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How Education for kids with Executive Function challenges can be REIMAGINED with ENGAGEMENT

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Parents & teachers, a MASSIVE problem that is being brought to the surface right now, evidenced by how challenging At Home Learning is going, is the LACK OF ENGAGEMENT IN EDUCATION. Here I rant a bit as I break this KEY concept down fo you to help shed some light on how we might better serve kids.

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How abstract STRESSES your child (and how to help them make it CONCRETE for better executive function)

Please CLICK above to share. Parents and teachers, kids with executive function challenges are overwhelmed when expectations are too abstract. This causes students to resist taking the actions they need to be taking. If we really want to help them, we need to teach them strategies for making things concrete, and we need to do this with compassion, patience, and persistence. This video breaks it down.
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Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Parents, what’s up? This sub4sub Pro. Common executive function coach in Colorado. And I have a struggling students navigate this thing called education so they can have a great life and for all students for students who struggle with executive function or any students really I want to talk about this concept of abstract vs. Concrete. So a lot of our students a lot of the students that I work with students who struggle with executive function students who struggle with misting is incomplete slate work their grades are falling they don’t want to use planners are disorganized yada yada these kids that you’re worried about, you know, if they don’t figure this stuff out or they can be able to create the future that we want them to have for these students. I want to talk about abstract vs. Concrete. So for these students the biggest problem with these students is that they are resistant to him what I mean by resistance is that they read this doing the things that they need to do that will help set them up have a great future that will help them plant the seeds so that they can have a future with the unlimited choices possibilities freedom. Have a future to live the type of Life. They want to live and the biggest problem that they have is resistant. So right now they’re in school and they’re learning these things and they have to do these things and jump through these hoops in school and do their school work and learn as much as they can and get as much as they can out of education, but they are resistant. They say things like I don’t want to I don’t feel like it this is stupid. Why do I have to do this? When am I ever going to use this? I’ll do it later. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it in 5 minutes. I promise I’ll do it in study hall tomorrow. Seriously. I have time in school tomorrow. I have time in class tomorrow. I’m going to get it done or I promise I’ll get it away already turned it in. I know I turned it and I’m sure I remember turning it in by the teacher must have lost it, you know, so we hear all these sorts of resistance messages this procrastination these excuses if the resistance is something where these students aren’t doing the things that they need to do to be planting. The seeds are resisting taking action that that should be taken. So any program that doesn’t deal with this resistance is missing the point. You have to help students learn to work with this. It’s not a matter of just shaming them or punishing them rewarding them are all these things that we do that don’t work. We have to help them learn to work with us. I want to talk about abstract and concrete. I know it’s taking me a couple minutes just to build to this point, but I want to talk about abstract and concrete as related to this because it’s a really great underlying principle that you can use to help students with these sorts of resistance is so essentially you have the abstract and concrete abstract in the body feels uncomfortable and what I mean by this is when they have to do something when there is an expectation that they do school work or some responsibility. And it’s abstract to them as to how that thing is going to be done that feels uncomfortable. It feels overwhelming. It feels big. They don’t know where to start and so they are going to be more resistant. They’re going to be looking for ways to avoid that physical feeling that they’re experiencing of of anxiety with what they’re expected to do. I’ll break this down a little bit more in just a moment now on the other side concrete, it may still be a little bit stressful but it way reduces the amount of stress that these students have experienced when we make the expectations very concrete or when they learn on their own how to make their their responsibilities more concrete. So I’m going to break this down even more So abstract means that the amount of time and energy that is required to do a task when it feels abstract. It feels overwhelming. Let me give you a very concrete example of what might be abstract. Here’s here’s abstract world in the students brain. I got a bunch of homework tonight. That’s abstract. What is the homework? How long will it take where you going to do it? What are you going to need? What materials are you going to need? Are you going to need resources to find extra answers for that how much time and energy exactly. Is it going to take to do homework? That’s a very vague vague is abstract vague is stressful vague is I don’t even want to think about it. I’m going to procrastinate I’m going to put it off as long as I possibly can because I don’t even know where to start. Where do you start while you start by making it as concrete as possible? So let’s go into concrete world. Let’s say that you have a student who is a very strong student are very strong executive function school. It comes pretty easily to them. They think I have homework tonight if the you ask them why you mean they can say, oh, well, I got the maths and Science and language arts for math. I got to do worksheet. It’s going to take me about 20-25 minutes for language arts. I got to write a draft of an essay. It’s going to be to take me about an hour and 15 minutes. And for the other thing I got to do this that and the other I’m going to need this. I’m going to do it in my bedroom or the kitchen table. I’m going to have all my materials ready. I’m going to make a checklist and I’ll get it done that’s very concrete. They know where they’re going to do it. They know how they’re going to do it whether going to need how long it’s going to take to have a very realistic understanding of this because because they have pretty good executive function. They have been practicing in the honing the skills for years, even though it hasn’t been for manga sale. They’ve been practicing this stuff for years, even though it hasn’t been formally taught to them how to develop executive function. They have been working on it. And then you got your kiddo who’s in the abstract were on there. Like I just got a bunch of stuff to do my backpack some matters. I don’t have it in a planter. I don’t know how long it’s going to take in. That’s overwhelming. So you the parent the teacher the professional me the coach whoever is working with them. We now have an opera many opportunities to help them reduce their Stress and Anxiety about the vagueness in the abstract nest in the overwhelming nature of the abstract. We have now have an opportunity to help them learn skills and strategies for making a concrete going to say that part again to we are helping them develop skills and strategies. It’s not just a matter of willingness. They just need to try harder. Give me more motivated. They just need to be more disciplined that is not the point. They don’t have the skills. So now we have an opportunity to help scaffold from where they’re at. The skills. It is not a shame thing. It’s not that they just need to try harder. We have to help Empower them with the skills and strategies. Are they going to be resistant to us helping them? Of course, of course, they have been practicing resistance for many years in excuses and inaction and procrastination. They’ve been working very hard at practicing those skills over the years. Okay. So yes, this is not easy for you or I or any of us were trying to help these kids, but that’s what we’re doing. We are one of the things that we’re doing is we are helping these kids learn how to take things that feel abstract vague overwhelming big like to have a mountain to climb and they don’t even know where to start and we help them learn how what strategies do we use to Chum? It down to make it into manageable bite-size pieces that they can actually start to take action on where we can take the nervous system Stacy. This is pretty manageable. Can you do this part? Can you do this part and then we build that threshold over the months and years that we’re working with them. So, I hope that that would help with you the concept of abstract and concrete. Oh, if you like this video on your watch me on YouTube go ahead and give it a thumbs up and feel free to leave a comment. Where do you see abstract and concrete stop increasing Strasser decreasing stress? What Creative Solutions? Have you come up with how does this manifest with the kids that you are working with whether your parent or teacher another professional? dot-com I’ll go ahead and sign up for my side if you want freebies and updates for me. I do them every single week at least and go and leave a comment or like And subscribe on YouTube if you want have a fantastic day. I will see you next time.

At Home Learning Tips With A Pro

Please CLICK above to share Parents, here I chat with Debbie Reber about 7 best practices for home learning and in the second half, we answer many of the viewer’s questions. This was originally a FB live webinar on 4/22/20.

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Bloom’s Taxonomy

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Parents, understanding a bit about Bloom’s Taxonomy can be a tremendous help when you are trying to help your child with Executive Function challenges. It can help inspire you to help your child THINK AT HIGHER LEVELS! We want kids to develop “critical thinking skills” so they can better navigate life. This vides breaks down some pertinent ideas for you.

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Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up, parents? This is another video in my series that I’m doing for you during this time (COVID-19) when there’s a lot of at-home learning. I’m trying to teach you some of my favorite concepts for me when I was a teacher for 12 years. I have a Master’s in gifted and talented education. I totally get this stuff and there are a lot of things that teachers have learned where we can give you a few nuggets as you’re navigating the time so that you can do so in a better way with your child so they get more out of their education, regardless of what’s going on in the world.

We want to be planting seeds for a kid’s future and one of the one really cool models that many teachers use, that I’m in love with, is this model called Bloom’s Taxonomy. I will tell you why this matters, using one of my favorite things, guitar. So the idea of Bloom’s Taxonomy in the way that I think it’s really important is that you know our kids have all of these educational experiences where they have a teacher, they have a class, they have assignments, they have homework, they have classwork. They have all of these educational experiences that are supposed to deliver a result. However, unfortunately, oftentimes our students are just trying to get things done. Get it over with. Cross it off the list. They want you or the teacher to get off their back. They just want to be done with it because they’re not engaged in the learning experience for the sake of learning. The older they get, sometimes the harder it is jumping through hoops, taking tests, writing papers, and doing busy work.

The reason why Bloom’s Taxonomy is so valuable and how you might be able to apply this is that a lot of what goes on in school particularly in the middle and high school years is lower-level work. A lot of times it’s not high-level thinking. What Bloom’s shows is higher levels of thinking and what we want for our kids when they graduate high school or college. We want our kids to be critical thinkers. We want them to know how to think. We want them to know how to learn, how to be called an autonomous learner. Credit to George Bette, an autonomous learner is somebody who knows how to create their own learning experience through schooling. Ideally, they’re going to come out of schooling knowing how to think and knowing how to learn and knowing how to grow.

So Bloom’s Taxonomy again. A lot of times things that happened in education, such as worksheets, answer the questions at the end of the chapter, finish this assignment. These are very task-oriented and they’re often very low-level. They don’t require a lot of deep thinking, critical thinking learning. They’re not actually really tapping into that, again, because just trying to cross it off the list and get it done. Putting in as little effort into it as humanly possible. This is very factual. This is a knowledge base, just the knowledge. With the guitar, I know the guitar at a very low level. I’ve never played the guitar before and I bet I know what it is. That low-level next is understanding. I might be able to explain a little bit about why I understand what a guitar is to somebody who doesn’t know.

Next is to be able to apply it so we know what it is. We understand what it is. Now, we can apply the knowledge at a little bit higher level. A lot of schools have a little bit of application in the learning experiences. That is where we are using what we understand in new ways.

And then the next one is to be able to analyze now. This is starting good higher-level stuff. This is where we can more deeply start to look at whatever it is. We can analyze the guitar in different ways.

Next is to evaluate and create. These are very very very high-level. So to evaluate, to really be able to evaluate this guitar, I might be able to say “Oh well, these pickups are called humbuckers and these are a specific type of humbuckers that give a specific sound, these four knobs, there’s two-volume in two-tone knobs, and if you turn the volume you’ll be able to get tonal variations and you know how to use this will switch to pick up so that you can use the pickups in different ways. This fretboard is made of a certain type of wood and the neck is a certain tonal quality. This is a certain type of way. They get certain tonal qualities these I’m tuning pegs right here trying to point to the right place these tuning pegs right here are a certain type of tuning pegs that have certain advantages.”  I can evaluate at a very high level. I could speak to people about this stuff who are at that level with me for hours week; geek out on this stuff and finally create. Could I build my own guitar? Could I write my own songs? Could I write my own solo and play in the middle of a song with the band? Could I create that very very very high level? Now we have students evaluating at a high level and creating at a high level in the different content areas.

Oftentimes teachers have to cover for curriculum and they’re in a race from day one of school to cover everything in the textbook or the standards are the common core. They often don’t have the time or resources to be able to really deliver on all that stuff in a lot of times, less is more. So anyhow, you parents are going through this time at home whether or not your child is engaged in the classes that they’re in, you still want them to be getting into evaluation and creation at higher-level thinking into critical thinking in their lives as much as possible, even if you’re learning to cook a new dish together. When you guys are evaluating and creating this, they’re learning stuff, or whatever the case may be, whether guys are reading a book together, etcetera, but you want them in that higher-level thought really.

I’m going to leave you with one of the easiest ways to get your child into higher-level thought. Basically look at what they are already highly interested in, passionate about, curious about, where the strengths are, where their own personal gifts are, and their talents, wherever they already are at a higher level because they are curious and that’s what matters to them. It’s purposeful to them and they like it, and they’re interested to take those and help them get deeper with those areas. They’re giving you the hint right there. You can tell what they’re interested in. How can you creatively take those things and help deepen the thinking around that so that they can continue to practice higher-level which will impact their future and empower them to have more choices possibilities than their life?

