2e & Executive Functioning

Executive functioning is a common challenge for twice-exceptional (2e) learners. It was the #1 topic requested in our annual community survey. 2e learners’ asynchrony can mean they perform wonders in their favorite subjects, but may get low grades because they don’t turn in their homework. They may show amazing executive functioning abilities when it comes to their favorite hobby, but can be challenged when it comes to “straight forward” school tasks. EF challenges can cause 2e students anxiety and self-esteem challenges when others perceive them or they perceive themselves as lazy or unmotivated. Executive functioning covers a broad array of areas - in this talk our panelists focused on planning and prioritizing, task initiation, and organization. Experts Sam Young, Marcie Habell, and Mason Tudor provided tips on how to support your 2e student through a strength-based lens, including what accommodations to ask for at school as well as strategies for tackling tasks such as homework, note taking, project planning, task management, and goal setting.

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See the transcript here:

Sam Young or Mr. Sam as his community members call him. He is the founder and director of Young Scholars Academy, which is a strength-based talent-focused virtual enrichment school that supports twice exceptional differently wires and gifted students to feel seen nurtured and happy as heck through strength-based courses, camps and community.

Sam is a two-time Fulbright scholar, a TEDx speaker, a former Bridges Academy educator of nearly 10 years and a Bridget graduate student of Cardiff Diversity.

He's a graduate. Additionally, Sam is a nerd, a urgent person himself who has committed his life to supporting differently wired students to discover, develop, and lead their lives with their strengths, talents, and unique interests. Welcome, Sam.

And finally, last but not least, Mason Tutor, who's goals director of education with over 25 years of education experience. Dr. Mason Tutor has incredible skills in tutoring a plethora of subjects, teaching English, career exploration, study strategies, and real-life literacies, financial, time management, etc.

He is also an academic coach focusing on how to use strategies to succeed with students who are in difficult academic programs.

He is skilled at working with students who are in crisis due to emotional trauma, learning differences and academic gaps.

And we will post how to contact them in the chat. And so I will let them each take it away, please.

At any time, you're welcome to ask questions in the chat. We will collect them all and ask them after each of our speakers has had a chance to speak to you.

I will stop my sharing. So Marcy, you are up first.

Hi everyone, welcome and thank you Yale for the introduction and so as Yale pointed out I'm a professional educational therapist and private practice.

I'm in Pasadena, California. I've been doing this work as she said for about 20 years and I have a range of population with whom I work in a range of ages.

But tonight we're going to be focusing on executive function, what it is, how to support it.

And over the next hour or so we'll consider different ways that each of us support executive function in the clients with whom we work.

So as we begin, let's first consider this idea of executive function. It's a big idea.

We've all heard the term. But what exactly does it mean? Well, Cali, it's not going.

It won't advance now.

Did you just find the little, here you go.

Okay. It didn't work in the usual way. Sorry about that. Okay.

So education, executive function defined by the creators of the brief. Which is the behavior rating inventory of executive function.

It's an instrument used by neuropsychologists to measure an individual's level of functioning in the domain of executive function skills.

Defines executive function as a multi-dimensional construct. With distinct but interrelated domains. Of self-regulatory or management functions.

Including the ability to initiate behavior. Inhibit the effect of stimuli.

Select relevant task goals, plan and organized means to solve complex problems, monitor and evaluate the success of problem-solving behaviors.

And shift problem solving strategies flexibly when necessary. So this rather broad scope definition. Attempts to capture the complexity of what we think of as executive function skills.

They tried to capture all of it in in a very long lofty definition here. But really for practical purposes.

We can think of executive function skills as goal-directed behavior. Those behaviors that help us.

Complete a homework assignment. Drive to a destination. Or even get dinner ready on time. It's goal-directed behavior.

And while there are many definitions and numbers of executive functions skills depending on whose work you read. There is some general agreement on the 3 primary executive function skills.

The 3 primary executive function skills. Our working memory. Cognitive Flexibility. And self-regulation.

So we're going to take a brief look at each one of those individually. So we're going to start with.

Working memory. It's the act of holding information in mind. While performing mental operations. So for example, if we could all go back to.

Fifth grade or so and think about long division. In order to solve a long division problem, You need to hold in mind the order of the steps.

Well, simultaneously multiplying, subtracting. Hand abiding. For some individuals holding the rules in mind while also crunching the numbers simply too much for their working memory and a struggle ensues.

Then we move on to cognitive flexibility, which is the brain's ability to make use of new information and environmental cues.

To adapt to the context of the situation. So think about kids playing soccer in a park. The kids know that they need to.

Chase the ball, keep it away from the other kids and try to make a goal. So they've got that in mind.

If a child inadvertently kicks the ball, so that it rolls into the street where there are speeding cars.

Cognitive flexibility should kick in. The child recognizes that they have to adapt to the new situation. And not follow the ball into the street.

Without cognitive flexibility, child who sticks to the rule of chasing the ball. Could have a dire outcome.

And then we take a look at self regulation. And that's the ability to control your own behavior and emotions.

And to remain focused in spite of distractions. And so while we're all subject to occasional distractions or procrastinating and emotional dysregulation.

In this case, we're really thinking about whether someone can stay regulated and focused most of the time.

So if we think about a student who might. Be upset that every day at recess. They're chosen last for the team.

And then later in the day. They're physically or verbally aggressive with their classmates. We can say that that student probably has poor self-regulation and they could use some support.

Developing that skill. So these are the 3 primary executive function skills. But under the umbrella of those.

There are many other skills. That fall into the umbrella of executive function. And some of those include attend.

Within that domain we think about focusing. Sustaining and shifting our attention is needed. Inhibitory control or resisting an impulse.

So a child who can't resist kind of punching a kid who makes them upset in the moment.

Struggles with inhibition. Organizing and planning so that they can get their work done on time.

Breaking down a large research project or a big paper and a smaller component parts so that they can get it done in pieces.

Over time and turn it in by the deadline instead of panicking at the last minute or not doing it at all.

Shifting between activities and mental tasks. So your child's playing a video game and it's time to eat dinner, are they able to shift fairly easily?

And then goal setting. Creating both long and short term goals and then devising action plans. To attain those goals both along and the short term.

And when we think about all of these big ideas about what executive function skills are, We know that anybody can be subject to struggling with these.

Here and there, but as. Global idea. Those individuals who are twice exceptional tend to be more vulnerable to the adverse effects?

Of underdeveloped executive function skills. So it's really important for the adults in their lives, whether they're teachers, coaches, parents, and others.

To be aware of this vulnerability for this population and really keep in mind. That when they see a child lashing out.

It may not be that. Their. You know upset with the person it may be that they have an underdeveloped executive function skill themselves and we're unable to regulate in the moment.

So trying to shift the perception about what might be going on when we see those outward behaviors. About what might be the root of those.

So now that we know a little bit more. About executive function. How can we support our students? Both the twice exceptional and otherwise to better develop those skills because we know that according to neuroscience, the brain research.

Tells us that the frontal lobes where the executive function skills are rooted aren't fully developed until mid to late twenties.

And we're expecting students in middle school, high school, even early college. To really utilize these skills.

So it's a bit of a challenge in general, but more particularly. For our 2 E students.

So let's begin first. With goal setting. So when I work with middle school age students and older, I begin first getting to know a student.

The relationship is a crucial part. The educational therapy process including executive function coaching. Because it must be a safe and comfortable relationship.

That is established first so that later the individual is receptive to working on the areas that they struggle in.

So that always comes first. So whether it's in the very first session or the next one. The first sort of activity I do.

Related to executive function is I guide students through an activity I developed. Which asks them to imagine their future.

I have them right down. What they think their life might look like around the age of 40. And most of them joke about it like, oh, that's so old, it's so far away, but I want them to be forward thinking.

So will they be married or have a life partner? Will they have children or pets? How many?

Where will they be living? What sort of career might they have? And the task continues to work backward in time.

Until we reach the present day.

And at that point I asked what they need to do now. In order to reach the imagined life that they have just described.

And to get there, it's going to involve setting goals. And I use that anchoring first idea of their future.

As a point of reference through our time working together so I can always remind them what they're working toward.

And I let them be as imaginative and lofty in their goals as they like, you know, they wanna have a 20 million dollar house and drive you know a Lamborghini that's great we're gonna work toward that.

So that's how we start. And then we talk about both long and short-term goals. So if you have a student.

Who wants to have a career as an engineer and she wants to drive a Ferrari and have all the pets in the world because her parents will only let her have a fish.

That's what we use. That's gonna be her driving motivation. To do the more mundane short-term goals.

Like making sure she passes all of her classes. Turns in all of her work on time. And has no missing work.

Sometimes it's things like, well, I need to just pass this math test. Sometimes it's, oh, I want to get an A for the first time in history.

Whatever it is, we go back and forth between the short and the long-term goals. And it teaches the students.

To be future thinking and also to be accountable for their present day work. And by giving them shorter term goals that are attainable.

And they get to check it off because they've attained it. They get that feeling of success.

And so that intrinsic motivation starts to gain momentum. And we always refer back to that anchoring long-term goal so that they can see the connection between the 2.

Now sometimes. Students can benefit from using an acronym like. Smart for setting their goals. So that they can be very.

Precise. They will have goals that are specific. Measurable?

Attainable. Relevant and time-based. And this gets them to really think about. How to write.

A goal that they can achieve. And then whether it's in a long or short term goal. We set a time.

To it so that they will know when am I going to get there. Okay. And as part of the goal setting process.

We use metacognitive strategies. As they're guided through. Setting along in the short term goals.

We discuss and evaluate the outcomes of the goals. And then revise and establish new goals. And this process occurs in an iterative cycle.

So the students develop the habit. Goal setting, evaluation, revision, and then back to goal setting.

And learning this process supports students to stay connected and engaged in their learning. Okay, and the process can also be used for working on life goals as well.

I have worked on goals with students who want to get better at. Their volleyball game, their soccer game.

They wanna work toward, being able to gain a spot on a team in a certain position. So they learned to see that it's related to their life, not just their days in school.

And by working with a professional such as an educational therapist and executive function coach, a mentor. Students who struggle with executive function can develop the skills, increase their self-confidence.

And achieve their potential. And so next. Sam will discuss another aspect of executive function.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Marc. I appreciate that. I'm gonna go ahead and bring my slides up.

I am always incredibly paranoid that I'm talking about something that I think that people can see and they can't.

So please if you would just give me a thumbs up everyone once you can see my slides if you and I literally did this at a conference where everybody was far too polite.

And you see, okay, it was so awkward. Someone was like, 25% of the way in and we have no clear what you're talking about man.

Okay, so everyone I want to just jump right in. Thank you, Marci. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction for what executive function skills are and ways in which we can apply them.

So I want to just kind of distill down a couple things that I think Marcy covered quite nicely, which is this broad bucket, right?

Many experts say that there's as many as 13 different executive function skills and as Marcy did a great job delving into some of the big ones.

I like to really simplify this and just say, think of this as the sort of air traffic control, right?

This is the part of your brain that's saying this plane should take off in this order even though that planes buzzing don't do anything about it right now.

That one needs to circle around for a little bit while it percolates, right? It's the ability to or the CEO of the brain is the ability to do certain things.

Stick to certain tasks, accomplish certain goals, and avoid doing other things that might be seen as impulsive, etc.

Now this is really important because This is the part where it comes to us and I want to really give Marci like major props a big part of this like most things in life has to do with us as parents as professionals are expectations.

Right? And it's it's a bit bananas that we know that that we know that our kids struggle with this prefrontal cortex this development part right doesn't happen until they're almost 30 many of our neuro divergent twice exceptional kitos.

Yet we want them to do this when they're like approaching 3. I don't understand why they can't go said and you know the the deep work starts here.

Okay, we can eat.

Okay.

The deep work starts with us, right? So I just want to underscore that. Moving along, I want to kind of dive in though and give you something actionable.

So as we kind of set this stage, again, Marcy's done a fantastic job with that.

I break down a lot of the fundamental things. I think parents are concerned about executive functions. It's usually My kids not doing filling the blank right not doing homework not turning things in they're so bright they're engaged in conversation and then when they leave class.

It's like they don't care. They're not making their bad. They're not XYZ.

So how can we focus on making it fun? How can we focus on making this whole thing fun? It can be rather dry or it can be one of the coolest, most gamified experiences.

And I think that starts with tapping into our strengths and our interest and building something that we own, right?

So I like to introduce what I call this this kind of correction. I think the task management is often done wrong.

It's often done as one size fits all. And then we hold this ruler up to kiddos and we say There's something wrong, right?

Hey, everybody gets a planner and if you're not using it, you have difficulties, right?

Well, we know our brains are different. We know that we exist along a continuum. And to think that everyone should try the same thing and get the same results.

Ludicrous I think so why not have us go in Frankenstein the thing we have really bright quirky kids.

Why not have them reflect? Think about their thinking and then start to build something that makes sense for them, right?

So not all work brains work the same and we shouldn't expect them to try to function the same.

What I like to do is share this. I have a resource. I'm gonna screen share it for a moment and then I'm insecurely again gonna ask you if you can give me a thumbs up and let me know it's still working.

What I like to do is have our students go through 3 basic domains. I introduced this very basic framework, which is that most task management can be broken into 3 buckets.

Right? You have to capture ideas. You have to prioritize those ideas and then we have to take action on them.

Now they could be tasks, chores, content that we're dreaming of for a Minecraft build, you know, a YouTube channel or blog that we want to start.

And I find that when we get our kids to explore, can you all see this? Hopefully, yes.

We can get them as Marcy said earlier to buy in, right? If we get them to fantasize that what it is that they hope to do in this life.

And then we get them to realize that they are here and they can create a system that can step by step, help them get there.

Right? I wanna break the wall here for a moment and share something with you. I once read this interview with Kobe Bryant and they asked him about, you know, how he was so confident.

And you said, well, you see, I play. A third more basketball than everyone else. So what do you mean?

We said, all my competitors play 4 h in the morning, go home and have breakfast. Play another 4 h and then they're done.

I go back for a third 4. So if I've been playing basketball against someone who's 3 years in.

I've got an extra year and that compounds over 10 years, right? If I'm on the floor with someone who's got 9 years of basketball, I've been playing 3 years longer than that.

And that's a result of yes talent. Well, I don't know what just happened. I got really dark.

But also, It's a result of a system, right? A system that Kobe Bryant created and that's largely kind of what we're what we're talking about.

So let me go back to my slide and this is what I said I'm going to insecurely ask you if you can give me a thumbs up again and make sure we're good.

Okay, sweet. Thank you. So the idea I asked the kiddos, how can we reflect on how are you currently capturing ideas?

Have an idea in the middle of the night. Have a great one in the shower. A teacher tells you to do something, your parents ask you to do something, how are you writing that down?

You may not be. Okay, let's think about that. How are you then looking ahead? How are you weekly and monthly planning?

And then how are you perhaps daily planning? How are you then going from prioritizing? This is urgent.

This is important. This is down the road. How are you then making a daily plan? Then we go into a bunch of different research and we look at all these different systems, there's over 20, and then we start to draft notes about what we like and then we build them and the kids come up with a really cool stuff, so let me show you what this looks like.

I'm gonna show you some of my students examples because they're far cooler than I. So here's an example.

You can't maybe it's a little smaller than I anticipated, but is this an example of a student who reflected a bunch and he created these different systems?

He put together an Eisenhower matrix, President Eisenhower said famously that things that are important are often not urgent and vice versa, right?

We conflate the 2. I figure if he could lead the United States through World War 2 and then become a president, he probably has a good idea about productivity.

And then they combine the Con bond system, a workflow. How can I make sure that I don't, you know, a to do list is binary.

But what happens if you started something and it's not done? Where does it go? So having a gamified way to kind of move it along.

So here's a kid who made 2 different things. Like I'm really tactile. Here's another one that said he wanted to make his day.

A sequence he wants to give each thing a rating. This is important. This is how long I think it will take.

They're making time predictions. Here's another kid who's incredibly dyslexic and by the way 8 years old who made this and he said I think an algorithm so I said all right well if we're going to program this thing How would you do this? Right?

We looked at the getting things done book. Well, you have to input information and then decide is urgent yes or no and if it's urgent then we do this and you notice a little joke here you said like if it's urgent yes we can make it happen but also enough to call 9 1 one but if we don't call 9 1 one then we should do it so kind of just like a silly way to bring in personality. You know, this is another kid who actually created this. I think this is really funny.

He said there's only 2 things to do in life to send me memes and to make pies and the way it works is you can actually, he coded this.

Like, again, it's just, it's not using an agenda book. You can click something, right, and you can still send Sam Means or go home.

So it's a way to kind of capture tasks and then he's using this programming brain to nest tasks inside tasks and make it fun.

So it makes sense for his brain. This would give me anxiety, but that's not what it's about.

So what we're doing here is we're talking about personalizing this process, right? The the key is that when they build something they collect data they own it right it feels like it's an extension of them I learned Spanish playing Duolingo because I'm competitive.

Okay, I want to get the streaks going. I love that stuff. Can't homework be the same?

Can't we do it like don't break the chain method? Do students even know about that, right?

One of the reasons that Jerry Seinfeld is considered one of the greatest comedians of all time because he was obsessed with the chain.

So I'm gonna write a joke again, no matter how I feel and I want to see if I can go a year.

And then it was 10 years and then it's 20 years, right? A lot of the times we have these brilliant kiddos who would be really enticed by a lot of the systems if they only knew they existed.

And I feel like for us as a. Why wait until kids are in grad school to learn about things like Con Bonds and Eisenhower Matrixes and Pomodoro timers?

Why not give them the stuff? If they have these brilliant brains in these little bodies, why not give them really stimulating stuff at a young age and have them nerd out.

It's really fun. And once they own it in the Game of F, they'll want to improve it and tweak it and change it and own it.

And you can make it part of that meta-cognitive process Marci was talking about. Can they reflect on what's working and why is, you know.

Doing sticky notes not working because I'm actually not really tactile and I do much better in a Google Doc because the darn notes keep getting blown away or I'm a homeschooler.

I can do this on a whiteboard. I go to public school. A whiteboard is not working for me because they put my backpack and it gets erased.

All of these different steps. And can help and I think one of the key elements here is that We help a lot in the beginning.

And this is where I want to kind of circle back to where I started. Building off what Marcy said, if we think that, you know, my shit students should be able to just catch a bunch of ideas and organize them and prioritize them.

And get their homework done and what's wrong with them. It's not them. It's our expectations.

It's the overall academic world academia that we live in. And we just need to be really involved in the beginning and then slowly fade away.

Moon walk away ever so slightly. We're scaffolding, right? We're supporting our kids.

And may they may not even be aware that there are 3 buckets to consider, right? Oh, I have to capture ideas.

I like if any Harry Potter fans here, I always draw the example of Dumbledore has the pencil, right?

He's got more fuss in his head than he can keep. So he draws them out with his wand and he puts them into a little vat, right?

That's a quick capture system. He's capturing ideas that he has putting them into a system.

What are we doing as adults? Can we share what we do with our kids? And also understand that they're gonna do something different.

Let me slowly fade away after we give them the framework and collect data on it. And my number one tip, I want to just underscore this until I'm blue in the face.

It starts with the strengths, right? The inattentive, unorganized child. Might be, you know, absolutely kicking butt in some other place that you're not looking.

They might be running a Discord server and be incredibly organized. They may make sure that before they go to bed every night, they map out what they're doing in Minecraft the next day or they're working on a robot.

So again, parents, for everyone, I challenge you. To look and be a detective and be curious, where are the executive functions shining?

They may not happen in school because if you have super cool stuff going on in your head, school can be an absolute drag, right?

I often joke that someone like George Lucas at some point was probably interrupted by a teacher who was like, George, put away your doodles, right?

Like it's some point like this. Beautiful brains developing Star Wars. Which I absolutely love and someone was probably like, put your doodles away.

It's time for our multiplication tables, right? And, and so it's just so important to be curious, be detectives, figure out where are our kids already applying these skills and then how can we maybe scaffold that and then help them transfer that?

You're doing it here. How can we maybe do it here? Okay, so the skills and the strengths are the greatest differentiator and I have a a copy of this that I'm going to share with everyone.

I don't know if I'm supposed to do that in the chat. Yeah, okay. I have a copy of this.

I'll send this in the chat in a moment, but I'm not gonna talk and give you something because then Knowing executive functions, you won't pay attention anymore.

So I just want to wrap up everyone and just remind you of these 3 key ideas. Number one. It's incredibly important that we are helping our kidos to be aware.

I think number 2 is incredibly important that we are helping ourselves to adjust our expectations and number 3 I want to encourage you to let go of the how Let go of how your kids are.

Planning, organising and executing their tasks and start looking for places where they already are and build on that because it's probably happening.

We just maybe don't see it because we're looking in all the wrong places. So I hope that's helpful.

Again, I'll share this in the chat and and then I'm going to turn it over.

To Mason. So thank you so very much. Everyone for listening. And I hope that that was helpful.

Thank you, Sam. That was a really enthusiastic. It is a late in the day for me.

It's 9 30 where I am. So I may not have that much enthusiasm, but it's it's in my heart, I promise.

But Sam, that was great. Marci, I loved your introduction too. So, got to give compliments there.

I.

I probably work with mostly high school students and college students. And one of the things that I found is that.

When by the time I'm working with a student we have a lot of history with educators so a lot of times I'm trying to undo negative things around weaknesses and and challenge areas.

So,

I'm, I'm gonna bounce off of a lot of what Sam has already said. So I do apologize for the overlap, but I think it's very important to see that the end of the continuum is a place where if We haven't been working on these skills.

It's a place where we have to untangle a lot of the preconceptions that have been started to be internalized.

So I'm gonna talk about. EF and how it affects homework, task completion, and then of course project management.

Some general notes that I'll again, piggyback on my co presenters. We should definitely be aware of EF imbalances.

And this is, something that educators could be more aware of, but I definitely think parents that I've worked with were not.

Aware enough of the differences between themselves and their their children. And this causes so much tension and it and that tension overflows into the relationship of student and coach and it is it is one of the constant things of like okay I I get that you're really good at planning all of these vacations and all these events for your your 2 E learner but We need to make sure that we're arriving where they are and helping them build their skills up, right? Like So that imbalance creates a greater divide oftentimes between parent and 2 e-learner than we would expect to find, just between parent child many times.

I like to move from systems. Sam, great way to think about it, man. I like to move from systems, Sam, great way to think about it, man. I like to move from systems, which are pretty rigid.

They have lots of structure in them to more frameworks, which identify the major elements that are required. To get done in whatever those processes that we're trying to systemize or get into a framework.

I would also point to the fact that working on EF skills involves a cognitive load. Doing the things that require EF skills is a cognitive load and we should account for that as we're doing the instruction but also as we're supporting.

These could be due to EF deficiencies. Sometimes other concerns could be anxiety.

Could be learning differences. Could be many other things. But they're going to creep in and cause those EF deficiencies to.

Really become more cumbersome than normally. So these are some things that I want us to keep in mind as we kind of talk through these.

Often challenging and frustrating areas for folks who are struggling with EF and some aspects of their lives.

So the first one is homework. There are some pretty important things to consider with homework. We're having to use a lot of executive functioning skills.

And while I love the game of fire idea of homework, much, of the homework that my students are seeing sucks and probably doesn't have much of a purpose.

So it's busy work and the thing with really smart kids, they're really smart. So they know that it's just to check a box somewhere and they're not real motivated to do it, right?

So, there are some things that we have to do to kind of take care of ourselves through that process.

Some of the really big pieces that I like to help my students see. Is that we're looking at break schedule.

So Sam mentioned Pomodora. Love it. I actually use that as a professional myself. When I know I'm gonna be concentrating for like long periods of time, I've got to take those breaks.

Specifically, I have to take a certain kind of break. I, I actually get up away from my desk and walk around the block.

And I walk as fast as my old man legs will carry me. But the big deal is I get my heart rate moving because that active break kicks my brain.

Into work mode again, right? So I know myself well enough. Use those self regulation techniques. I've done the meta cognition about like I start to get tired of I sit here too long my mental energy starts to decrease but oftentimes when we're just beginning to learn ourselves and how to regulate our body and all of those sorts of things, we need to kind of have a script, right?

So. So, Pomodoro starts out on most of the timer websites at 25 5.

Sometimes that's not that's not it a student who is really resisting homework. It might be 10 min of work and 10 min of break.

And you know, there's all kinds of fun things that you can do for, for being active.

I had a student who was literally taking standing up and doing a dancing break with with headphones in.

I'm sure the music was loud because I could hear it through my zoom call. That they were dancing and, you know, doing all of that stuff.

And then you know they would get back to to what we were working on right so The the break schedule was really important, but but having fun and not being at work so don't you know log out of the math homework that you're working on and then log back into something on your computer and kind of stay in that work mode, right?

You get a breakup, break it up. It's gonna be an actual break. The other pieces I've noticed that.

Impulse control can be a bit challenging. To, you know, a student with 13 assignments.

That are late or behind. We get on the one that we really enjoy and we spend 8, 8 or 8 and a half hours on it.

And then we don't make any progress on any of the rest of them, right? So a lot of times making a plan to disperse that energy.

Is a really big piece of how can we get homework done? And it becomes this. This basis for you know removing all or nothing thinking like I've got to get all of this done right now in one setting.

And then we can kinda go, no, we can make progress on a bunch of different things, right?

I also this is a big one. Starting in about ninth or tenth grade students get really resistant to do anything that seems like it will interrupt.

Homework.

Never mind the fact that they're literally torturing themselves as they're moving through this homework process.

So one of the things that I do is I begin to.

Well, that was a weird message. Okay. One of the things I do is I try to get them to.

Work towards having things that are embedded inside of their working periods that make the working periods more pleasant.

Comfy socks. Favorite soft drink. Music you know a comfortable place to sit maybe they pet their dog after every math problem like whatever is gonna make that situation more tolerable, what we wanna do is raise it from torture to It's just mildly uncomfortable now, right?

So embedding those reward systems as a part of the process instead of waiting until it's over. Can kind of decrease the sort of resistance and things like that kind of hacking the brain a little bit there.

And then the other big one that I've seen here is

By intelligence also demands a high level of detail. And oftentimes. Instructors in school are not giving the right details.

And. The ability to BS. Is strong with a student who cannot see every little nook and cranny of whatever your assignment is, right?

So the the ability to go out on a limb is less, right? So as we look at what a teacher is doing.

We need to make sure that our 2 e-learners are getting what they actually need, which is in essence, a list of actionable items, right?

So the teacher actually changing up how they write those things or a support being able to help. Create that list of actionable items.

I actually saw this road in a 500, and 4 plan one time as simplified instructions. And I was like, nope, nope, those are actual instructions.

What you wrote was a story about the assignment, but yeah. Actionable items. So that's a big piece of the puzzle of like, what do I do?

What are the steps, right? And this is. These help with homework.

But, again, there are those overarching things of. If we have too much stress that day, if there's a fight with a parent, if we're so far behind that we're freaking out those all can can inhibit those things too but those are some of the quick things that have come up frequently for me.

Task completion. I think it's worth noting that homework and sort of more chore like activities are different and they're different.

In terms of how they're interpreted and then also how they're completed. But many of the skills that you use do translate.

But they're not necessarily direct one to one, right? So some of the some of the time getting started is a is a big deal.

Especially when parents are like, I've reminded them over and over and over and over and over again and they won't, they won't do anything.

And so one of the things is all of those reminders. Actually didn't get the individual any closer to doing the task.

They just sort of annoyed, they just sort of stressed. But they didn't get us any closer to doing the task.

So what are the steps that are between that 2 E? Learner and the task at hand. So let's say raking leaves.

I just supported a learner on on breaking leaves. The parents said rake the leaves in the yard and we of course had questions after we said this.

And then once we got all of our questions answered. We still didn't write leaves for 2 weeks, so the leaves continue to pile up.

They're sitting in the yard. Parents getting more and more frustrated. Finally, it comes to me, there you have coach.

And we start talking about it and you know we During our session, we kind of get everything rounded up.

We have the leaf bags and the rake and the gloves and next day coming to session, they didn't rate the leaves.

So at the end of session, we actually put our gloves on. We grab the leaf bags and the rake.

And I go, okay, now cool, use your elbow and close your computer and go rake lease and they're like Oh, oh yeah, okay.

And so they rate leaves that night. So getting close to the start as close as you can. Can kind of make you feel silly.

If you get ready to rake leaves and then you don't go rake leaves. So. Just kind of a, it's kind of a little.

Getting started is usually about taking all of the steps up to getting started that we ignored, right?

Again, I think with. Task completion, I'll use the example of raking leaves again.

Some of the questions that we needed answered were. Which leaves am I raking because their yard adjoins a neighbor's yard who also had leaves in it.

So where's the border? It's kind of harder to tell now that the leaves are down.

What am I going to do with the leaves afterwards? What if I can't finish in one day?

So all of these, so action steps and then kind of sectioning that out to address those questions. The big piece.

But here is. I think it was you, Sam. We have to adjust our thinking. What is the rationale for?

The task that you're asking them to do. If it is very simply, I want you to do this so I don't have to.

You gotta express that. Again, smart kids are smart. They're gonna figure it out. So having a rationale for the task is really important.

Also teaching them to compromise and be more flexible. And they're mental cognitive processing is a good opportunity here as well.

Right. And then I think we can learn the lessons from homework, things like taking a break while you're raking leaves, sure you can probably go for 6 h in a row but you're gonna probably be sore after your rake leaves for 6 h in a row.

Let's talk about breaks, right? So some of the lessons from homework also apply here.

Project management. Again, I'm gonna overlap with Sam a little bit here. But a lot of program.

Project project management I'm sorry a lot of project management is making sure you're ready to do the project and then that you've sort of scheduled yourself.

The prioritized time to do the project. This becomes really important. Probably in the tenth and eleventh grade when we're managing larger essay assignments, group projects, college essays.

And it becomes really important in college when you have to study all semester for a final exam, you have larger papers and you're managing these big, big tasks, right?

Also a lot of students who begin to get internships and these projects will, will just keep building.

So some of the big things that I've seen here are that we need to actually think about the time that we're gonna prioritize this.

Often times there's this. I don't want to do it right now, so I'll do it later and that later can can be a really long time away.

And then it becomes progression and then the due dates coming right up. So. Prioritizing by planning.

And and you can like splash things on a big calendar you can move from the month to the week to the day to the work period.

I'll kind of give you an example of that. If I'm going to do a major assignment and I know that it has.

10 parts to it. I've already broken it up and done 10 parts to it and I have a month to do it instead of waiting and doing you know 2 parts per day the last week I break that up and I give each week an equal part right so I'm throwing about 3 tasks per week.

To get to get it done early, right? And then I'm looking at that. I only wanna work for 5 days of that week.

So as I break it down, those those 3 tasks are turning into about 3 quarters of one a day or so.

And I can actually put that on my calendar. I can estimate how much it is and I can change my plan as we go through, but again, working through that placement on a specific day on a specific work period.

Right. So another thing that I've noticed is that by the time I'm working with them, usually in high school or college.

We have some complicated. Tracking systems and organization systems that don't really work for them but they're spending a lot of work and a lot of time doing them, they don't really work.

So a lot of times I want to see like really simple things in whatever their progress tracker and their program.

Or their project management. I want to see like really simple things that I'm like, okay, cool.

I don't know how close to done you are on this. How close to finish are you? And you know, we come up with like a percentage and like how do I know it's 12% versus 60% and we'll talk very specifically about that list of tasks that you have for the assignment.

Waiting each one and then being able to figure out how much of it is done. This is a big deal.

I've seen high school instructors get lost in in the sort of preparation. That a 2, learner was doing and they were complimenting all along the way.

And it's the night before the the paper and they haven't started they have . 40 pages of notes prep but they haven't written one sentence and the the high school instructor is of course writing these glowing praises of like this is such great stuff, this is such great stuff.

But the student actually hasn't started on the assignment, not one sends, not an outline, just all of these preparatory notes that don't actually help them write the paper.

They've literally been stalling. With doing things that they really, really loved. But not really getting any closer, not using those strengths.

To get to that finished product. So one of the things with the simple tractor tracker is we look to detect that before we get to the night before the the thing is due right the other piece of that is I like for them to track the time that they're spending on certain things.

Oftentimes there's this unawareness of how much time I'm spending on this versus that.

And it's really easy to spend so much time on those things that you enjoy and not give any time to the things that you just know you need to get done.

So dispersing that a little bit so that you can spend as much time as you want. To on those tasks that you like because you know you've already.

Locked down those things that she didn't really do, really want to do.

Planning and chunking are huge when you're looking at project management, there's multiple ways that you can track that, but what I've found is that to, learners need their own way. They, it needs to be customized.

It's just simply no way to say, here's a rigid system, it'll work for you.

Let's go. It has to be customizable. So that's the big, piece there is.

Get we can have the bare bones, but be ready for those to get reorganized too, right?

But at the end someone in their support structure. Especially early on, needs to make sure that it's actually working for them, right?

And then the other piece. I've noticed that And I have no idea this may be related to COVID.

It may not be, but I've noticed that Some 2 E learners really organized with physical Space super disorganized with digital space.

Vice versa and then. Some are kind of disorganized in both places. But the the organization doesn't necessarily follow from physical to digital.

Those don't necessarily match up. So finding their strength of whether it's physical or digital can often be a way to counterbalance whatever is going on.

So. An instructor who's requiring this digital organization. And they're already ready to go physically.

Showing them how to translate that into that digital space can often mean the difference. In having to relearn all of these skills, right?

Just showing that sort of translation.

But I would reiterate that I think most of EF instruction and most of EF support really has to be customized and individualized, especially for 2 E learners.

It's just Smart kids are smart you cannot cannot give them a rigid system and it and it worked for everyone.

It just doesn't happen

So that's actually a really great jumping off point for us in terms of some of the questions that have come in.

Because I think 1 one thing is both you and Sam have talked about.

Let's see, like somehow Mason, I ended up picking you out of the spotlight and you back in.

Have talked about how these solutions need to be customizable for 2 learners and say you did provide the 3 tier task manager.

But I'm just curious because that sounds kind of that's probably gonna sound kind of hard to a lot of parents, that's probably going to sound kind of hard to a lot of parents, right?

So like as a parent, like are there starting point templates, right? So like as a parent, like are there starting point templates or a way to like give kids ideas for a way to like give kids ideas for how to create their own system or are there like questions ideas for how to create their own system or are there like give kids ideas for how to create their own system or are there like questions, guiding questions that parents can use to start helping their own system or are there like questions, guiding questions that parents can use to start helping their own system or are there like questions, guiding questions that parents can use to start helping their kids down this path in particular if They can't work with an executive function coach or like as in the case of my daughter the child refuses to work with the coaching coach or like as in the case of my daughter, the child refuses to work with the coach.

So yes, I mean. There are a great many systems out there and I I usually ask kids and and in the little resource that I share there's an article and some of the first questions are kind of what kind of learner are you and even though some people say like there isn't a you know a visual or an abstract, right, that these things don't exist.

It gets kids thinking, right? So what, what is the way in which you're going to best?

Write down 10 things if I ask you to. Would it make sense to type, to dictate, to write, etc.?

And then, you know, what kind of commitment are you looking at? That's a great, I think, starting point.

And as Mason was saying, I think sometimes the system becomes the obstacle. It can become a just like the example you gave of like, 40 pages enough.

It can be incredibly cathartic to like update a spreadsheet and color code it and and give everything like a a tag right But at the end of the day, nothing is getting done.

And it's sort of false. Progress and so I think we we can certainly borrow from the systems that exist.

There's tons of books out there. I think at the end of the day, I find just explaining that there are 3 things that need to happen.

Asking the kid like before even looking at literature what's the most obvious way for you to do these things how can you create some kind of net?

Here are some tools. How can you take what's in the net, it out and look at?

That did from business pieces and then how can we? Try to get them done. I don't know if that totally answers the question, but.

It depends on grade level too. So if you're working with somebody in elementary. Usually the system is already there and you're looking for the modifications of whatever that elementary teacher is using as that system.

So you're looking for the modification. Okay, like this doesn't work for you. Okay, let's let's brainstorm on something else to do right here, but even at that age you're gonna need buy-in.

You're not gonna be able to just go, here, here's the thing. If that was gonna work, it would work when the teacher handed it to him, right?

So examining what the teacher is sending home, what kind of organizational system they're using. I know I was working with a fifth grader once and they had these cubbies and it became very obvious that the Cubbie for my client was very different than everybody else's.

And he knew that and it was pissing him off. So like the organizational system. Is already assigned at that age as we transition through middle school.

There there's a removal of that system. But it's replaced by something else that they're supposed to do on their own.

We really don't get the opportunity to develop our own systems until we get into high school and usually it's a little bit later in high school.

Even notes are dictated and all of the things are kind of. System systemized and and and kind of so it's always adaptations on the thing that is being assigned unless somehow you get an accommodation that you don't have to use those things or you happen to be lucky enough to be enrolled in a school that lets you, you know, choose your own path.

In It's in college where you. Really get to come completely off script and do your own thing, right?

So. But I would I would actually recommend playing around with apps. So there are apps for time management, there are apps for calendar management, there are apps for task management and task list playing with those apps and different softwares and websites can give them a lot of ideas.

Like this does this thing and this does that thing and it also Sam, I love I love that you're pointing out that gamification because I think that's a real key.

It also gives them a way to kind of survey a lot of different things. While it's also pretty fun.

That would be my recommendation is the apps. So.

It's always another excuse to play with apps. So. Thank you guys. So another question that came in is our struggle, our son struggles not knowing how much time something will actually take so he gets stuck when I ask him to plan out how much time he'll need to complete the project over the week.

He'll say he'll figure it out over time and overestimate for now, but then he gets stuck in the loop knowing how long something will take so he doesn't know.

But to put down for a block of work. My own son gets so overwhelmed because he looks at task and thinks it's gonna take the rest of my night.

I can't do this. So I think this, this, how much time will things take advice?

Who wants to go for?

Oh, I'll, jump in there if that's okay. One of the things I do with.

Clients to get them starting along the path of estimating. I have them, tell me.

2 things, one that they like to do and one that they don't like to do, sort of a chore or something that they do at home.

Walking the dog they like unloading the dishwasher they don't or something like that.

We try and land on 2 things and what I have them do is while they're still in my office.

On the note card. On one side, it's the thing they like to do backside the thing they don't.

I have them estimate. While they're here with me. How long they think it's going to take.

And then between that session and the next time. They time themselves at home doing the thing. And we do that a number of times.

So they start to get a sense of time. It's not unusual for kids who struggle with executive function or to a students in general.

To really struggle with the whole concept of time. And so they need some practice with it and it needs to be more explicit than then maybe we think it does.

Because for a lot of kids, they kind of figure it out as time goes on but for those that don't they need some explicit practice with it so that's what I would suggest.

One other one that I like to, and again, a lot of the stuff that I am sharing is full disclosure is a little bit more for older students like middle one thing that I quite like and again for like kind of gamifying and sort of nerding out is like a fudge ratio as a concept of you know what's the amount of time that you perceive.

You know, numerator over the amount of time things actually take. So can you use that? Like that's actually I've done so many like little, you know, take this executive function skill test and I can tell you from those tests and from my real life experience.

That is my greatest weakness. And so I've kind of adopted the fudge ratio. It's like, you know, what is the, I think something's gonna take 30 min, it's actually going to take, you know, plus 50, 45, right?

And then so what we can do is we can kind of again quantify kind of data collect, maybe do it for like a day or 2 or 3 or it could be like a whole family exercise.

You're just sort of saying, what do you think? And then what did it take? And you can write it in 2 different colors or you can do it different ways.

And then using, different things like time boxing or Pomodoros like Mason was talking about you know can you try to squeeze a task? I like a lot of theory.

I love to introduce theory like Parkinson's law, you know, the idea the tasks expand to fit the time allotted.

So if I tell you right me a paper, you know, it could take you 10 min if I give you 10 min or it could take you 10 weeks.

It could grow in complexity and stress. And so sharing different. Tools can be helpful and I say it's kind of like a hat.

I just want you to try it on a word for a day and then you can bnd it if you don't like it or keep it if you do.

And sometimes that can be things like fudge ratios and timers and boxes and sometimes it's it's not and we just Try other things.

I also do that and I like to do not only like how long does something take you to do, but I'll actually get them to think of like crazy stuff.

That their their mom or dad does or stuff that their teachers do and guess how long that's gonna take.

And then.

Actually measure how long it takes. So the parents will write me and go, why is my kid following me around with a stopwatch?

And like literally if you get good at guessing how long things take that you see very often that's the same as guessing how long it's gonna take you to do things.

And it but it kind of removes that pressure of can I get it done in that amount of time if we're having those those sorts of anxieties about it and then I move into stuff like how long does it take you to brush your teeth and they come back and they're like I brush my teeth in 12 s that's not a good thing man like let's talk about how long you should actually brush your teeth right so there's, pieces and new ones, but yeah, I love that, sort of gamification thing there.

I like doing I never thought about Marcy I never thought about doing that while we're actually sharing the space and sharing the time.

That's that's super powerful.

The other thing that the things that I have them pick does for them is something they like and something that they don't.

They talk about the difference in the the experience of the passage of time. When it's something you don't like to do, it goes, it takes a whole lot longer.

And when you love it, it's much shorter even if the actual time on the clock is longer.

So we talk about the abstract. Idea of time. Which is not something that.

You know, a lot of us. Think about and kids really need that told to them explicitly and have that experience.

If they don't intuitively already have it.

Thanks. So we've got another question from the audience and It's about how we. How our parents should evaluate executive function coaches.

So she writes or he or she writes, we've not had good success finding local in-person EF coaches to support their toy children because they're generally missing that ability to work with the smart and the fast.

And focus on the strengths and then even though they might say that they do that when a parent interviews them.

So do you have any Magical questions that they, know parents should ask to help screen when they're looking at EF coaches to figure out, you know, are they really going to support the 2 e

I do. The the parent isn't the screener. The 2 a learner is you've got to get that introductory session.

And and the parent has to be able to watch that like are they interacting with your child are they producing more in that sort of initial interview?

Then you're able to do on your own, right? If they can't get your kid to work with them.

Then the chances are everything that they're saying that you like to hear is just for you. You've got to let them, you've got to.

They've got to show you that they can work with the child, right?

You're not the real screen. That you got to realize that. So.

I would agree, but also would add that you might as a parent just say, Here's something about my child and what they struggle with.

Please tell me what you would do. And in their description of how. They would support your students. You're probably likely to hear whether they fully understand a to a profile.

Whether they understand a bright mind and how they would support that. And I think that would be revealed and how they would describe to you how they're going to support your child's unique profile with the particular area in which your child is struggling.

So maybe just ask them to describe it in that way.

I can.

Yeah.

We, we had a couple of questions come in about how sensory processing. Might impact self-regulation and other executive function skills or about how that since reprocessing might just, you know, affect executive function skills directly.

I mean, I know I definitely see. When my daughter is more anxious because of sensory issues, her executive function skills just like.

She's kind of a practical manager typically, but. She's under any kind of stress, just like it just disappears, but curious what you all have seen and then how you recommend people be aware of that and support their children.

Well, I would recommend them understanding their child sensory profile and really doing all they can to.

Support the the regulation of the sensory system because as you pointed out Kelly, if that is not.

In check. They cognitive resources are just gonna go toward trying to maintain homeostasis and trying to really fend off the offensive sensory input.

And they won't be able to learn. So regulation comes before learning. Safety comes before learning and that sensory input.

Is in some cases. Equivalent to, you know, seeing a tiger chasing you.

Your brain doesn't know the difference. And so they need to make sure that the sensory regulation.

Is in place before there's an expectation of engagement and learning.

I think setting is everything in so many environments and we spend so many times forgetting that especially you know building on what Marci was saying that we can you know, as an adult, like I can beat myself up for not getting things done or I can remove myself.

From the incredibly distracting idea that I think I can work in a cafe. That's just not my reality, right?

That does not work for me. So I think that being curious as Marcia was saying, starting with an abundant awareness of sensory.

Processing and and and just kind of starting to be detectives, collect data, what are we noticing?

Do we notice that every time, you know, our kiddos near the door or in a loud place or in a bright place with harsh lights or in a scratchy outfit that you know everything falls by the wayside.

We may not have seen it before but if we start to maybe journal or reflect a little bit about different incidents that come up.

