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If cooking with ADHD feels like a daily battle, you’re not alone. For me, it’s one of the most stres...
We often think about improving our physical health—eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep—but...
Children with ADHD often face challenges in school, from staying focused in class to managing their ...
Many educators know that behavior is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the individual stu...
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22 ADHD Coping Skills That You Need to Learn
In a world that rewards peak productivity and efficiency, living with ADHD can feel like you’re swimming upstream against a powerful current. No matter how hard you try to fight the current with willpower alone, you end up downstream from where you wanted to go, exhausted and discouraged from your failed efforts. Despite decades of research showing that ADHD is a very...
How To Parent A Child With ADHD: Helpful Tips For Parents
It’s often said that there’s nothing that can fully prepare you for becoming a parent. Although we may never know precisely who said that quote originally, I strongly suspect that they had at least one kid with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). Having once been one of the 6.1 million kids and teens with ADHD, I know firsthand how difficult it is to grow u...
How Does ADHD in Children Impact Academic Performance?
As a classroom teacher and school principal, I have worked with thousands of students over the course of my career. Many students with whom I’ve worked struggle with the daily challenges of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts one’s ability to control impulses, organize thoughts and belongings, manage time, and ca...
8 Things You Need to Know About ADHD After a Diagnosis
Editor's note: This article has been reviewed and verified for accuracy by Theresa Cerulli, MD., a nationally certified neuropsychiatrist with over 20 years of expertise in diagnosing and treating ADHD in children and adults. It can be overwhelming when you learn that you or a loved one has ADHD, whether they're an adult or a child. There’s so much information availab...
What Should You Treat First: ADHD or Mental Health Challenges?
Over the last few years, you may have noticed that there are more conversations happening around mental health, and for good reason. Whether it's primarily due to pandemic shifts, the prevalence of technology, or a combination of factors, more people than ever are feeling anxious and depressed. Although the suffering caused by these challenges is difficult to adequate...
3 Strategies to Cope with Failure on the Path to Self-Improvement
As Executive Function coaches, we find that many of the people we work with feel disheartened or stressed when they fail to reach their self-improvement goals. After all, when you work to change your habits, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position where you're trusting that you are capable of making a change. This is why it's often so upsetting, particularly ...
A Day in the Life of a College Student with Executive Dysfunction
Picture this: You go from a 6:30am wake-ups 5 days a week to 10:00am ones. You go from six intense hours of learning to a 50-minute class followed by a three hour break. You go from abiding by a curfew to being able to stay up as late as you want. These are the kinds of transitions that college freshman eagerly look forward to (and make all of us wish we were still in...
Overwhelmed by College? Here's How to Regain Control
The college environment presents greater demands for self-management than most young adults have ever experienced. Add in the fallout from pandemic disruptions and we really do have a perfect storm of circumstances that have left many college students anxious, depressed, and overwhelmed. Why are college students struggling? Consider a few of these scenarios to give yo...
When Getting Started is Impossible: 5 Procrastination Hacks that Work
Of all the Executive Function-related challenges we experience, procrastination is most pervasive. Even the most successful students and adults can struggle to initiate a difficult or less-than-exciting task. So what can they do about it? Plenty, it turns out. This week, we’ll be sharing the 5 best strategies to conquer procrastination, all of which have been tested b...
What College Students Struggle with Most (and what you can do to help)
When you’re struggling with self-management, every day can feel like an uphill battle. Not knowing how to manage time, effort, or emotions - or to organize and plan in order to meet demands, is an exhausting way to live. And although it can feel isolating for those who are struggling, these problems are far more common than most of us might think.
A Survival Kit for the New Year: Our 21 Best Tips from 2021
Somehow, we’ve reached the final chapter of 2021. It's safe to say that this year was one giant learning experience as we all have tried to adapt to a world that was unrecognizable just two years ago. We've been lucky to have so many brilliant individuals share their wisdom with our community and contribute to this year of learning. Between the dozens of teachers, the...
How to Deal with Executive Dysfunction: Tips from Executive Function Coaches
Exhausted by the School Year (already)? How to Get Back on Track
The school year that seemed brand new just one month ago is now entering the “routine” phase that tends to make the weeks and months fly by. But before we’re transported to the June finish line, our kids have a lot of school to get through - and now that we’re past the cautious optimism of the first few weeks, you may have noticed that your student’s bright-eyed optim...
Back to Campus: Insights for Parents' Top 5 College Transition Worries
Transitioning to college is always difficult, but for the semester ahead, students and parents alike are more anxious than ever about the upcoming fall. During a year filled with upheaval and uncertainty, college life shifted dramatically, eliminating the traditional college experience many students had anticipated. But this fall, students are likely looking at a more...
Helping Your Child Find Fun in Summer Reading
Though summer hopefully has been a time for rest, relaxation, and reset, it’s also perhaps had some required summer reading for your student (whether they’ve started it yet or not...) This type of homework can feel like the antithesis of fun, especially during summer vacation, and your student may feel like putting it off until the last minute. This is often the momen...
Awkward Adolescence: 4 Tips to Help Your Student Master Self-Care
For most of us, simply thinking about our early teen years can quickly produce cringe-worthy memories of awkward social interactions, questionable fashion choices, and hormonal chaos - all of which feel best left in the corners of our middle school locker. But what can often be equally uncomfortable is the tough landscape of actually parenting adolescent kids. Accordi...
Blank Page Panic? 4 Simple Steps to Write an Essay that Impresses
Does your child start to panic when they get an essay assignment? As coaches, we see this frequently. Writing can be hard for students, especially when they have challenges in Executive Function areas like organization, planning, and task initiation. Here's a useful guide to help your student overcome that hesitation and write a paper they (and their teachers) can fee...
When Perfectionism Paralyzes: 4 Steps to (Actually) Get Writing Done
Put yourself in your student's shoes: You’ve got an essay due in a week, and perhaps you’re not particularly looking forward to it. You set up your study space, turn on your computer, open a blank document, curl your fingers over your keyboard, and…nothing. You’ve got nothing.
Beyond Rhymes: How Poetry Can Teach Executive Function Skills
If the spoken-word poetry of youth poet Amanda Gorman at Joe Biden’s inauguration made you think, “Hmm, poetry seems a bit more interesting that I thought,” you’re in luck. April is National Poetry Month, and the fact is that not only can poetry be a fun thing to read, write, or hear, it’s also great at promoting Executive Function (EF) skills. In this week's piece, w...
Why You Should Stop Rescuing Your Partner (and what to do instead)
“If I don’t wash the towels, then make up the lunches, then go get ice for the cooler, and pack the car up tonight, we’ll never get out the door and to the beach tomorrow.” This is just the sort of thing my friend Dylan would say as he prepares for Cape Cod traffic in the summer. Usually, I reply with something like: “Could Geoff help you with some of that?” Dylan lau...
How to Keep Your Kids On Track (Without Being a Helicopter Parent)
Picture this - you just finished your second Zoom meeting of the day. Your daughter is in the kitchen attending school remotely. She is a bright kid, but tends to be get distracted and off track during her remote classes. You walk into the kitchen to refill your coffee, but really your objective is to check in on her. As you walk in, she frantically closes a couple ta...
Inside a Master's Mind: How Chess Builds Executive Function Skills
The ongoing pandemic has provided infinite opportunities for discovering (or rediscovering) new activities to keep us occupied in a COVID world: the joy of baking banana bread, learning a new instrument, decluttering long-neglected areas of our homes - and, more recently, the mental workout of playing chess. Thanks to the popular Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit,” c...
Executive Functioning Isn’t Just Kid Stuff: A New Resource for Adults
Mia, a curious 6th grader who was into dinosaurs and art class more than anything else, had been working with me for about two months when she finally settled on her organizational system: Triceratops stickers on her math folder, Ankylosaurus stickers on the English folder, and Velociraptor stickers for the social studies folder. Science and art -- her favorite subjec...
Activating Teens with a Summer Project to Build Executive Functioning
This turbulent school year has finally reached its end! But now that summer is here, many of you may be shifting into this new season with some concerns: What will my teen do if they’re not returning to camp? Will my teen be screen-bound for hours on end? Will my teen sleep all day and stay up all night, messing with their circadian rhythm? All of this upcoming downti...
Distracted & Unproductive: New Survey Shows Work From Home Challenges
Working from home (WFH) inherently has its challenges. Although I imagine many of us are now finding that out (thanks, COVID-19), each of our experiences during this transition likely differs considerably depending on the unique situations we’re finding ourselves in. For some of you, that could mean suddenly having kids at home while you work, while for others it may ...
5 Survival Tips for Working From Home With Kids
Being a working parent is a difficult job - especially when you have a 4th grade son with ADHD and a 4-year old daughter with more stamina than the Energizer Bunny. Now with COVID-19 forcing many parents to work from home, the fragile balance between our career responsibilities and duties as parents has been destabilized, transforming one difficult job into two seemin...
How to Stay Focused When Working From Home
In my last blog post I talked about how to get into a working mindset when you’ve got to work from home. For some of you, getting into the mindset was just the first hurdle. You might now be wondering: How do I keep that working mindset and how to stay focused when working from home?
Overcoming the Challenges of ADHD: A Success Story
At the age of 30, Daniel Koh's achievements would pluck a chord of envy in professionals twice his age. The highlights of Daniel’s résumé include stints as Chief of Staff to Arianna Huffington, General Manager of HuffPost Live, and advisor to beloved former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. The press has noted his ascent; Daniel has been featured in the “30 under 30” list b...
7 Skills For Life: A Developmental Psychologist's Perspective
This week, we feature an interview with Susan Engel, a developmental psychologist and director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College (read her complete bio below). Her article, 7 Things Every Kid Should Master, was recently published in the Boston Globe Magazine. While Ms. Engel agrees that measuring a child's academic progress is important, she suggests that...
Medication Strategies for Students with ADHD
Allow me to set the scene: Alison - a high school student with ADHD - is working on a 5-paragraph essay for a book she was less than thrilled to read. She’s finished the book, we’ve got a solid grasp of the prompt, and now she’s stuck. Casually, I ask her, “How does this book compare to something else you’ve read before?” This leads her to launch into a full-out discu...
Attention Soccer Moms! Focus on Staying Focused
We recently had a chance to chat with Dean M. Hebert, an applied sports psychology coaching professional and owner of Mindset for Performance LLC, an individual coaching and consulting company. He works with teams, athletes, parents, and coaches teaching the mental game of peak performance.
Mommy Brain: From Good Executive Functioning To Goo
According to the urban dictionary, “mommy brain” is “the phenomenon known to mothers where their brains become useless piles of goo after being around their children for too long.” In my world, the useless pile of goo is what remains of my once perfect ability to plan and prioritize, manage my time, sustain attention, and regulate my emotions. In short, my children ha...
An Executive Function Coaching Success Story
"If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it." - Michael Jordan
Pick up the PACE: Positive Attitude, Consistent Effort
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Edison
What are Executive Function skills?
Executive Function Skills are a set of cognitive skills that help individuals plan ahead, stay organized, regulate thoughts and behaviors, stay focused, and achieve their goals. Each of these skills can be taught, learned, and applied at any stage of life.
- Time Management
- Maintained Focus
- Task Initiation
- Stress Management
- Organization
- Prioritization
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