My name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach in Colorado and help struggling students navigate this thing called education so that they can have a great life. If you like what I’m doing please give me a thumbs-up on YouTube. Please help me grow my following and get my word out to more people and please subscribe to my website and share with as many people as you can. Share it like crazy so that we can help as many kids as possible. Be safe, be well, be kind to each other. I hope you have a little bit of peace in your heart today and some joy, and I’ll see you soon. Take care.

Do I get depressed? Executive Function challenges can weigh me down

Please CLICK above to share. Students, many people get depressed, but there is a lot of misunderstanding, and unfortunately, many people do not have good strategies for working through depression. In this video, I tell you my story and give you real strategies that can help.
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

So recently one of my students asked me if I get depressed. The answer to that is, yes, I get depressed, I’ll explain that to you in a minute. What’s up, my name is Seth with SethPerler.com, I’m an executive function coach in Colorado and I help struggling students navigate this thing called school so that they can have a great life. As far as depression is concerned, there are forms of depression that are chronic, which are ongoing, they are debilitating to someone’s life. There are periods of depression that happen very naturally when something very tragic or sad happens in our life, for example, the death of someone who’s close to us or if we move to a new city/state and the grief of the changing nature of the relationships with our friends from where we’re moving from. There are all sorts of types of situations that will cause a very normal depression or sadness, there will be a period of time you’ll experience that. And then there’s sort of this periodic thing where it can just happen more randomly. So what happens to me nowadays, now I’ve gone through different phases of my life, I’ve gone through phases where I’m chronically depressed and I was just depressed all of the time. I’ve gone through phases, obviously, like everybody, where it’s situational when somebody passed away or I moved to a new city, there are little waves (or big waves) of this thing called depression. And then there has been what I have now. What I experience now is probably from anywhere from two to four days a month where I have a day I’m just off. I’m just depressed. I feel, for me, it feels very flat, very empty, very just, nothing seems to be going right. Everything seems to be wrong. It feels heavy and uncomfortable, and exhausting. I’ll have no motivation or energy to do anything. So that’s kind of how mine is. On those days I practice being reflective or introspective or metacognitive, getting to know myself, being self-aware. I practice mindfulness, being conscious about what’s going on, which is the thoughts that go on silently that can often drive. When it’s subconscious, it can drive us in ways that we don’t want, you know. But what happens to me since I am a more reflective person since I’m willing to look inside me since I’m willing to deal with my own stuff. Everybody has stuff. Your parents have stuff, your grandparents have stuff, your aunts and uncles have stuff, your cousins have stuff, your teachers have stuff, your heroes, your favorite people that you admire in the whole world have stuff. We’ve all got junk. But I’m someone who deals with my junk; I work on my junk. I work on myself, I work on being the better person. We’ve all got stuff, you know, skeletons in the closet, we’ve all got some junk that has to be cleared out, thrown away, and worked on. So for me, because of that effectiveness that I work on and practice, and I’ve done this for many many years, because of that when every two to four days a month it does hit me, and I wake up in the morning and I’m just like, “Oh, it’s one of those days.” Sometimes I slog through it because I have something to get done and I’m able to do it but it may not be my best. Making a videos on a day like that will never happen. I cannot make videos on a day when I’m like that. But other stuff I can do. I can work with people live when I’ve made commitments, I follow-through on my appointments on those days, stuff like that. You know, I might just want to get out of the house, like going to the grocery store to get something, just to get out of the house or something. But I know that on those days, sometimes I just need to do what’s called self-compassion, or self-care. And that’s where I can say to myself, “Okay Seth, you’re human, you’re not perfect, you’re having an off day, just chill.” It’s okay if you’re not productive, it’s okay if you don’t get done the things that you think you’re supposed to get done. The world isn’t going to stop because you didn’t follow through with what your plan was. I can be okay with me, “You know what, just chill.” It’s okay to just have no energy for a day, whatever. Now I know that some of you watching this may have worse experiences than that. You may be someone that has it chronically all the time or you’re maybe someone who hardly ever has it. Or maybe it’s just the situations that knock you off center, difficulties in life. Either way, yes, I do get it. I used to have it a lot. If you have it a lot, we don’t have to stay in that state, but it’s hard work. It’s not just taking medication and all of a sudden things are magically done with the magic pill. That’s not how life works no matter who you are. We have to work on ourselves. We gotta look deep. We gotta have the courage within, and it can be scary to look within, I know that. I used to be afraid that if I looked inside, I might really find out that the truth is that I really am a worthless lazy failure that doesn’t deserve anything. After doing the work on myself I’ve found that “Oh, that’s not true at all. Actually, I have a lot to offer people.” So doing the work on yourself will help you if you’re having it chronically you can minimize it, start overcoming it, start having more. It’s not going to be perfect, but you can have more good days. The good periods, the good times during the day where you have some peace of mind and you’re not feeling depressed can get longer and longer and longer and you can string more days together that are good days. That’s hard work but it’s doable. If you’re working with this you’re not the only one that’s gone through this. People all over, many many many many many people you know are going through this. For a lot of us, it’s part of life, and it’s okay. The second we start fighting it and say, “You know what, okay, so I don’t feel great right now. What am I going to do about it? How am I going to work myself out of it? How am I going to live in the solution rather than live in the problem?” There’s a saying that goes: don’t judge your insides by other people’s outsides. We live in this Instagram world where everybody acts like they’ve got it together. But if you have been following any Instagramers or Youtubers or any of those people that have massive channels, what you’ll notice is most of them get to a point where they’re going to do some videos about the real side. The real reality of their life. They’re going to come clean with people and say, “Yeah, I struggle with this, I struggle with that. It’s not all perfect, not like how it looks so awesome on Instagram. Everything looks great, but it’s not.” They’re just normal people. That’s all any of us are. Any of us. Nobody, nobody that you know, not a single person that you know is beyond human. Nobody is above human. We’re all just having a human experience. So, the answer is yes, I do get depressed. The way it works for me like I said, is two to four days a month. I have tools to work with it, to let it do it’s, and to let it pass. It doesn’t get a grip on me more, I’m not afraid of it more, it doesn’t hold me back anymore. It’ll hold me back that day but it doesn’t get me into a downward spiral anymore, it doesn’t control me anymore or anything like that. It’s something that I work hard on and that work has paid off. On the bright side, let’s say that I have a month where I have two days where I’m just depressed and not myself. On the bright side, I have 28 days or so when I’m pretty good. I’ve got a pretty good life. I’m getting decent sleep, I’m eating decent food, I’m getting exercise, I have good people in my life, I do work that I like, I have time for self-care, I have time to be social. I have a pretty good life. So 28 days out of the month I got it pretty good and I’m very grateful for that. I’ve done a lot of work on practicing gratitude and focusing on those things. Anyhow, that is my reality as far as the depression stuff in my life and who that’s concerned and how it shows up. Either way, I hope that you have a fantastic day filled with gratitude with some good people in your life, some good exercise, some good food, some good rest, some good self-care, some positivity. And that’s about it. I’ll see ya in the next one. Please CLICK below to share.