We might start to spot trends. And also looping in you know professionals and other people so I think yeah if you're not aware of that be curious if that is something at play because it is and if you are aware of sensory processing as much you said don't forget that that is a thing because it's like Masl's hierarchy right it's like if we lose the safety and security then we're not going to prioritize and initiate and do all these other things that we want our kids to do.

Let's say there's components of planning and self-advocacy in this as well.

So planning or rehearsing, like what are we gonna do when this overwhelm gets there?

Like having that answer already queued up so that that rehearsed answer and that rehearsed solution is a big deal but also planning.

You know, as you plan your day out knowing that those things are in these places can really be helpful in managing.

Those places where EF skills just break all the way down but I think like at the end of the day that it's gonna happen and knowing what to do and how to advocate for yourself and how to kind of get out of that situation.

As smoothly as possible. It's, it's. Right.

Great answers. We have a 2 sided coin. We have 2 different questions on each side of the coin, which I'm sure you've heard seen both of these.

One person asks, is there any good tips on working flexibly? My daughter often gets stuck starting on a project because she has a huge idea is common for 2 E people, maybe they have 100 ideas for what she wants the ultimate outcome of the project to be and it takes her a long time and late nights to accept she probably needs to have more realistic expectations at the outset of the project.

Then you've got the kid and my kid has been both of these at different times who just wants to take the shortcut.

What is the bare minimum thing I can do and say I'm done. So I'm combining those 2 opposite things together.

Well, I guess my first reaction to. Taking the shortcut is Is there anything wrong with that?

If they still get it done?

It's efficiency.

So I, I would. Just throw that out there to think about it because I think a lot of bright kids.

Are thinking about efficiency. What's the quickest way? To get to the end. So.

That's the first one that came to my mind. So you guys have. A response to the other side go for it.

I absolutely agree with that. If the shortcut is in line with their goal. Why would you push for more?

I mean, like if the shortcut is hurting someone or like it's not in line with their success, then okay, let's talk about it.

But as long as it's As long as it's the minimum to get their success, then yeah, let's do that.

Let's rock that out. It's done, right? The other side is managing those those lofty goals.

Okay.

Feels like dream killing. I hate doing it. But at some point, like you're talking about the timeline that you have, right?

And do we have time to do this? And the earlier that that recognition can happen the better. And it really is.

Almost a war of attrition. Like, I've had that conversation with enough to me learners.

Okay, let's talk about how long you spent on it this time. Okay. And then we will come back to that same data the next time and let's talk about how long you're gonna spend on it this time and then you come back to it and it literally has to be something that they realize.

I don't think there's a shortcut to saying don't do it this time.

It just has to be that collected data over time. Where they can see, okay, I have these lofty ideas.

I need to really make sure it's my passion. It's my thing if I'm gonna do it, not just some random history project that I won't care about.

Yeah, jump in quickly on the 2 ends. On the shortcut and I think that's applied intelligence, right?

Like if we have really bright quick kids, they're gonna look for shortcuts and ways to gamify it.

I think you know, kudos to them, very much align with everyone. On the other end, I think that when it comes to

Like productivity and completion and as you said Mason it can feel like dream killing I go a lot to like entrepreneurship there's a concept in entrepreneurship called lean manufacturing they can we do like a minimum viable product so I'll say okay you have just drafted the dream product right we need we want to get that to market but let's first collect data let's get your minimum viable product your MVP let's get that to market and see how it does. We can check our times, we can check our delivery, we can take everything.

And if we can get that there, then we can iterate. Get data and make a better version, which I love that you're thinking of.

And you can kind of like reverse engineer from the basic version. And still maybe preserve the dream and maybe communicate with the teacher.

Hey, you know, they want to take this and make this way bigger and if you have an awesome education setting you maybe the teacher will forego other things and the student can spend the whole year on that maybe not maybe it's really rigid and they're like nope get it in it's done we're just checking boxes and We kind of involve them in that process too.

Alright, thanks guys. Okay, our next one asks, do you have suggestions for ways to get a nervous kid who wants to seem and feel normal?

To accept their EF coaching.

Just a quick one. It's really cliche, but just like pointing out how many historical people require support, get this right like.

I love Renzuli, I think everybody that goes through bridges ends up loving Renzuli and Renzuli once said, Dr.

Joseph and Zuli once said, no one cares about Einstein's ability. To paint or Pablo Picasso's ability.

To do complex math. Right, so why are we so involved with everyone being able to do the same things?

I think helping our kids realize that Maybe meeting with the professional might help them develop their painting or develop their math in their wheelhouse.

Right, and that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, that the best, the brightest. Have coaches have tutors have experts who help them, you know, it's the hero's journey.

Right, there's the mentor that helps the hero cross the threshold and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that.

In fact, There's something incredibly beautiful and it doesn't have to feel like. It's a fixed thing.

But it goes back to the prior question. Can we find someone who helps them develop their strengths? Really sees their strength so they don't feel like they're being fixed because at the end of the day if you spend the whole day struggling at school and you sit down with someone who's trying to fix you.

It just feels like more of the bad stuff so we can find someone that can help. I think develop that affect in the positive feelings and it doesn't feel maybe as big of a mountain more of a molehill.

And then I've also, I had pretty good rapport with the student by the time it came up, so I'm not sure how it would have worked if it had come up, so I'm not sure how it would have worked if it had come up.

So I'm not sure how it would have worked if it had come up in the first few sessions.

But the student that really struggled with this, you know, kinda He inadvertently said that he had an EF coach.

To his friends and was like, what's that? You're weird. And so when we started talking about it, it was kind of in the terms of.

Do you think your friends do their homework all by themselves? No, their parents help them with it. Oh, okay.

Did you learn how to tie your shoes all by yourself? Did and and so like I walked through a lot of things that you learned from other people and that learning happens in different spaces and we were, he actually like had this big epiphany because some of his friends got basketball lessons but still weren't as good as he was.

And he was like, oh, so like they get help with basketball. Because they're not as good as me and I'm like.

Okay, yep, that's it. You got it. So this, idea that an EF coach is different from a lot of other, assistance or teaching that's happening.

It is sort of this. It's a feeling of strangeness instead of an actual strangeness, right?

So that idea. The epiphany is gonna happen differently for different people but I think talking to them genuinely as a person instead of talking down to them or trying to inspire them or trying to you know all those different things talking to them genuinely as a person is

Is the best approach usually but you know sometimes you do have to break through some barriers so inspiring them isn't a bad idea if you need to break through those barriers, right?

Marci, I don't know if you had anything you underway in or I can move on to the next question.

Well, I guess I would just kind of add and I think Sam and Basin both touched on it.

It's I sort of compare it to an athletic coach or any other or a music teacher. The same sort of thing if they have any other.

Skills that they're developing, you know, they take singing lessons. Maybe, you know, basketball, as you said, Mason.

Or any other kind of coaching. So that would be the only thing I would add is that I have compared it that way previously and it's been better received.

I'm gonna ask the next one, which is from. Our colleague from Bridges, Austina Devonte.

Who says, have any of you had any success modifying an assignment to make it more interesting or relevant for the learner so that they have more of a genuine motivation to do the task or project.

She's thinking about the William Dodson in cup strategy. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but just we talk a lot about getting kids to use these.

Tools to do things they don't want to do but are there other times when you are turning that on its head or helping them modify it a little bit to make it more motivational.

Honestly, I Typically, empathize with them and say, yeah. This is this really sucks.

I can see why you don't want to do it. It's not fun. But at the same time in order to get.

Through the class through school to your next end goal. That whole imagine your future exercise that I talked about in order to get to that long-term goal it's something that you have to get through and sort of teaching them a little bit of grit and resilience in the face of things that they really don't want to do.

Is also a life skill. So I guess it depends really on what the actual. You know, assignment is and.

How distasteful it is to the student, but I genuine generally try and empathize with them because I don't want to make it seem like, oh, it's not so bad because they perceive it as.

We use as our anchor.

So I will take myself out of the equation, but I have practiced the presentation that a student was going to pitch to their history teacher where they wanted to modify the assignment.

So we practice those self-advocacy pieces, we organized the pitch and we talked about how we would still need the outcomes of the assessments.

And the objectives of the assignment, but we completely changed the the assignment from what was listed, which was this sort of formulaic fill in all of these blanks overlapping redundancies that we're just driving them nuts and we pitched the assignment we haven't heard back yet about it but Yeah, I'll take myself out of it.

I didn't do it. They're working on it. So I don't know what the what the final word on that was though.

I want to see that pitch my son needs it.

I think, yeah, all the self-advocates is great and getting students to think like, what's the value to others, right?

Like how can you you're selling this to your teacher, right? So what are the key parts of an argument? I love that.

That's a great lesson because it's real and it's, you know, time management.

Let's get this in early because we won't actually have a chance. I think what Austina and Hi, by the way, I don't know you were here.

Hi. I, the, incap, I forget all of them interest. Novel. I don't remember the other ones.

Urgent. I think those are the really some of the best ways. And then I, you know, like differentiation 100, and one, right?

Is can we? Flex on the CCP. Can we can we get the teacher to flex on the content, the process, the product?

Right, so if they're they're hell bent on writing is really important can we get them to do it from a different perspective or if they can let go of how they gets done they just want to show that the kid understands the book.

So a lot of the times I will Maybe just reach out to the teacher if it's appropriate and ask, hey, is this?

Like is it so important that it's done this way or what are you trying to accomplish for this?

You know, in a way that's not offensive. And, and then maybe or have the kid pitch as Mason was saying.

But I think focusing on those domains, yeah, content product process, what are they most focused on?

What's their big goal? And then can we get them to flex on the areas that they are not as interested in or not as relevant for them so that the kid can be more.

The acronym.

I'm sorry, I'm clicking between every screen. I love those and I'm gonna ask my son's gonna we'll have him do a pitch.

So any tips to support a child who loses and forgets belongings often. How can I get my child to be more organized?

Bet you've never heard that one before.

And they talked about organized at home at school. In between, I think it would be different depending on the context, at least that's how I would approach it.

So if it's at home. And The parent wants to make sure that the dirty clothes go in the hamper and not get shoved under the bed and the The books go on the bookshelf and you know, dirty dishes don't remain on the desk and all those sorts of things.

I am in the big advocate of using whiteboards and I would Make a list on a whiteboard of the common things.

That get either misplaced or forgotten. And then have a child develop a habit of checking the whiteboard.

Either every morning or every evening, whatever works for the family, go through those. Do I have any dirty clothes on the floor?

Do I have any dirty dishes in my room? That sort of thing. So, and I like the whiteboard because you can change it as needed.

It's in kind of an ongoing process. And so that's something to do for the home.

For school. There could be a similar kind of a checklist. But maybe it's on a piece of paper and it's in one particular pocket of the backpack and at the end of the day they check that and make sure that they have their lunchbox and they have their sweatshirt that they came to school with and they have their PE clothes on Friday so they can get washed or whatever it is. So making lists and helping them develop a habit of checking through those is one way.

Yeah, I like I love lists. I think that I like the idea of building that into a daily review.

Like I'm a big person like leveraging technology. So if you have a kid who leaves stuff out a lot and it's actually like a problem like it's computer chargers and phones and tat like it's really expensive you know can we have just lean into it can we just get like a tracker like an apple air tag or one of the other things out there.

Because let's be realistic, right? We can want them to do all of these things. And we talked before about what Marci was saying about that prefrontal cortex.

Like it may just not they may just have incredibly beautiful busy worlds that are internal and they may not just pay attention to that stuff.

That may not happen for some time because when we unpack it we're asking for a lot right you need to think ahead and stop what you're doing and you know halt a task that's really captivating and you something like stuff a computer in your bag.

So I like that. I love lists having a daily like cool like warm up and cool down list. So before we go off to school, we and we recheck it every day and then when we are getting ready to leave school if there's someone at school that can help.

It can be like a cool down list. Like we need to put the computer back in the backpack and we need to get the charger and so forth.

Also can we make their lives easier like can there just be a computer charger that lives at school? Right?

Can we can we kind of rig the game a little bit so it's a little easier? And finally, I love what I call like trip over you systems.

So if your goal is to get your kiddo to clean their room before bed, can you put like a bag on top of their pillow that they have to put like 3 things in, like they cannot get in the bed without physically moving the thing.

If anyone's read James Clear's have atomic habits, it's like the idea of like stacking things on top of each other, right?

Like if you want to be better about meditating you could say I hope I meditate this year in 2,024 or you could have a sticking out on your coffee machine that says like well coffee percolates meditate for 1 min you know it's more actionable so can you start to stack things and kind of set it up that way.

I think that can be really helpful.

Just wanna attack on what Sam was saying and just as a bigger picture idea for parents. Your child has underdeveloped executive function skills or actually even if they don't necessarily based on developmental.

Progress. Parents are. Child's external executive function system. Until they can take on those.

Skills themselves. And so. If you just keep Scaffolding them. Until they say, I got this, go away.

They're gonna have encoded it deeply enough to take it on themselves. And for some students that's going to be.

All the way to eighth grade. For others, it's going to be all the way to twelfth grade.

And for others, it's going to be all the way through college. But the adults around them are literally their executive system because they may not internally have that yet.

It's still developing. So if we can kind of conceptually think about it that way. Then maybe we.

We might have expectations that are more in line with the individual child's development. Rather than what we think they should be doing at any one particular age.

I know you got booted off of Zoom. It looked like, I don't know if you wanted to weigh and this is our last question is just what do you do to help a child be organized, and this is our last question, is just what do you do to help a child be organized when they're always losing, what do you do to help a child be organized when they're always losing things everywhere and forgetting to do things.

The most common place I've seen this is in the morning. And the morning really starts the evening before.

So planning those routines and getting checklists and things to help organize those spaces until it is routine until it is habit, especially if there are a lot of things that are going into leaving in the morning.

I know. You could be catching a bus you could be getting a ride with a friend you could be could be taking a lunch you could be taking medications there's a lot of things that could be happening in these spaces and a lot of times I'm working with students who are not getting enough sleep.

So they're not fully functioning in the morning. So systemizing as much of that as possible.

Almost robot mode is absolutely 100% huge and The other big piece was I had a student who was going all over their house picking up things that they need for the day.

And I was like, why don't you put that all next to your backpack. Just write just all of it right next and they were like.

That made so much of a difference. And, and it is usually just these simple little tweaks in the morning and before they go to bed that can make those big differences what they remember what they forget.

All that sort of stuff. So fix the morning routine is my big recommendation there.

And if necessary, have someone come to your house if you can. You have the means. And do a home evaluation about how to systematize things to make everyone's life easier in the morning.

I wanna thank you all so much. There are a bunch more questions. But I want to be respectful of everyone's time.

It's already after 8 30 and I know Mason probably needs to get to bed and organize his list for the morning.

So you guys this was so full of such very practical tips and inspiration that it can happen and that we have to have patience.

Oh, Mace is already done overachiever. So thank you so much for your expertise and advice and we posted in the chat so that people can get a hold of you and we will be sharing this recording with everyone who signed up.

So thank you so much again for attending and for being here you guys. You're amazing. Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Bye everyone. Good night.

Good night