TEACHERS (parents, you’ll like this one), the stuff you post online for kids NEEDS WORK! Please check this out to see how you can make life easier for everyone with an executive function friendly calendar. And seriously, we do appreciate you teachers! I hope you get a lot out of this vid…
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🔺 In this video you get my 12 core strategies, because I always get emails FROM ADULTS asking how to apply strategies to adults with ADHD or Executive Function challenges. You might want to take a few notes…
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work.
👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest.
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🙏 Thanks! — Seth
Transcript: Click here to download the video transcript PDF.
What is up, parents and teachers? It’s me, Seth, with SethPerler.com. In today’s video, I’m going to talk about the 12 core strategies in brief about adult executive function, adult executive function in ADHD. Now usually I work with kids, usually middle school or high school or college. But I’ve worked with a lot of adults over the years. And I get a ton of emails and requests about if I can speak more to adults. Now I’ve done this a little bit before, but here, I’m going to do it. I’m going to give you 12 core principles. These are excellent, these are well thought out, and they will help you if you want to watch this.
So, the problem with this video is I’m not going to be very nice in it. I’m not going to sugarcoat things for you, I’m not going to be my usual self. And part of the reason for that is I just found out that I had two, I was a teacher for a long time, and two of my former students, I just found out, tragically passed away. And that’s definitely got me a bit somber and serious. And in making this video for you, adults, I don’t have a lot of patience for the BS that adults often do. You, me. And I am someone who walks the walk, I walk the talk, I do what I talk about, what I’m going to discuss here. But I have so many people, parents, friends, people that I’ve worked with in the past, that are so stuck, and I’m just really not having it today. You got this precious life, don’t squander it. Yes, it’s hard. But anyhow, here are the, I just want to preface that before you hear, and notice that I have a different tone and sort of what that’s about today.
Alright, so what’s the problem here? Why are so many people emailing me saying, “Seth, can you talk to me about being an adult with ADHD or an adult with executive function struggles? I’m a teacher, I’m a therapist, I’m a parent,” and yada, yada. Well, first thing I want to mention is that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So you know, there is a lot of evidence that there’s a lot of genetics involved in this stuff. So when people are seeing that their child is going through something, a lot of times parents start looking into my work, and they start going, “Oh, my gosh, that was me. What’s going on with my kid? Now I understand this differently.” And that’s what I experienced. So that’s part of what’s going on. I don’t talk about this much with adults, first of all, because my life is focused on serving kids. But also, like I said, before, a lot of times adults act like babies about this stuff. It’s funny, because the adults oftentimes are more resistant than the kids, you know, we have better developed BS. And we are very good at projecting, meaning that we look at the kid and say, “Oh, that kid’s got this problem, that problem,” and it’s often a reflection of what we’re going through. It’s very frustrating to work with adults who are so resistant and they want to help their kids, but they really for themselves do want an easy fix. They do want quick and easy magic bullets, and they don’t want to do the work. They have a lot of excuses. And they like to think that they’re different. I mean, I’m not special. I’m not trying to say that I’m different. I mean, I’ve had my struggles, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here doing the work I do. But I went through the same things like thinking, “Oh, I’m special, I’m different, you don’t understand my case is different. I’m resistant because of this, I can’t start because of this, I can’t change because of this,” this victim mentality. I guess you know, since I’ve gone through that, and have worked around that and did very hard work around it, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for adults who are stuck. Kids, I have all the sympathy and patience in the world. But for you adults, this is not going to fix itself, you’re not different, you’re not special, you’re not some special snowflake that has some excuse that nobody else experiences. So you can do this, that’s the positive about this. So this is not only for the quality of life for the kid, this is for your quality of life, our quality of life.
So, and what we do, a lot of times we minimize our problems, you know, we avoid them, we don’t look at them. And I think what happens is a lot of times parents and teachers are seeing these problems in their students or their children. And when they see them it becomes more glaringly obvious what they’re going through. I think it’s more difficult for people to minimize the stuff because it’s so in their face and they’re being more honest with themselves, which is a great thing. So and as far as quality of life, you know, this stuff, executive function, ADHD, this stuff can affect your and my relationships with friends, with family, with with people that we work with. It can affect our careers, it can affect our family life, it can affect our relationships with ourselves, it can affect our finances. I can’t tell you, you know, it started too early for me with like late fees for library books, you know. And God knows how much we have spent on late fees for things. It can affect our finances, it can affect our mental health, our overwhelm, our stress, our anxiety, our depression. So this is no joke. So that’s why I’m here to tell you these 12 things. That was a big introduction. But if you’re still with me, five minutes in, here we go.
Number 1: Number one, core principle number one I want to convey to you. Core principle number one I want to convey to you. This principle I want to convey to you, or strategy, or whatever you want to call it for number one is principles. Not principals of school, principles, P R I N C I P L E S, principles. When you are saying, “Oh, I really like Seth’s work or other experts work, and this is really interesting to me, and this is what’s going on with my kid, but they’re talking about something that, I don’t know, I don’t need this kid’s, you know, academic planner,” or what have you. Look, look for the principles behind what I’m teaching or what anybody’s teaching, look for the principles. Because there are common core principles that you need, you do need a reliable planner, you do need organization, you do need to use certain files. What you don’t want to do when you’re looking for principles is think of me or anybody as some guru who’s saying, “Oh, this is the best book on the subject. This is the best planner on the subject, this is the best organization,” that is complete BS in that there are no gurus in this.
Number 2: And that brings me to number two. So the first one was look for the principles. So when you’re looking at other stuff, there’s a principle behind it. So if it doesn’t totally resonate with you, look at the principle. Number two is called ‘Frankenstudy.’ This is just a term I use, long story behind that. But the gist is, when I’m working with kids, I want them to Frankenstudy, I don’t want them to say “Oh, Seth has the best way of organizing papers and blah, blah, and schoolwork.” No, I want to help the kids come up with their own Frankenstudy, their own frankensteined, customized, personalized tailored systems that work for them. Okay, so you should trust yourself. You probably have come up with tons of great strategies, and you will get pressure from family members or other people who really do have strong executive function, or books, or YouTube videos, or whatever. And they’re again, going back to the guru syndrome, they’re gonna say “This works. Do it this way.” Well, you know what, that may not work for you. Trust yourself, try a bunch of different things. It’s okay if they don’t work, but you’re ultimately going to personalize systems for yourself. You know, when I’m making this video for your adults, the people who are asking me this are asking because they’re suffering. They really want answers. They’re not asking because, you know, they’re just like asking some random question. People take the time to ask because they’re suffering. So I’m telling you that you have pride, I’m telling you this because you have probably been invalidated many times in your life when you could have trusted yourself in terms of the systems you were developing. So Frankenstudy, trust yourself, create your own systems.
Number 3: Number three is mindsets. Mindset, mindset. Number three is mindset. Look, let me be honest with you. You and me and every human on Earth, we are dysfunctional. We’re maladaptive, we make bad decisions, we have what’s called ‘cognitive distortions’ that enable us to resist doing the thing we really need to do for ourselves in favor of something that’s easier, more fun, or that’s avoiding the hard work, whatever. So my thoughts to you and to me is stop whining. I’m done. I want to live a good life. I’m done whining about this stuff and being a victim. And so I just have some thoughts about mindset. That is the first one. Stop whining. We are not victims. Number two, we can ask our kids, ask our children, “Hey, do you have any ideas for me? Do you have any ideas around my ADHD, executive function, how I am in this world? What do you think?” Ask your friends, ask them for honest feedback. Say, “Can I have 100% honest feedback, you’re not gonna hurt my feelings? How can I do with my resistance? What do you notice about me?” Mindset. