schedule. What team doesn't have a huddle? What team would function in the big leagues without a huddle? Come on.
Tim Eaton:It's awesome, man.
Dr. Rich:You can't be called maybe once in a while you call an audible. That's not going to be your modus operandi. Or and then we have an eight second hug and a kiss every morning. And we do that at night as well. Because you don't get all the dopamine and oxytocin on a quick stud hug. It can't be a stud hug. You need, I'm here with you, I'm here for you. And the message has to be, especially as you enter adolescence with kids, but way before that, we're in this together. We're in this together. We're in this together. And the bigger the conflict, the harder we hold each other. And the bigger the conflict, the better the play will be at the end. Because we know on the other end, it's going to be great. If you're a person of faith, you have a promise. When they are old, they will not depart from it even if it looks like they're departing from it. If the screenplay is already written, Then, wow, you can even enjoy the ride during the hard time. Yeah.
Tim Eaton:It's gonna come
Dr. Rich:out good. It's gonna come out great. If you believe that, and I believe it with all my heart.
Tim Eaton:And I'm glad you're saying it. This is, it's timely for my wife and I, and so I'm grateful for what you're saying. It's really good.
Dr. Rich:So what do you put in front of a toddler now? What, what is going to be in their immediate reachable vicinity for them to reach? What do you want them to experience? What do you want them to touch? What do you want them to hear? They'll hear millions of words before they try out babbling. and go ba. Mama, da da. Did you hear that? He said, dad, my kids are thinking genius. And they get a response from mama, dad, grandma. They get a response from no, Ooh, I've got power on my own. They start to be aware that I'm an distinct person against. What can you put around that? That's going to build them up and make them strong and make them healthy from their ears to their eyes, to their touch, to the attitude, to how you solve problems. You've got a little spy in your house. If you have a toddler, you've got a spy, they're going to turn out more like you than you ever want them to do. Just try to swear in front of a toddler and tell me they're not listening. They may be playing Legos on the floor, but it's hardware. What do you want to put around in terms of intellectual growth, in terms of emotional growth? What kind of challenges you want to talk about and ask them for ideas and thoughts? If they don't have anything to push off of, if they have no challenges at all, they're not going to get strong. They will not develop the physical muscle tone, they won't develop a mental muscle tone, they won't develop the spiritual. And emotional muscle tone. If you want resilience, they have to have challenges. You just don't go rescue them from everything.
Tim Eaton:When
Dr. Rich:they get to junior high and the hormones get done, just remember at the same time, their hormones are kicking in. Your hormones are kicking out everybody crazy. The last thing you need when you're in a crazy situation and everything's changing all around you. The last thing you really need. Is a lecture. The biggest thing you need is grace and fun and people. I'm on your side and challenges that we can do together some autonomy, some power to make decisions. But you don't give negative choices. You try to put the positive choices in front of them. Do you want to go to bed now or five minutes from now when they're six years old?
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:And when they're, junior high do you want me to continue paying your cell phone bill? And will you communicate with me or will I, an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex, stop providing a communication device? For a kid who doesn't communicate with me. We're doing highs and lows every night. Aren't we, sweetheart?
Tim Eaton:The
Dr. Rich:first time they yell at you or swear at you or get out of my room, you measure the square footage of their bedroom and you divide it by the monthly payments on the mortgage. And, if you have 87. 50 a month to pay me, that could be your room if I choose to sell it to you. If they slam the door you can't slam your door. It's not your door. It's my door. By the way, that door's going in the garage for a week. I think I'd like to put my door in the garage for a week. Now, how does that sound to you? Do you know how expensive driver's insurance is for a 16 year old boy? This is not a right. This is a privilege. So we're going to help regulation, by the way, this is my phone. I paid for it and I'm paying the monthly thing. So this is not your phone. I, out of the goodness of the benevolence of my heart have determined I with a fully developed prefrontal cortex have determined that it might be nice for you to have access to me, but you're going to pick up the call when I call you or text you an appropriate amount of time. And guess who's going to decide what an appropriate amount of time is a person who owns the cell phone. He who has the gold makes the rules. That's the golden rule, right? Anyway, what do you want to put in front of them when they're 16? I think every 16 year old should work. Oh, your schools, your work. I don't know. I think they should have some money in the cupboard. That's 20 bucks to go to a movie, just don't take it off as your sister needs it too. But I think they should start learning about FinTech. I think they should start balancing their own and what are we saving for? What are we doing?
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:I think you do that all along the way. And you just begin with that end in sight of the first act on the day they walk out the door. I think you'll have a very different experience than most parents. The average parent spends the last stat I saw spends 35 minutes a week, one on one in conversations with their kids outside of orders and commands. And where are you going? What if you did seven minutes a night, you'd be seven times the parent if you decide no, we're going to check in every night. And we're going to turn off the television, we're going to put down the games, we're going to get rid of all the weapons of mass distraction,
Tim Eaton:and
Dr. Rich:we're going to be a family.
Tim Eaton:That what you were saying about just like the relationship, I remember early in my career I had a colleague say, avoid adversarial relationships. And it's hard to reconcile that sometimes with what you were saying about, you don't have a formed prefrontal lobe and what you were saying about the door in the garage and things like that, sometimes it's interesting, especially when kids are peer oriented, they're audacious, like it's a different day. They are audacious. And that's going to be an ongoing grapple for a lot of parents because, and a lot of people don't have the principles so clearly embedded about what is the best way to do it. And because of that, because we're not operating from a very fixed core of principles, Man, we're wishy washy and kids know that we are. And it can be tough. It can be tough. I wanted to ask you can you just give, and I know this could be a really long thing, but I just want to hear what your thoughts are. What are your thoughts on the traditional conventional school system?
Dr. Rich:I have a retired sister who spent 38 years teaching special ed in junior high. A saint. Anybody who teaches 38 years is a saint. Yes. Anybody who teaches in junior high is a double saint. Anybody who teaches special ed in junior high is a triple saint. She was just going through rules and restrictions and parents and this and that and reports. And she got to the point is if I could just teach and not have to just do all this other stuff, it got harder and harder. When she started, if a kid was in trouble, the parents were reinforcing. Hey, kid, don't do that. By the time she ended, if the kid was in trouble, it was her fault.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:You didn't do this. Come on, kid. Um, People who give their life to teaching, God bless them they're saints, but they have such a challenge today because the kids are living with the tick tock and the 15 second, if I don't like what I'm seeing, I go away. 15 years ago, it was a remote control. Just think about how much has changed.
Tim Eaton:Oh, yeah.
Dr. Rich:The remote control was you don't even have to get out of a chair and in a walk across the room and turn the knob to one of three channels like when I was a kid. It was click. I don't like what I see. Click. Don't like what I see. 15 years ago commercials were 30 seconds. Today you might have 15. How can you be a teacher? If your kid is in a regular school, I would have a discussion on what is it we're trying to accomplish in this unit, in these lessons. And how I, how can I turn this into a game at home? How can we get some of your friends who also want to get more out of this than sitting in a classroom board? How can we turn them into the teachers of each other? For our preschool project, we wrote a song for every lesson. We wrote 30 math songs, 30 science songs, 30 virtue songs, 33. We didn't teach anything new without a song first and a dance. And that comes from some of the neurology that we want oxygen in their brain, we want dopamine in their brain, we want glucose, we want to wash out the cortisol, we want to get that brain fertilizer, BDNF, that builds more nerve cells, builds more connections on the nerve cells, builds more receptors on the connections of the nerve cells. If schools would teach with a, an understanding that the neurology of the brain is such that an active learner is going to own it, a kid who's learning in order to teach. Then I think they might have a shot, but they just can't be a show anymore for the kids. The show is over.
Tim Eaton:Yes. The
Dr. Rich:show is over for every teacher in the world. Forget it. It's not your show anymore. They don't care about the show. As I said before, you may be bored. You'll never be bored if you're the teacher. You may be bored if you're the audience or the spectator in the show isn't good. I would hope schools would study some of the neurology. We've learned more in the last 15 years thanks to advanced brain scan technology, fMRIs and PET scans. One measures where the electric pulses are going in the brain. The other measures where the oxygen is going. And we have a window into the learning brain. We know what works. And that's where music and art and dance and theater. And games that don't cost a nickel doesn't cost a nickel to turn your lesson into a song. No. So you're studying photosynthesis today. Okay. Take a little water. Take a little light. Take a little air. Yeah, that's right. Inside each and every cell, there's a factory that can tell how to make a simple sugar. So sweet. That's neat. Photo. Okay. Okay. Kid, make me a song. What do you need for photosynthesis? You do the work. Study. Well, You need water. You need air. It builds a factory and makes sugar. Okay. Okay. Okay, turn it into a show and we don't go on until you do the show for the end of this six weeks. Yeah. If schools would embrace what we have in brain scan technology window into the learning brain, and I think homeschoolers have a better chance because they have more freedom and how do we get to this point together?
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:Here's what we need to learn. Begin with the end in sight. How do we get to this point in a way? that we hardwired every part of the brain, the body and the environment into the learning process. Annie Patel at the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego defines the mind as the brain meets the body meets the environment. So homeschool parents, how can you attach the whole brain, the visual centers, the audio centers, the emotional centers, the inner gyroscope of the ciliated epithelial cells in the sense of balance, how can you attach the whole brain To the whole body, to the whole environment in learning. And especially if you think more, we don't have a home school. We have a home studio. I'm not doing schooling anymore. Amen to that. We're building a studio and I'm just the curator of the museum of the mind here. And we're going to do shows. I guess the other thought would be, you have a chance today. Every kid should have their own online. Museum of what they're learning and creating. It can be a 2d world right now very shortly. It can be a 3d immersive. Your kid can build a museum on a star or on an asteroid. That's what our rich learning first world is. It's a, it's an asteroid field with a school of six towers, and every kid will get their own asteroid to go and build their own stuff when they're done. Okay. So we hope to have that out in a year or so. If any of your people want to be input, test people in how to build a school in an asteroid field, Tell them to go to rich learning and say, Hey, or have them download the book and put in the notes.