Most Important Thing I did to Change My Life with Executive Function challenges

Students, life is hard sometimes. We all want to change in certain areas of life, but change often takes a lot of time and energy. But it is DEFINITELY possible!!!! This video will teach you my #1 most important key to change so you can apply these ideas to your life.
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the top to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video transcript:

Hey students. Middle, high school, and college students. What’s up? It’s me Seth with SethPerler.com. I’m an executive function coach based out of Boulder, Colorado and I help struggling students navigate to think of education so you can have an awesome life. In this video, I’m going to tell you about the most important thing I ever did to change my life. I was a struggling student, I was disorganized, I did not manage time well, I did not use planners, I got a bunch of zeros, missings, late work, incompletes. I ended up almost failing out of high school. I skated by, I did well on tests, but I never did any homework. Luckily I was able to do okay on tests without having to put in much effort. I skated by, I almost failed out of high school. Guess what? I go to college not because I want to but because my parents wanted me to. I thought I was supposed to go to college. I go to college on probation because my grades were so bad, literally. I ended up failing out of college. Went to another college, a community college this time, I dropped out of that before failing out because I was about to fail out. And I generally felt like, one thing I talked about is that I was the most irresponsible person I know. I felt like a failure. I felt lazy. I felt like I couldn’t do anything with my life. The most important thing I ever did to change my life was to choose me. I chose Seth. I chose to care about myself. I chose to not believe the stories in my head that I was a lazy failure and that I couldn’t do anything and that I messed everything up. I chose to change my stories that weren’t working for me. And even though it was hard to change, I chose me. I said, “you know what I do care about me. I am going to do whatever I have to do to figure out life.” In choosing me, the number one most important thing I did in choosing me, the number one most important thing that changed my life when I chose myself, was to learn to ask for help. I made a decision that I was worth it. That asking for help wasn’t bad. That I needed help and that it was okay. And I come to find out now that the most successful people in the world that I admire, they get help from others. So I learned to ask for help. That’s the number one most important thing I’ve ever done, probably to this day, the most important thing I still do. I get help from others in various ways, but I’m not ashamed of it anymore. Because I learned to ask for help I learned to change my life. I got the help from other people to figure out how to change my life, and I got the help from other people to figure out how to live my dreams, how to go for my goals, how to create an awesome life myself. It’s not perfect, but I have a really good life nowadays. I get to live my passions, my dreams, my interests. I get to do things that matter to me, that give me purpose, that are important to me, and I didn’t know that I was possible but because I asked for help I got to create that. So I share this with you, and I hope that whatever challenges and struggles you’re having today, you have the humility and the wherewithal and the courage to be able to ask for help in your life, because you are absolutely positively worth it. You can absolutely do this. You can figure life out. You can create a fantastic future for yourself. And I believe that because I’ve seen it happen with tons of people since then. I’ve seen people change their whole lives and really feel good about who they are and the life that they’re living. The last thing I want to say is that we need you. The world needs you. We have very complicated problems and you, with all your challenges and all your quirks and all the interesting things that make you you, you have something very unique and very special to give to the world, the communities around you, the people around you, your friends or family. You have something very unique. Steve Jobs talked about making your dent in the universe. You have something to make your dent in the universe and we need you. We quite literally need you to shine, to develop into your best self, to develop your strengths. Not your weaknesses, your strengths, into being the best person you can possibly be to bring that very special thing you have to this planet. I hope you are well. I hope you have a fantastic day. My name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach out of Colorado. I’ll see you soon.

Students, HOW & WHY to take COVID-19 seriously: w/ Dr. Campbell

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Parents & teachers, please watch this BEFORE sharing with your teen. Here, Dr. John Campbell and I dive deep into the pandemic, but we are speaking TO teens, because there aren’t’ many people telling THEM what they need to know. Beware: This talk is very raw, straight talk, honest, open, and DIRECT. we hope it helps! ps-I have been following Dr. John Campbell’s amazing youtube for many weeks – this is where I have been getting my daily updates on the pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9I…

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To support my work, please CLICK below to share and please click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth

Unrealistic Perception of Time Needed to do Schoolwork, Executive Function Problem

Please CLICK above to share. One of the BIGGEST problems that hold back students who struggle with executive function is the inability to have a realistic perception of the time and energy needed to complete schoolwork and responsibilities. Students can absolutely get better at this if they have a good understanding of the problem and solutions. This video explores this topic in-depth to give you real insights you can apply.
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

A student’s what’s up? This is subsys upforit.com executive function coach in Colorado and I help struggling students navigate this thing called school so you can have an awesome life. I got a quick tip for you today students. If you tend to be the type of student who it has a lot of zeros missing is incomplete bladework, you know, you could be getting all A’s and B’s might you just tend to miss details you forget stuff you missed play stuff. You resist stop you procrastinate all those sorts of things and you find yourself swimming Upstream Midway through the semester trying to catch up on everything in this keeps happening over and over. I have a tip for you and that his best one of the biggest problems that I and my students who struggle with executive function work with one of the biggest problems we deal with is that we have listened very carefully. We have an unrealistic perception of the amount of time and energy it takes to do something. So for example, if I think oh I got at like I’m at my office right now. I got to drive over to the office. I got to be there by noon. I’ll leave at 10 till noon and then it’s 10 till noon and I’m just barely getting out of house or I’m just starting to leave so I still got to grab my keys. I still got to make sure I have my charger is in my computer and all this stuff and then I end up getting here at 10 after 12 cuz I missed calculated. I was I had an unrealistic perception of the amount of time and energy would take to get here in that case now for you guys for you students were watching this you hit in this there’s no shame in this. This is just the reality you have to be honest with yourself reality of the situation is you have an unrealistic perception of the amount of time and energy will take to clean your room. Sometimes you Even estimate in the wrong way meaning like you estimate in the direction where it would only Take 5 minutes and you think it would take like an hour be like a ton of energy was actually really easy. Sometimes we miss estimate that way but a lot of times when it comes to things like school when it comes to how long it’s going to take you to write a paper how long it’s going to take you to do your homework how long it’s going to take you to do a worksheet how long it’s going to take you to update your planner to reorganize your backpack to do the reading that you need to do for certain classes. We often underestimated in the so we’ll say oh, yeah that math in that only take me 5 minutes mean while it doesn’t get turned in a dog that 5 minutes never happened and it really win. If you did do it. It would have taken 20 minutes 30 minutes 40 minutes an hour. Or we say hell, yeah that paper I can write that paper in an hour in that paper really takes 6 to 12 hours. A lot of papers take about six to 12 hours to write a good solid High School paper. For example or oath that project will take me an hour while that project really takes you multiple days. There’s a lot of moving pieces you have to go to the store and get some things for your project Bubba blah. So we have an unrealistic amount at the perception of the amount of time and energy will take to do our homework to do our assignments due. Are we going to do our project to study for a test study for 5 minutes? That’s not studying. That’s not what settings about so point is is that you deserve this you deserve an awesome life. And in order for you to have an awesome life now and build an awesome future for yourself or your choices possibilities unlimited possibilities have a fantastic Life For Freedom full of being able to do things that matter to you think you’re passionate about in order for you to build that type of Life yourself. You have to ask you you have to get things done in Sometimes the things you have to get done or things you don’t feel like doing so you have to figure out how do I do things? I don’t feel like doing so my tip to you today in terms of the missed perception of time. Is this whatever you think however long you think something will take x 3 5 or 10. It depends on the situation get to know yourself be realistic with yourself, but generally speaking. I think that that’s a pretty good rule of thumb for most of my students x 3 5 or 10. So that’s a you think I owe this math assignments going to take me 5 minutes. But it really takes you 50 minutes almost an hour. Well, that’s x 10 5 * 10 is 50 minutes. So you’re thinking so it’ll probably take me 5 minutes. Then you say whoa Sad X 3 5 or 10. Maybe it’ll take me 15 minutes. Maybe if i x 5 it’ll take me 25 minutes or if I X 3 it’ll take me 15 minutes, you know part of doing for example of five minute math Simon something you think’s going to last 5 minutes. It might take you 5 minutes to just get settled get your paper out get your pencil sharpened read over the assignment is read the directions look over a both sides of the sheet what you may not even do so to really even start my take you 5 or 10 minutes just to get started. So you have to and that’s part of homework. I like you can count that in your time. You can be like, yeah. I just been spending 5 or 10 minutes on it already and I haven’t even done number one, but yourself be like, okay, that’s part of what it takes to do this. You know, if you think this paper is only going to take me an hour to write this paper i x 3 5 or 10 the peppers probably realistically read a draft for you to plan it draft. It revised it edited and published it and print it and in do all the research and whatever and you think it’s going to take you an hour. It will probably might take you 3 hours might take you 5 hours might take you 10 hours, whatever. So the point is is that it doesn’t matter if it’s three 5 or 10. I’m just throwing out some numbers that seem to be pretty common. And so it doesn’t matter you don’t have time it. It doesn’t have to be exact but what you want to walk away from this video with right now is a tool in your pocket that will help your life. And the tool is just keep it simple. Whatever you think it’s going to be multiplied by three 5 or 10, whatever you think it’s going to be a x 3 Viper 1000. Well finish that thing in 5 days, well, it’s probably actually going to be 15 days to order. You know, even even your parents go through stuff like that. They miscalculate big thing sometimes so that that’s okay. You just pulled the point is you want to be realistic with yourself. You want to be honest with yourself. You want to set yourself up for Success not failure and planning realistically will help. All right. I hope you have a great day. My name is sepsis up pro.com insect a function Coach Colorado like this give it a thumbs up. Subscribe leave a little comment. Tell me what you think. What is your reality? Are you good at estimating the amount of time things takes? If not, if you’re very very very honest with yourself. How much longer does it actually take leave a comment below. Let us know let us know what you do to help yourself in those situations. See you soon.

How Adults can help HSPs (Highly Sensitive People and students)

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Parents and Teachers, when we have a good grasp on the needs of Highly Sensitive Students, we can be more helpful to them. This video explores the issue so you can feel more empowered.

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To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth


Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Teachers in this video. I want to talk about hsps or highly sensitive people highly sensitive kids particularly obviously and how we need to really be very mindful of the sensitivity of our kids as we are going through this time. I’m sure if you’re watching this you probably already are very sensitive, but I think that one of the things that I’ve noticed through I many many years of working with kids is that as adults we we can tend to take for granted how difficult or challenging sensitive things were when we were kids we can forget how hard certain things were as kids. We can forget how if we did something wrong or felt shamed by a parent or teacher in a tall dark scared by a bully or felt we can or or even being a teenager and and having a crush on someone or someone having crush on this week. We can forget or or somebody making fun of us. We can forget how sensitive in deeply those things impacted us as children as young people and for hsps for highly sensitive people for a lot of gifted and talented kids who tend to be very sensitive for human beings who are highly sensitive, but I’m specifically talking about kids whether your child is 5 10 15 or 20 years old for highly sensitive people imagine that their experience of all of this is Amplified and the more sensitive the more Amplified it is so we want to be really cautious about how we describe things to these kids because their imaginations can really run wild with the stuff. So I’m not telling you that I know how to do this. I mean, this is a case-by-case basis, you know your kid best. I’m just telling you to be very sensitive to the highly sensitive people to the fact that half Are you have a talk with them that they are going to have they might be very Visual and visualizing things and catastrophizing in imagining and getting very afraid for people around them like at if you’re done with the conversation that doesn’t mean that they’re nervous system. When you’re done with the conversation when they’re walking away doesn’t mean that they’re nervous system is regulated. They might be walking weight carrying the conversation with them and feeling very along those lines. The one word of advice. I do want to give you has to do with attachment Theory and helping securely attached relationships. And when you do finish in a conversation with your child, whether the sense if you’re not particularly if they are highly sensitive In my opinion, you always want to leave them leave the conversation with a statement of security what I mean by that is to say something that is going to allow them even though there might still be having emotions around it that allows them to know that you’re there for them and that things are going to be okay and that it’s you’re not fooling them or telling them to be easy, but that you’re there and you’ll listen to them you hear them. So it’s something like this. Hey, sorry, we just have this difficult. Sorry. We just had this difficult talk. I know this stuff is scary me know and then you can model how you feel. You can say in my body. Sometimes I feel anxiety or tightness or my stomach can hurt and I know this is hard. But I am here for you. I care about you. I love you. I will always be here for you anything you need you come talk to me. I may not be perfect at responding but I will do my best to listen to you and I am to understand what you’re talking about and try to be here for you. We are going to get through this. I’m here. We’re doing everything we possibly can something like that. So you want to really be like an anchor where you’re solid you’re there and they can move around and they can go wrong with a know that they’re Tethered to something safe and stable and angry and even if you’re going through your growing trauma in your own peers around this and stuff like that. You can admit that and you can say, you know, I’m scared too. But and maybe you first don’t feel grounded. I did not feel grounded yesterday. And so that’s okay but to say to them still I may not handle this perfectly, but I’m here I will always be here. I’m here. So anyhow, I hope that it’s helpful to you. I guess it just want to leave you with that know that the HSP is the highly sensitive people imagine that it’s Amplified and you want to help them move through this time with a real with where we’re going through real scary stuff and help them process their fears and their concerns about this in the healthiest way possible considering the circumstances be very careful about what you share and what you don’t share and how you share it and especially the residue or how you leave the conversation. All right my friends, I hope and pray and wish for you health and safety and and the very best.

AWESOME Advice from MASTER TEACHER to students, parents, and teachers

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Parents and teachers, Ellen is a ROCKSTAR teacher with tremendous wisdom for you all during this crazy time! Check it out. NOTE: Ellen is speaking to students in the beginning of the video, then there is a message for parents, then a message for teachers.

Check out my pandemic hub here for more COVID-19 resources.

To support my work, please CLICK below to share and please click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth