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Check out our variety of resources and tips on Executive Function support, ADHD, mental health, and more

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By Hannah Choi | Feb 15, 2024

How Much Screen Time is Too Much? 4 Expert Screen Use Tips for Parents

From phones and iPads to laptops and TVs, screens are just about everywhere in modern life. While it's impossible to completely avoid them, it's important to find a healthy balance of screen use to avoid addiction and negative effects on our mental health, work, and relationships. I wanted to explore this topic in more depth, so I reached out to Dr. Cliff Sussman, a p...

By Hannah Choi | Feb 15, 2024
By Hannah Choi | Jun 22, 2023

Time Management 101: 4 Steps to Find Time for What Matters Most

You'll find a million time management tips and strategies with a simple Google search. In today's blog post, we’ll save you some time and share a four-step system that will help you find and develop time management strategies that will last a lifetime. Here are the four steps: Figure out your relationship with time Learn how to prioritize Implement tools and strategie...

By Hannah Choi | Jun 22, 2023
By Hannah Choi | Oct 20, 2022

4 Coping Skills Teens Need to Build Lifelong Resilience

By the time the semester hits mid-October, college and high-school students are really starting to get into the thick of the school year's demands. And although getting through all the deadlines successfully may seem most important, it's also critical to remember that burnout is real and emotional well-being is often more important than checking off another item on th...

By Hannah Choi | Oct 20, 2022

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...

By Isy Mekler | Aug 18, 2021

Freshman Social Jitters? 5 Tips to Making Friends in College

As August nears its end and a new school year waits around the corner, a certain segment of students who recently graduated high school are coming to the same realization that I did three years ago: starting college is scary! Moving to a new place without parents for the first time where you know few people (if any) is understandably intimidating. Add on a host of new...

By Isy Mekler | Aug 18, 2021
By Sean Potts | Aug 05, 2021

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...

By Sean Potts | Aug 05, 2021
By Lindsey Weishar | May 27, 2021

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...

By Sara Sullivan | May 12, 2021

4 Tips for The High School to College Transition

Editor's note: This week, we invited Sara Sullivan, a rising senior at Brown University, to share her experience transitioning to college, and the advice that she wished she had known in high school.

By Michael Delman | Apr 14, 2021

Support for Adults: New Ebook from an Executive Function Expert

I was cruising down the Massachusetts Turnpike, breeze in my hair, with just enough time to arrive a little early for my meeting, when I realized that I was supposed to be heading east, not west. My arrival would not be five minutes early; it would be ten minutes late due to this nasty thing called physics. How did this happen to me, an Executive Function coach? (And,...

By Brittany Peterson | Mar 24, 2021

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...

Answers to Parents' 5 Biggest Questions (From Student Success Experts)

One benefit of having over 400 coaches at Beyond BookSmart is the ability to gather insights from such a wide field of Executive Function experts. And given how chaotic this past academic year has been, our coaches have become accustomed to answering some of the most pressing concerns that parents have about their kids’ learning. In this week’s article, two of our coa...

By Jackie Hebert | Dec 30, 2021

1000 Calls in 2020: Insights from Frontline Executive Function Support

Moments of quiet and calm - and eruptions of tears and frustration. At night, a tangle of worried thoughts instead of restful sleep. While this could describe daily life for many of us in 2020, our team has been particularly attuned to the new challenges that parents and professionals have been facing this year. How have we kept our fingers on the pulse? During the pa...

By Diana Horan | Oct 16, 2020

6 Simple Motivation Hacks for a More Productive Life

“Not another meal to prepare!” “I wish I was motivated to work-out.” “I just didn’t have the time to do that today." Sound familiar? You're certainly not alone - getting motivated isn't always easy. We all have those days where the routines get stale and even getting out of bed becomes an arduous task. In this article, I'm going to share my six simple motivating hacks...

By Diana Horan | Oct 16, 2020
By Diana Horan | Sep 30, 2020

The Best 15-Minute Strategy for Overwhelmed Parents

Ah, the pandemic... Overnight, many of us parents became a nurse, a short-order cook, a guidance counselor, a teacher, and - most of all - a multitasking pro. From worried, sleepless nights to tired workdays, life as a parent in 2020 has been a challenge with seemingly no end in sight. How can we as parents possibly help our children when we are feeling totally overwh...

By Diana Horan | Sep 30, 2020
By Brittany Peterson | Sep 16, 2020

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...

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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