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Please CLICK above to share. Dear Principals, I don’t usually address principals directly in my blog, but today I am. There is a MASSIVE problem for parents students, that causes consistent frustration and confusion, and as a leader, you can do something about it. The problem: Lack of clarity regarding expectations: accessing the right online information is overwhelming, frustrating and confusing for families.

1. Multiple sites to navigate
2. Unclear about expectations with homework, reading assignments, written assignments, projects
3. Not sure where to log in
4. Don’t know HOW to log in
5. Don’t know WHEN to log in
6. When logged in don’t know where to look
7. Logistical nightmare, takes a lot of time and energy that should be going to focused work on expectations
8. Don’t check the right site at the right time, so due dates/times unknown
9. Students who aren’t good with planners don’t remember the details
10. Teachers passing out multiple copies of same things
11. 0s, missings, incompletes, late work
12. Lower grades
13. Less learning
14. Shame
15. Parents are baffled
16. Kids are confused and overwhelmed

What you can do Since you lead, opportunity to help a lot of people.

1. Create a page on the school site and or make a document  available
2. List every website families might need to check
3. List where/how to get login info
4. List every teacher
5. List sites students are responsible for, for each teacher with URL
6. List what they should DO at those sites
7. List how often they should check it, specifically when to check
8. List how often the teacher updates THEIR grades, this is a huge problem too
9. Teach teachers to be crystal clear online, sounds like more work but what will be saved in confusion will make up for it
10. Have copies of notes, hw, rubrics, etc ONLINE so THEY can view/download/print
11. Note to parents at top of the site: if you are not crystal clear on expectations, please email me here so we can figure out how to clarify systems, that way YOU will know where the problems are and you can support teachers to clarify.

Thank you for leading. — Seth Perler

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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

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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:

Hey, what’s going on? Everybody? This is Seth with Seth perler.com and generally speaking. I make videos YouTube videos for parents and teachers but today parents and teachers who are watching Another professionals. I am making this specifically for principals. So parents and teachers were watching this. I don’t know how many principles follow my blog but we have 10,000 people following the blog in general and I know there are some principles but you may want to forward this to your principles. If you are experiencing the problem. I am about to describe. So from here on out. I’m going to be speaking to generally the principles or other people who can do something about this problem. So hello principles. My name is executive function coach based out of Boulder, Colorado. And what I do is I help struggling students figure out how to navigate School. And there is a massive problem that that happens over and over and over for parents and students that causes consistent frustration. It causes tons of Confusion And this is a problem that you principals can do something about because you have chosen and thank you for choosing this. You have chosen a leadership position you get to lead your school community. And so I’m going to talk about the problem and what I think you can do about it. So the problem is a lack of clarity regarding the expectations for the students and what this means is that Parents and students and myself included and other professionals are working with these kids don’t understand the expectations don’t understand what students are supposed to be doing. So it basically what happens is that we are going to the websites and sometimes we are going to multiple websites. We might be going to Google Classroom. We might be going to school G. We might be going to Infinite Campus sometimes teachers have their own websites and we are trying to sift through this math, especially when it comes to middle and high school is when they might have seven different classes. They might have three or four different website that they’re supposed to go is so you might have one teacher where you’re supposed to go to Infinite Campus to check my grades schoology to check the grade details and teachers website to see a PowerPoint or something like this. Anyhow, we are trying to sift. Through this math of technology in order to get clarity again. The problem I’m referring to principles is Clarity. We’re trying to find Clarity regarding what is expected of a student. What is the word? What are they supposed to be reading? What are they supposed to be doing? How do we find this stuff? So this it is hard even for me and I’ve been doing this for years and I seen tons of students from tons of different I buy my own system where I keep all the passwords for all the different students that I work for and I still struggle to go to get the information I need so I want to talk a little bit about this problem in terms of the consequences that this is causing everybody printful. So first the consequences that parents and students are unclear about what it what’s going on. What are the expectations for homework for reading assignments for written assignments for projects? What are the extrication? That’s the number one consoling another consequence is that people are not sure where to login? What’s your L? Where is this place is so much to tell pay attention to people cannot even figure out where to start next to the you wouldn’t believe how many families that I work with that. They don’t even know. Sometimes they’ll find out Midway through the year that the site even exist in that. They’re even supposed to be checking it. So that’s another one. Where do we even log in next is? How do we log in? What what’s the username? What’s the password? How is there anything special going on with how to get logged into this particular system. The next thing is when to login is that the teacher expect that you might have a teacher in one class. I expect the student to be checking a daily. You might have another teacher expects that Weekly what when are they supposed to log into these different things? The next when they get logged in, where are they supposed to look sometimes this stuff is overwhelming. Sometimes it’s really difficult. If something’s if the click to read up a bunch of different pages to find the information. The next one is that this is the logistical nightmare. It takes a lot of time and energy for people to figure out what they need to be doing and that energy I want my students to be spending their energy doing their work that contributes to their life and that contributes to their learning. So that’s the next one is it take a lot of time and energy to logistical nightmare. I want them focused on what they should be doing rather than looking for what they should be doing. The next one number seven is this is a consequence for people is that they don’t check this site at the right time for some time that they’re not try and I were alluded to this earlier, but it if they’re not checking it at the right time then they don’t know what the due dates are what time things are supposed to be turned in. And the next one is is that students who aren’t good with planners and who aren’t good with remembering the details. They’re not checking it or they don’t remember to check it. Another problem. That occurs is the teachers that causes a lot of any Renner extra energy expenditure for teachers when the students don’t know what’s going on in there asking for extra copies. For example, sometimes I look in a backpack and I might find three or four copies of the exact same assignment and I’m like, why do you have all these copies of the same thing? They’re like, oh cuz I lost it or I thought I lost it or I didn’t know where it is. So I asked my teacher for another copy. So that means that the teacher has to be making extra copies handing out extra copies having a conversation about the extra copies. It’s just again a lot of extra energy expenditure and then number 10 to 10 consequence of this stuff is that kids have more missing zeros and completes in late work which leads the number 11, which is lower grades which leads the number 12 that there is less. Learning and often times the zeros just remain zero. So the learning or The Learning Experience never took place they moved on to the next thing so that’s another consequence 13th consequences that there can be a lot of Shame where student feels like why am I such an idiot or parents? Like, where is this what’s going on or the student? I feel dumb or stupid. Like why can’t I figure this out? Why don’t I know her or maybe the teachers like will I explained it to you already? Why aren’t you checking this? And and so there can be shame associated with us next consequences that parents are just babbled. They do not know what to do or where to look and finally number 15 is is the consequence that I have listed here is that kids are confused and overwhelmed they cannot manage these details. It is a lot of juggling. They really legitimately do need time to have a life to enjoy themselves. They need time to focus on their school work, but they also need time to be doing all the sudden this spending so much time on this and they’re just overwhelmed. Trying to figure out the details now principles you are in a very unique position because you have chosen a position of leadership. So you can affect great change in this area. And the reason making this video it is one of the biggest solvable problem that I see repeated over and over and over and it’s something that we can do something about so that’s why I’m making this video for you. So here’s what you can do. Once once since you do lead you do have the opportunity to help all these people. So what you can do as you can create a page on your school website, or you can make a document if you can’t create an actual page on the site because you’re not technologically savvy or you don’t have access to that or whatever you can make a document that’s accessible to the community that that PDF for or that’s in the lobby or somehow that’s accessible on that document window information that we need that I need that my students need that the parents need the information we need you can Service documents. Here’s what we need from you. We need to you to First Lift Every website that anybody at the school might need to check. So if you know that teachers than your school use personal websites schoology Google Classroom textbook websites for certain textbooks and Infinite Campus Life. They then list those 5 websites and say sorry for the confusion, but here are all the sites that you may need to be using and then have a Ural link to those sites. So that’s the first thing we want to know is we want to know what are all the possibilities. Okay, just give it to us from one place so that we don’t have to be confused and and looking number to list where and how to get the login info. So if people are like well, I don’t know where to login. Should they be emailing a tech person at your school? Should they be asking the teacher where they giving a sheet of paper with login information? Should they be clicking lost and Reese? The password on the site itself tell us where to go to get the login information tell us how to login again. So there’s