Executive Function Strategies Blog

Think of a time when you tried to offer helpful advice to your child about the way they study. How did that go? If your kid is like most, you probably saw eye-rolling and heard heavy sighs of frustration in response to your useful tips. Why on earth does your kid refuse to take advantage of your years of experience and just listen to your sage advice about preparing for that test?

The “real” world. When exactly did we somehow all agree to identify the non-academic world as some separate place and time in which things will finally become real? It’s time to quash this concept because, for students, school is the real world. The skills they need to get through school happen to be highly relevant to the skills they’ll need to tackle in the world beyond textbooks, pop quizzes, and report cards.

“Please stop graduating.” I remember reading this line quite vividly in an otherwise comical card from my younger brother. It was both a sarcastic comment - he’d suffered through my high school, undergraduate, graduate and second graduate school graduations - and a serious one.  He was sick and tired of being outdone academically.  

Unless we happen to be hosting all the relatives for the weekend, I imagine that all of us have time to look up from our computers and greet our family members when they walk 

through the door and take a moment to check in. Of course, parents often complain that kids won’t talk about their day anyway. Parents offer the following familiar scenario: