FATHER DIARY A keyhole into my life\ Pain, chaos, and the incredible transformation of a family Valentin Rindunica with Larisa Rindunica FATHER DIARY · · · The science behind it: A University of Cincinnati study (2019, 4,500 children aged 9--10): children with more than 2 hours of screen time a day showed visible changes in the cortex responsible for attention and impulse control. The brain is plastic. But this is a signal: screen time is not neutral. It is an environment that shapes architecture. In your business --- it's the same: The team's equivalent of screen time is constant interruptions. Notifications, urgent chats, the "just a minute" that stretches into an hour. University of California: after an interruption, a person needs an average of 23 minutes to return to a state of focus. Screen hygiene at home and a "focus protocol" at work --- one and the same principle: protected time without interruptions. A Keyhole Into My Life Pain, Chaos, and the Incredible Transformation of a Family Valentin Rindunica with Larisa Rindunica Dedicated to Larisa, Alexander, Artyom, and Valeria. You are my laboratory, my chaos, and my salvation. The names and details of the people in the stories from our store have been changed out of respect for their privacy. The stories are real. The people are real. Some details have been changed. © Valentin Rindunica, 2026. All rights reserved. Padova, Italy · April 2026 > "The most honest thing a father can do is show his children not who he > wanted to appear to be, but who he actually was. And what came of > it." A FATHER'S CONFESSION Before you read any further I have written eight books. About transformation. About systems. About neuroscience. About how to build yourself, your business, your body. Eight books --- and all that time I was yelling at my kids. In the evenings. In the mornings. Over anything at all. This needs to be said straight out. Right at the start. Before all the levels, systems, and protocols. · · · In "Slaughterhouse" I explained how platforms steal attention. Meanwhile I sat buried in my phone while Lera tried to get my attention. In "The Architect" I wrote about the prefrontal cortex and self-control. And lost my temper over unwashed dishes. In "The Ego-Skeleton" I dissected defense patterns --- and didn't notice Alexander building his black skeleton right in front of me. For years. This is not a metaphor. This is literally what was happening in our home while I wrote clever books about how to live. · · · Because knowing is not the same as doing. That is the most painful thing I have learned in half a century. You can know about insulin spikes --- and eat sweets every night. You can know about circadian rhythms --- and go to bed at two in the morning, because "it's the only time I have to myself." You can write a book about the black ego-skeleton --- and grow one in your own child. You can write "Tax on Later" about procrastination --- and keep putting off changes in your family year after year, because "not now, I'm tired, tomorrow." Knowledge without a system is the beautiful storefront of an empty shop. I lived in that shop for a long time. The storefront was excellent. Inside --- chaos. · · · That morning with the sock --- when I screamed at seven-year-old Lera so hard the veins bulged on my neck --- did not happen because I am a bad father. It happened because I was a smart man without a system. Smart enough to write about the problem. Not enough to solve it in my own home. · · · Alexander is twenty-two now. When he was twelve, I was already reading about the neuroscience of child development. Already knew about critical periods of formation. Already understood that screens were a problem. And I did nothing. Because "later." Because Larisa and I were tired. Because "at least he's not screaming right now." That is the real price of procrastination. Not an unfinished report. Not a missed deadline. A child who grew up without what he needed. Because I kept putting it off. [ ILLUSTRATION ] An hourglass: children's toys in the top half, emptiness in the bottom. Minimalist graphics. Mood: sad, philosophical | Type: half-page · · · I wrote a whole book about this. "Tax on Later." About the debt that piles up with interest. I wrote it --- and still paid that tax with Alexander's childhood. I am not saying this to frighten you. I am saying it because if you are holding this book in your hands and feeling something similar --- fatigue, guilt, a sense that "something is going wrong" without knowing what --- then you are already more honest than I was back then. I did not know something was going wrong. I thought everything was normal. That it's like this for everyone. · · · This is a confession. Not a textbook. Not instructions from someone who knows it all. A story from someone who knew --- and did not act. Then started acting. And here is what came of it. If after this book you do even one thing differently --- it was not written in vain. Not starting Monday. Not when you find the time. Now. V.R. PROLOGUE Why a Keyhole A child is a mirror. Not of who you want to be. Of who you are. --- Folk wisdom This book is not a manual. Not a guide. Not "10 steps to a perfect family." Not another guru on a mountain broadcasting truths. This book is a keyhole. You are peeking into someone else's life. Into our life. With all its chaos, meltdowns, screaming over socks, and moments when I just wanted to disappear. I will not tell you how it should be done. I will show you how it was with us. Messy. Honest. Sometimes shameful. · · · Larisa and I have been together for twenty-five years. Three kids: Alexander --- twenty-two, Artyom --- thirteen, Valeria --- seven. We live in Italy, in Padova. We have a family business --- the Valmart Market store, and thousands of families pass through it. We see them. We see them yell at their kids in the checkout line. We see kids manipulate their parents for a chocolate bar. We see the Instagram picture fall apart backstage --- the moment they step around the corner. We see exhausted mothers who answer "fine" to "how are you?" in a voice that makes you want to hug them and say: I know it's not fine. We see fathers standing next to their children --- staring at their phones. Physically there. Emotionally --- in another city. And we were just like them. No, worse. Because we were also lying to ourselves that "it's like this for everyone." · · · Alexander grew up while we were, to put it gently, degenerates. We worked. We were tired. We had no tools. He sat at the computer until three in the morning, and we did not know what to do about it. More precisely --- we did not want to know. Because dealing with it meant conflict, and there was no strength left for conflict. The result? A twenty-two-year-old with a black ego-skeleton. Defense and manipulation as a way of survival. He learned to dodge, deceive, wriggle out --- because it worked. Because we allowed it. It is not his fault. It is ours. And that is the first thing you will see through the keyhole: we blew it. Big time. · · · But then Artyom was born. And six years later --- Valeria. And somewhere between the sleepless nights, the screaming, and the feeling of complete helplessness, something clicked. Not a revelation. Not a moment of enlightenment on a mountaintop. More like a point where it became clear: if we keep going as before, we will lose these two as well. That is how the transformation began. Not pretty. Not linear. With setbacks, meltdowns, and days when everything went to hell. But it happened. · · · Today Artyom speaks eight languages. Five fluently, three he understands. He reads books for pleasure. He can cook, he can clean, he is handy and independent. Leave him on his own --- he will manage everything. Valeria is a sunny child. Open, laughing, curious. She does gymnastics and is not afraid of pain. She knows her rituals and follows them without reminders. And yet two years ago she was closed off. Would not go near strangers. Hid behind her mother. Fell asleep only with a cartoon on --- without it, a tantrum was guaranteed. What changed? The system. · · · I hate the word "system." It sounds cold, mechanical. As if children were robots to be programmed. As if a family were a factory and not living people who love each other, fight and make up, and laugh at the same silly things. But the truth is that without a system we lived in chaos. And chaos devours energy. Every conflict, every argument, every misunderstanding is a colossal loss of resources. After which you cannot think straight, cannot be patient, cannot be the parent you want to be. A system is not a prison. A system is armor. It protects you from chaos. It frees up energy for what really matters. For conversations over dinner. For books before bed. For the laughter that comes out of nowhere --- in the middle of a Tuesday --- just because Lera said something incredibly funny. · · · This book has ten levels. From chaos to autopilot. Level zero is the point where we started. Screaming, screens, exhaustion, "it's like this for everyone." Level nine is where we are now. Not an ideal. Not a utopia. But a working system where the kids follow their rituals on their own, where the evenings are quiet and full, where Larisa and I look at each other and know: we did it. Between them lies the path. With setbacks. With "two steps forward, one step back." With moments when it all seemed pointless. With small victories you only notice a month later --- when you suddenly realize you have not yelled in the mornings for a long time. · · · You will hear five voices. Mine --- the father's voice. Honest to the point of indecency. With self-irony, because without it I would not have survived writing this book. Larisa's voice --- the mother who sees thousands of families in the store and knows: our problems are not unique. And neither are our solutions. We simply applied them. _______________\ Alexander's voice --- the one who grew up "before

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