Parenting Solutions for Teen & Pre-Teen Education & Behavior

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Your child is melting down over today’s assignment and it feels urgent, personal, and unsolvable. But what if the fight, the tears, or the “I hate this class” speech isn’t really about what’s on the page right now? We break down a simple idea with huge consequences: the problem your child is running into is...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Grades can turn school into a daily stress test for both kids and parents. We take a different angle: real education is not about stuffing a head with facts or performing on one big exam, it is about building competence that shows up in life. We talk about why memorising for tests is often the least importa...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! A single misheard word in fifth grade quietly derails Mike’s understanding for years, until a later breakthrough makes the whole pattern obvious. We connect that moment to a repeatable set of study tools that help kids, teens, and adults rebuild fundamentals and learn with confidence.  • Mike’s “beavers” mi...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! A teen can be polite, non-rebellious, and still be drifting toward a dead stop. No goals, no interest in college or trade school, no desire to work, and no clear sense of purpose. We dig into a surprising root cause that hides in plain sight: they may have never experienced real mastery, especially the kind...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! What if the fastest way to help your child thrive is to slow everything down? We walk through a simple framework—observe, decide, act—that turns everyday hiccups into quiet masterclasses in judgment, confidence, and real-life skills. Instead of punishing mistakes or rushing to fix them, we show how to coach...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! When a child brings home A’s but skips class, or melts down when math comes out, something deeper is going on. We dig into why two very different patterns—low grades and high‑risk behavior—can spring from the same broken learning process, and how a simple framework helps parents turn confusion into capabili...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Ever feel like a label replaced a lesson? We take a hard look at “arbitraries”—opinions and judgments dropped into the learning process without reason—and show how they quietly turn real educational problems into medicalized stories. From glossy assessments to trending diagnoses, we trace how false solution...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! A fast-food billboard shouldn’t be a study lesson, but “Welcome to delicious” says a lot about how language really works—and why so many teens feel lost when textbooks, teachers, and everyday speech don’t match. We dig into that gap with Mike, exploring how creative phrasing can be both inspiring and mislea...

CLICK HERE to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Ever watch a kid wake up queasy on school days but bounce back on weekends? We dig into a counterintuitive truth: sometimes the “sick” feeling isn’t a virus or avoidance—it’s the body’s response to information overload when lessons stack up without any hands-on anchor. Mike and I share why even high-perform...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Ever wondered why a calm afternoon can explode into a full-blown tantrum? We pull back the curtain on what’s really driving those blowups and show how small, fixable issues—skipped steps, unclear words, and mismatched levels—can snowball into big emotions. Through Nicole’s journey, you’ll hear how moving a...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! What if dyslexia isn’t a life sentence but a familiarity gap you can close with a simple plan? We dig into the practical side of helping kids and teens read with confidence by focusing on what actually trips them up: a small set of letter-sound patterns and the sequence they learn them in. With 26 letters a...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! If school feels like a daily battlefield at home, there’s a deeper cause most families miss: confusion masquerading as misbehavior. We pull apart how unclear words, shaky reading skills, and assumed “basics” create stress that kids eventually fight—by checking out, acting up, or hiding behind test tricks th...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Ever feel like homework wars and school stress are symptoms, not the cause? We pull back the curtain on why family tension and unspoken issues quietly sabotage learning, then show how a simple practice—clearing the air—restores trust, focus, and momentum. Not with lectures or guilt, but with practical tools...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Bullying doesn’t start on the playground; it often starts where learning breaks down. We take you inside the root causes that push teens and preteens into the bullying game, then show how mastery, purpose, and true engagement pull them out—for good. Drawing on personal stories and practical tools, we map a...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Join us for an enriching conversation with Danny from Danny Tyrell Studios, a musician who has journeyed through Detroit's iconic music scene. From playing his first gig at just 14 to opening for Motown legends like Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross, Danny brings a wealth of experience and nostalgia from an...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! What would you do if your child's future was being dictated by a misdiagnosis? On this heartfelt episode of The Competence Institute podcast, we sit down with Barbie Rivera, author, educator and parent, who recounts her powerful journey advocating for her son Damon. Wrongly labeled as mentally handicap...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Unlock the secrets of transformative education with Ann Cigainero, a visionary educator with over thirty years of dedication to study technology. Ann captivates us with her pioneering journey in creating a school founded on L. Ron Hubbard's educational principles, where personalized learning and nearly...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Unlock the rhythm of success with Bob Bolt, a maestro in both the spheres of business and music, as he shares his harmonious approach to mastering new skills and knowledge. Striking a chord, Bob's narrative reveals the power behind understanding the intricate symbols and terminology that resonate acros...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Competence : the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. When you think of a classroom, what comes to mind? The chalky scent of blackboards, or perhaps the hum of a projector? Now, imagine a place where education fuels not just the mind, but the very spirit of community itself. Cary Goulston jo...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! What if your struggle with a subject or even a passion could be traced back to a few misunderstood words? Join us as we unravel the intriguing, yet often neglected, concept of the misunderstood word with our co-founder and study technology expert, Mike. We're shedding light on how such words are not me...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Ever wondered why some students, despite knowing all the textbook answers, falter when it comes to applying their knowledge in real life? We get to the bottom of this conundrum in our enlightening conversation with Mike, a co-founder of the Competence Institute. Together, we unravel the enigma of the GLIB s...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Ever felt overwhelmed by the thought of textbooks and studying? You're not alone. Many young adults abandon their dreams due to the mountain of knowledge they believe they need to conquer. We, Ryan Kimball and Mike Tyler, challenge this narrative by arguing that success lies not in studying harder but...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Have you ever felt powerless as a parent, watching your child grapple with life’s challenges and unethical choices? Listen to the amazing journey of transformation; Ann Auburn, a doctor, and her son Jake undertook with the help of Mike Tyler. Their inspiring story showcases the dynamic impact of study techn...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! What if there was a program that could turn your life around? That's precisely the journey Jaccob Dean underwent when he joined a life-repair program run by co-founder of The Competence Institute, Mike Tyler. This episode unravels Jacob's transformation from a troubled teenager to a director-level...

Click Here to get your FREE Parents Survival Guide and Good Choices Downloads and Booklets! Is your teenager causing havoc and you're at your wits' end? Ever wish you could get into the mind of a former teenage troublemaker who turned their life around? Your hosts, Ryan Kimball and Mike Tyler, are here to offer you a lifeline, drawing on their own experiences and years of research to pro...