Clarity so we are not confused so we know what to do next list every single teacher in the entire school and next obviously you want to list the site that you’re the students are responsible for for that teacher with the URL. So if in one particular like I have one student right now for one teacher they have to go to this is true. They have to go to I see for the grades schoology for certain things Google classroom for certain things and the teacher’s personal website for certain things. So it would be nice if we had those all listed so that we could find that information easily. The next thing is list what they should do at the site. So for example, if they’re supposed to go to schoology then click on this then click on this to find this then click on this to print this like 10 and then Click on such-and-such to submit things whatever like tell us what we’re supposed to do. So we are not confused. The next thing is list. How often they should check it specifically when to check it. Should they be checking the teacher site every Friday every Monday Wednesday and Friday every day 5 days a week Sunday nights only. When do you want us to check it? We don’t know. It’s overwhelming. It’s too much rechecking all them and things are missed it. If there’s just a lot going on. This is just a problem that we have nowadays part of the curse of Technology. There is some good blessings and curses with the next thing to do is list how often the teachers update their grades because this is a huge problem to teachers you got some teachers that a wait until like a month-and-a-half into the semester. They haven’t listed anything the kid has no grades on the online Grade Portal and then another teacher has 50 grades and their portal. And it and then it looks like the kids doing fine and then all of sudden boom, you see that 20 things are missing David F in this class is very confusing. Can you please tell us when your teachers each teacher puts up their grade so that we know and we don’t have to be wondering and we don’t have to be blindsided. The next thing that we would like is if you could teach teachers how to be Crystal Clear online in this may sound like a lot of work but trust me it will save everybody a lot of frustration a lot of teachers when they post stuff like they might say do the math assignment from this week and I as a as a coach don’t know where to go to get that. Is that something that’s in there book. Is it something that’s been printed and handed to them and it’s a photocopy of something we’re supposed to download or find online. What are you talking about? So please teach your teachers how to be Crystal Clear online with the expectation of teachers. To take another minute to just write I handed you a rubric look in your folder and it says this on the top this is due on this day, you know like you please teach them how to be clear because there’s so much confusion there and be greedy when I finally do find the information we’re looking for we don’t have enough details to know what to do with that. So please teach them how to be crystal clear. I don’t think that teachers know how hard it is for people. I don’t even know that principals know how hard this is for families unless you guys have adolescence yourself and you principles are trying to figure out what’s going on with their school. I’m at it’s very possible that you don’t even know how big of a problem this is it from my end of it when I’m working with multiple students for multiple schools. I see that this is a consistent solvable problem across the board. Then next thing you can do is have copies. Of the notes from the class or the homework so that the kids can download it or the Brew brexit cetera online so that they can print it or download it or view it. Okay, and it’s obviously would cut down on teachers having to give out multiple copies to but it also would give people Crystal Clarity on what the notes are the homework of the rubrics or what-have-you. Next thing that I think will be helpful is if there is a note to parents at the top of the site at the top of the web page that says if you are not crystal clear on the expectations, please email me the principal here and then click your email address so that we can figure out how to clarify systems that way. That way you will know you will know exactly you was the principal will know exactly where the confusion is coming in and you will know how you can support the teacher to communicate with needs to be communicated. It will help everybody. So that will help you and you can also have them because it have them email the teacher for that clarification or whatever you wanted to do. But if there was some way that said if you pay parents look, you know, we need to know if you’re unclear. We want to make these systems to you. We are trying to educate your child. We are trying to support your children we care please let us know so that we can figure out how to make the system is and I know it might seem like a lot of work. But again, I think this will save everybody so much time and confusion and frustration now finally principles what will be the effect if we can do this we can solve this one very solvable problem. What are we going to what’s going to happen? Well, first of all people are going to have Clarity regarding the expectation second of all your Going to eliminate confusion with parents and students. Next you’re going people are going to spend spending less time and energy or the teachers are going to be spending less time and energy repeating their expectations over and over making extra copies dealing with extra communication over and over something that they already said. It will be there. It will be clear will bypass miscommunication. We will eliminate ambiguity on there won’t be any excuse for anyone to not know what’s expected because it’s clear the clarity is there there will be better grades. There will be better learning which is the most important thing people feeling better about themselves and feeling like they’re learning in their able to be successful in the thing that they’re trying to learn tutors and parents can better support the students because they know exactly what’s going on and where to find information. They need less time will be wasted by anybody trying to locate the expectations and essentially a happier everyone. Now, of course what I’m the Driving now isn’t going to help in every situation. They were going to be people who don’t have access to technology people who aren’t great with tech. Anyway, it doesn’t address kids who have a tensional or processing issues or trauma or any other number of issues that complicate doing homework or or those types of things but it does saw one of the biggest problems that I deal with week in and week out with these students. So anyhow, that’s all I have to say. If you look on my website stuff perler.com. I will have a PDF print out for you that you the principal or whoever you are watching us. You can take this information and hopefully create a site or a document and I’ll give you the tips that I think should be included obviously use this. Anyway you want and finally for you principles out there. I don’t know if I’ve ever made a video for principles before But I do want to say thank you for leading. We need you. We need your leadership. We depend on you. I know that you guys have big shoes to fill you guys are doing a lot and we appreciate you and all the time and effort and love and kindness and compassion and thoughtfulness and everything that you put into your job into your work into what we don’t see a guy everything that you do behind the scenes that we are not aware of that helps make a school run smoothly and help serve the students so that they can get the education that they need so that they can have a great future. So thank you very much principles. Again. My name is Seth at Seth for.com. If you haven’t yet subscribed on my website go to the website. I sent out a weekly update can smash the like button on YouTube. If you’re watching me there and subscribe on YouTube. You can get alerts if you want and I appreciate. You have a fantastic day take her now.

If this helps you, please *CLICK* above to share. Thanks, Seth About: For this post, I asked you for your ideas on a topic and curated them below. I did this because one of the biggest challenges faced by the students I work with is that they are often misunderstood, and when adults respond based on a misunderstanding, it often makes things worse and creates a lot of shame. Therefore, when we have a better understanding of our children, we can support them better. See my Can’t or Won’t post for more info. So, one day I sent an email to you, my amazing audience, and received a ton of responses. I asked everyone to tell me about some of the hidden things that influence our children, the influences that cause a lot of misunderstanding. We often only see the tip of the iceberg, and I wanted to hear what you think might be beneath the surface. This is an important post for all parents and teachers who know complicated kids who struggle because it explores the underlying problems that often go unnoticed. Below are the responses I curated for you. I edited them only as much as needed to convey the ideas as clearly as possible. My intention: My intention for this article is that you can read through it and saturate your mind with amazing insights that might help you help your child more effectively. I hope that it might bring to light some things that you may not have considered. I imagine that for many readers, it might help you discover things you may not have even heard of. This will help you explore this question: “What could be influencing how my child is doing?” Note: The intention of this article is NOT to shame you, the reader. I imagine that a lot of readers may feel bad for misunderstanding their children. If you notice that you have been misunderstanding your child, the point isn’t to feel ashamed but to grow from this, to become more understanding. Remember, you were raised with certain beliefs that have had a big impact on you. Now’s the time to challenge them and discover your most authentic truth. Finally, thank YOU for sharing your ideas, this is an amazing list filled with things I’ve never even thought of. I tried to keep your verbiage as close to your words as possible. If this helps you, please share this with other parents and teachers. Click for the full-size downloadable PDF.  

Might any of these things be influencing your child beneath the surface?

• Executive function challenges
• Mental health issues (including bipolar, depression, anxiety)
• Traumas
• Motor difficulties, fine or gross
• Processing disorders (sensory, auditory, visual)
• Eating disorders
• Low self-esteem
• Parents divorcing
• Pyrroles disorder or Pyrroluria: a condition that causes a significant deficiency in zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6, and contributes to low-stress tolerance, difficulty concentrating, anxiety
• Central Sensitization
• Epilepsy
• Tourettes
• TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury
• Concussion
• Dyscalculia
• Type 1 or 2 diabetes
• Body image issues
• Lacking the confidence to take healthy risks
• Being shamed
• Abuse: Verbal, Physical, Sexual, Emotional
• Spanking
• Having multiple IEP supports through the elementary and middle schools, then having it all dropped going into high school…because “they’ll have to do it on their own after they graduate.”  This is like being pushed of the limb or cliff for the kids. High school quickly becomes one big panic attack when they thought it would be the best time of their lives.
• Notations of discontinued IEP accommodations not remaining in a student file for future teacher reference,  understanding vanishes, unless a parent stays on top of school communications. (all future teachers should know of past reading and/or written expression concerns)
• Loss of special services, especially when a student cannot maintain progress to remain above a specific performance threshold. Summer relapse, etc.
• Schools and districts not using the word Dyslexia or identifying students as having dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia.
• Circadian Rhythm Disorder (in opposition of early morning school schedules)
• Seasonal Affective Disorder
• Electronics-Induced Insomnia
• Anemia/Vitamin deficiency (Iron, Magnesium, B vitamins).  Girls may present differently than boys.
• Chronic dehydration/Dehydration-Induced headaches
• Tick-related issues, other than Lyme.
• Paranoid personality type.  So busy scanning their environment that their data intake pipeline clogs.
• Hereditary ADHD and Executive Function issues in at least one parent at home can mean minimal effective in-home support.
• Home environment may not be conducive to improvement outside a classroom setting (no peace, disruptive or fear/anxiety-inducing neighborhood, hoarding household, etc)
• Love/Chronic Crushes/Fanaticism …extreme preoccupation with matters of the heart rather than being in an academic headspace.
• Preoccupation for right-brain creative inner fantasy life in avoidance of reality, schedules, order, and goals out of sheer personal pleasure preference.
• PANDAS/PANS.
• OCD
• Lack of sleep
• Perfectionism
• Hormonal changes
• Poverty
• The curriculum is too rigorous and too fast
• Short-term and/or long-term memory deficits
• Central auditory processing issues
• Visual processing issues
• Processing speed
• Dysgraphia
• Asynchronous development
• Aspbergers, Autism, ASD
• Post-concussion effects
• Peer dynamics
• Feeling “unheard”
• Too much screen time
• Ancestral trauma (child and even his/her parents may not even be fully aware of It’s presence or impact).
• Caregiver distress/burnout (for siblings but also could be parent(s) or other relatives.
• Constipation.
• Trauma history
• Misophonia – which is a severe reaction to noise – can be chewing, clicking of pens, sounds the pencil makes of paper
• Poor diet &/or nutrition
• Blood sugar imbalance
• Hormonal imbalance such as thyroid and sex hormones
• Allergies (histamine is a neurotransmitter)
• Dysbiosis (imbalance of intestinal bacteria, or gut bacteria thriving in the wrong section of the intestines)
• Food sensitivities
• Leaky gut
• Lack of exercise
• Less than optimal sleep habits
• Environmental toxins (mold, lead, mercury)
• Copper overload
• Vitamin B-6 deficiency
• Zinc deficiency
• Methyl/folate imbalances
• Amino acid imbalances
• Undetected chronic infections (Ex: SIBO, Lyme disease, EBV)
• SIRS (Systematic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) caused by mold.
• Living in an abusive household
• Adoption
• Birth trauma
• Sensory processing issues
• Lack of trust or lack of connection with the teacher has created so much anxiety for my kids. They can’t learn the content if the teacher can’t or won’t “figure out” my 2E kiddos.
• Seasonal syndrome
• Social Media or stresses from Social Media
• Social anxiety
• Lyme disease
• Crohn’s disease
• Food allergies or sensitivities (known or unknown)
• Undiagnosed learning disabilities
• Sensitivities to environmental toxins, off-gassing
• Processing disorders (a big one that is misunderstood or unnoticed)
• Discrepancies in all sorts of different domains (for example, reads way above grade level, writes way below grade level)
• Trauma nobody knows about or acknowledges
• Bullying nobody is aware of
• Relationship drama
• Sleep problems
• Highly sensitive emotionally
• Indigo child – highly sensitive to spiritual matters
• LGBTQ kids with identity crisis/depression
• Emotionally overwhelmed
• Chronically fatigued
• Medical diseases or conditions that the child or family choose to keep private
• Side effects from various types of medications
• Feeling uncomfortable with the teacher, feeling that a teacher doesn’t like him/her, feeling misunderstood, feeling that nothing he/she ever does is good enough
• Not challenged in class
• Vision problems
• Hearing problems
• Weakened immune system
• Lack of clarity from the teacher about the expectations
• Hunger
• Lonely
• Just having a bad day
• Rigidity
• Values (school & learning not being a high priority)
• General inactivity
• Addiction to video games
• Peer pressure
• Sibling rivalry/favoritism
• Insensitive/idiot siblings
• Sibling off to college
• Changes in living situations
• Moving
• Changes in school/Teacher out on maternity leave…
• Alternating living with mom/dad
• Divorce/Remarriage
• New sibling
• Lack of companionship/friends
• Loss of companion/friend
• Poor choice re: companions/friends
• Fear generated by media/world situation
• Phobias
• Lack of role model
• Nightmares
• Neighborhood
• Amount of time alone
• Part of the country you live in
• Family’s education/awareness/functionality
• Food dye. We removed that from our son’s diet over 8 years ago and it made a huge difference for our son. 2 of our 4 boys are very sensitive to red 40 and the yellow dyes. Many professionals dismissed this but I think the American Academy of Pediatrics just (like in the last few months) advised that there is an impact. We also avoid high fructose corn syrup.
• Processing SPEED is huge when attached to ADD. A child who has a pace that is very different than the speed of current society is sometimes labeled SLOW ….as in intelligence. Combine that with distractions and daydreaming and the amount of time it takes to complete one task is enormous! Kids with processing speed issues will almost never finish A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G. within the bell-shaped curve, the calculated time it SHOULD take.
• My kids pretty often have a narrative going in their own mind(s) that interferes with their executive function ability (especially when it comes to school work, but also everyday tasks can suffer). Either it’s a story-type game that they are silently imagining, or they are re-telling themselves some movie/video game or a story they read. Unless an adult knows that they are prone to doing this, often there is no way that we would/could know.
• When a child gets “stuck” on some interpersonal dynamic (especially in a classroom/school situation) that the adult (teacher/administrator, usually) either didn’t notice or wasn’t privy to. Kids often have, to adult eyes, an over-active perception of what is “fair” or “how it should have been” and some kids can’t put their indignation or other emotions about that situation aside in order to turn to whatever new situation/lesson/project is at hand according to the adult’s perspective. Category of “thinking teacher doesn’t like you” but with a twist: When my 12-year-old was in first grade and we had never heard of “2e”, I now realize she was reprimanded many times in class bc a) she was really excited about learning, so she spoke out of turn a lot …and b) has ADHD and so impulse control was hard. So, teacher reprimands based on a kid’s passion for learning that eventually leads the kid to shut down.
• ADHD — not really hidden, but for our son, it may not be the biggest issue. He is not hyperactive, but has some of the other traits that are associated with ADHD (all the EF stuff).
• Central auditory processing issues — this, in my opinion, is a HUGE “invisible” influence. You have hearing problems on your list, below, but this one is tricky and is not diagnosed in the school screenings or even by most audiologists. We had to visit Able Kids in Ft. Collins to figure this one out. Eli hears just fine, but his ears are not working together correctly, so the timing of input in one ear does not match the timing of input in the other ear. I can only imagine how much work it is for this kind of brain to listen to lectures, verbal instructions, etc.
• Visual processing issues — again, quite “invisible”, although perhaps not as much as the auditory issue. We also had to go to a specialist for this one (Hellerstein & Brenner in Greenwood Village). Somewhat like his ears, his eyes were not working well together. Luckily, unlike the auditory issue, this can be trained with practice. Vision therapy yielded some good results.
• Processing speed — I’m not sure what more to say about this one, except that it was shown to be an issue on some of his testing. I do know that he has difficulty getting what’s in his head out onto a piece of paper. It seems to be something like the inability to organize things in his head before putting them out into the world. Also, he’s a thinker and when he has too many balls in the air, prioritization and organization are difficult. In any case, it’s definitely something that you can’t see.
• Dysgrahpia — surprisingly, this really shouldn’t be “hidden” at all, but it was never diagnosed, even though I suggested it to various professionals over the years. His writing is hugely inefficient and illegible. All I can say is thank goodness for keyboards! 6) Asynchronous development — teachers don’t seem to see or acknowledge this, but it’s a big influence.
• Influence of siblings that don’t have EF issues and have difficulty relating — especially when that sibling is a twin.
• Class Participation: A combination of social pragmatic skills (relating to others, speaking with peers, having and maintaining conversations and friendships) and Processing Speed (responding to others in a prompt fashion when addressed, starting to do something after instructions are given) combined greatly influence Executive Functioning. In High school a combination of lacking social pragmatic skills and slow processing speed is a debilitating. It means that the student appears mute, doesn’t speak when asked something, doesn’t respond, has a lot of uh, uhms, aahs when called upon in class. They are not dumb, they were not dreaming and they DID do their reading homework. They are just unable to have their brain process your request and respond in a timely manner. It leaves them feeling frustrated because they know everything about what the class is discussing, they have been following along, they just cannot form the response till about 60 seconds later.
• Social times before school, during lunch, after school: Peers/Students notice that this student is always “a little slow on everything”, doesn’t laugh at jokes (probably because by the time they “get it” everyone has moved on), and is really a very quiet person who seems to prefers their own company. Combine this with not being able to start conversations and insert themselves into a discussion, even over a favorite topic, and this person will be alone, with no friends. They want friends, they yearn for them, they can’t get their brain and words to do anything though.
• Group Work: No one wants to team up in a group project with this person. The teacher is frustrated because they always have to ask someone to add this person to their group. And finally, the student is shamed and embarrassed because this happens EVERY TIME they have to do a group project. The fact that this student is an A student, that only gets a B in presentations, is not noticed. Worse, they get teamed with another person really quiet, non-communicative and neither of them knows what the other is working on in the project. They will both do the entire project at the expense of other work, sleep and rest, and only one person’s work will be submitted. They don’t even know each others name or email address enough to communicate. Another difficult situation is being paired with students who are not vested too much in the project. This means they don’t take it seriously, miss out most of the work required from the rubric and don’t agree with the one student who knows what needs to be done but doesn’t have the skills to convince anyone else.
• Sleep Problems: If homework or project takes a regular student 30 minutes, it will take some students with slow processing time, twice or three times as long. So multiply this with four to six subjects and most days these students spend all the time from when they get home from school to bed time completing work. They only take a break for dinner and shower. This leads to fatigue and sleep problems – because there is no time to exercise, relax, decompress. Medications also affect sleep.
• Loneliness: This is the one #1 thing that keeps parents like me up at night. My child who is a combined social pragmatics disorder + slow processing speed speaks to no one outside the context of school work. He sits by himself for lunch – or sits with some people but doesn’t engage in conversation (doesn’t have the skills). If someone speaks to him, he will engage, but never initiate. He tries, but often other peers walk away, or ignore and continue their conversations. It’s very hard to make friends, but when communications disorder is your thing, then it’s a down and out lonely time. At home, we are his safe people and he doesn’t exhibit these problems as much and is able to talk/initiate conversation. It leads to anxiety and depression. The internet social media groups are the only place he can communicate anonymously with strangers and feel he belongs to something, and someone knows him. This is dangerous not because they will be preyed on, but because their mind is consumed now with whatever they are consuming on these social media – without interference and influence of other peers and people in real life. If a parent is lucky, this internet consumption is harmless – saving the tiger, atheism, climate issues. But it could easily be something more insidious. (Hate to say it but parents need to have an internet watchdog on their child’s computer to stay informed and provide other avenues of expression, even something as little as a list of the websites visited).
• Teacher: My student is struggling but never comes to my Office Hours where I can help him 1:1 I asked my son’s six teachers if they had ever seen him smile or laugh. Heartbreakingly, none of them had. (See Loneliness, this breaks a parents heart). Some hadn’t ever seen him speak either, nor interact with anyone else, other than for a class project. They gave helpful tips about how he could engage with other students, but I have never seen these teachers ever speak to my student 1:1. They are open to him coming during their office hours and can be a great help, but never seek him out to speak to him and get to know him.

If this helps you, please *CLICK* above to share. Thanks, Seth

Please CLICK above to share. In this video, I discuss what I believe to be the #1 most important factor when choosing a neuropsychologist. Neuropsychs are people who test children with a wide net to help figure out exactly what’s going on.

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Video transcript:

Stop. Perler.com. I have an education coach executive function coaching Boulder Colorado. And I’m here today to talk a little bit about narrow Sykes neuropsychologist. So I want to say I love nurse. I think that they serve a very important role and I know some of them locally and what I think they’re really amazing for is that they they cast a wide net when they test kids. So if you don’t if you’re not familiar with nervous like basically what happens if you’re concerned about your child, do you want to figure out what’s going on with them you go to nervous. I can nurse like dad’s in exhaustive battery of tests. Usually that takes place over a couple of days and they really get to know your child very well and they can really find out really pinpoint things that are difficult to figure out so that you can decode your child better and serve your child better so that they can have a better future sonor Sykes usually or two or three or four thousand dollars for Neuropsych evaluation and the reason I’m making this video is because I was just having breakfast with with an old client parent friend of mine. And she said that they had gone to a neuropsych and she said we paid $3,000 to figure out that he was a narcissist and we already knew that and could have told him that free any so sometimes parents come back from a neuropsych eval and really don’t feel like it was worth the money and sometimes they they come back and they feel like it’s a game-changer. So what I’m here to do in this video is tell you the number one most important thing that I think that you should do when you are looking for a neuropsych. So if you are thinking about going to nurse like in your calling the nearest sex in your area and you really want to get a good one, you can look for somebody who’s reputable but that may or may not pan out anyway, because just because the reputable just like in any industry doesn’t mean that they’re going to meet your needs. So, but anyhow, you’re so don’t don’t think that just because somebody isn’t well-known or that they’re newer don’t think that they might not have the skill TV what they needed fact if they’re new or they may even be better at it than some people who’ve been around for a while. I really depends on the connection that you have with that person any of my number one most important tip in my opinion and I am not a neuropsych but I have read a ton of neuropsych reports and have communicated with tons of them and I’ll talk to parents about this stuff exactly. But my the biggest number one piece of advice in terms of choosing a neuropsych is this ask them what they do after the evaluation with you? Here’s why What I’ve seen a lot is that parents go they paid two or three thousand bucks to get a neuropsych eval the they sit down with them after the thing is over at the nurse like spend a little bit of time with them but the parents heads are spinning the nearest like is using all of this language that the family is not familiar with me while their head is spinning. They’re sitting there hearing all this language that they’re not familiar with getting all of the all of its input about what just happened about the results of of the eval and they can’t make sense of it. It’s too short of a. Of time so they go home big giant Report with a bunch of paper. They the family start reading through the papers. I get a lot of emails where families will email me and say can you help us to figure out what this means? So I’ve gone through a lot of these because they don’t have they don’t know what it means. It’s it’s written and it’s written in English, but it’s written in neuropsych talk a lot of it and then a neuropsych Evaluation is usually what happens is they give the family a stack of papers. It’s all stapled together and it goes through the different results with test. Meanwhile families don’t know how it what the tests are how to decipher the results what to compare them to and then it has it has sort of the intake information and then it has feedback. Sometimes honestly the feedback that I’m looking through looks like it’s just cut and pasted like they and that probably is and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But you wanted as customized to your job as possible and then it how often has recommendation. So basically what you want and then going back to my number one piece of advice is you want a neuropsych who after it’s done they sit down with you they spend a significant amount of time going over it with you. You’re not walking out of that office with your head spinning wondering what just happened what this is all about and not being able to decipher that you actually had Useful information, you know how to go through that report? Because they have walked you through it. They spent time with you. They’ve helped explain it to you just paid them a lot of money. You should be walking out of that office with answers not more questions and not confusion. So my number one piece of advice is ask them. What they do after the veils over, how do they help you understand? What’s going on? How much time do they spend with you? What if you have a question a week later? Are they going to charge you $300 an hour to ask a question on the phone? Are they going to charge you to come back in? Are they going to do a free? I’m not saying any of those are bad. But you want to be clear on the situation. If a week later a month later, you’re you’ve talked to the school. You’re trying to understand the report better. You really trying to get key information so you can help your child. Are they going to be able to help you in a way that works for you? So to wrap up my number one piece of advice when picking a neuropsych is to ask them what they do after the evaluation to communicate to you the meaning of the evaluation in a meaningful and purposeful way that you can use to help your child with that. I hope you have a fantastic day. Again. My name is Seth Perler subscribed to you on YouTube subscribe button in the bell, and if you haven’t subscribed to my website. I send a new update to families every single week for how to help these complicated kids. And yeah. Sephora.com have a fantastic day. I’ll see you soon.