Tim Eaton:Yes.
Dr. Rich:I'd like to have some input into that. And then once we get enough people, we will have beta versions of stuff for, especially for homeschoolers to test and try.
Tim Eaton:Maybe the last thing I'll just add, if you could comment and then we'll wrap it up. You've given lots of counsel specifically to homeschool parents and I'm grateful that you've channeled that to them. What would you say to homeschool parents that are intimidated by a lot of the things that you said? Oh man I don't know how to do that stuff. I don't know. I don't know how to get the body and the mind and the environment. All incorporated in such a vivacious way. And then, and how do I get the arts, like you said, it's arts, it's brain based it's it's incorporating the arts. I don't feel like I'm equipped with that. What would you say to parents who want to do what you're saying, but just struggle to feel competent?
Dr. Rich:You have. A little star who can help lead you in that direction. From the watch me, daddy, watch me, daddy. Every kid's a little ham. Every kid's a little star, right? And they want your approval. And if you start young enough, let's make something. Let's not just buy something. Let's make something. Let's go in the kitchen and find seven things and see if we can make something. Let's go in the Lego box or let's go out in nature. Let's pick some plants. Let's make something. Let's make something. Let's turn it into a game. You have a little artist. There's a book called drawing on the right side of your mind. Most kids are little artists. And they're doodling and they're scratching and they're doing all this creative stuff that it's like Picasso, who said art is the lie that helps us see the truth. The problem is we shift over from drawing to making certain shapes. Okay that's an O. And we cook the left side of our brain to the sound, O, and to the concept of O. And the L, and the D, and the B, and the A, and after a while, we're drawing on the left side of our brain, up above the left ears, the linguistic and phonics centers. In about 550 BC, the Greeks cursed the entire Western world by making 26 symbols that you read from left to right, and each are very efficient to have only 26 to make every word you ever had. They didn't know that the English would have Germanic and Indo European and French and, all these other Latin and Greek. They didn't know that, we'd be all messed up and everything. You already have an artist in your house. You already have a musician in your house. The first thing they were consciously aware of as a sentient human being was a drumbeat. Bum. They are wired from the very beginning for percussion. Turn your spelling into pounding. Turn your spelling into art. Turn your spelling into music. They're already all those things. Just don't let them, don't let them lose it.
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:And yeah, and then once they get the dopamine and applause, put that art up, go to Walmart and get a bunch of cheap little frames. The best drawing of the day for seven days goes in the gallery and they take a picture of the gallery and post it on their new website. Turn it into an NFT. Let them start monetizing their art from the time they're four years old. Yeah, you already have that. And I think if you can discover the inner child, get on the floor, roll around, play, laugh, giggle laughing washes away the cortisol, the stress. If you can laugh about it, you can deal and you can heal. So don't be afraid to start and turn everything into a play, a game, a piece of art.
Tim Eaton:Beautiful. Thank you so much. You guys. This has been Dr. Rich Melheim. Your website is rich learning. com. Is there any other ways that can people can reach you? And I definitely encourage everybody to to obtain and download his free book.
Dr. Rich:Our nonprofit is rich learning international. org and we are just getting ready to launch a major campaign. The worlds we build starting with the English language world and the math world and the virtual world. We want to give it to a million kids who can't afford it. So we're in the design phase to build the 1st world and you can meet our board at rich learning international dot org as well. And then our faith stuff is that the word faith and the number 5. And this book, holding your family together, explains how to do highs and lows every night. It's your prayers. If you want to get involved in faith conversations, we have Facebook sites for that, throw a question up and there are other people in your shoes that might be the best thing that homeschools have. that regular teachers don't often feel the support from. There's other people doing exactly what you're trying to do it. There's other people just starting and other people just finishing. So yeah, create a community and start asking questions. And of course, show and tell, show your own kids stuff off. By the other kids, NFT, maybe they'll buy yours too.
Tim Eaton:I really love that concept of six weeks of learning and then preparing and then showing. Great. Thank you again so much for taking time. I hope you have a wonderful day.
Dr. Rich:We could do this again right before school starts. Give me a call.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, that would be a good time to do it.
Dr. Rich:Oh, one other thing we have every Tuesday at two central we're in. In interviewing a different person like Marlene Peterson.
Tim Eaton:Yeah.
Dr. Rich:Think from neurologists to like Harvard and Johns Hopkins, brain scientists to Grammy and Oscar and Emmy winners all talking about education from a neurological perspective.
Tim Eaton:And where does that access that just on through the website?
Dr. Rich:If you go to Facebook and go to Rich Learning International. Okay.
Tim Eaton:Okay.
Dr. Rich:It's a different one every Tuesday for the summer.
Tim Eaton:Excellent. Thank you again. I appreciate it.
Dr. Rich:Okay. Take care.
Tim Eaton:That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.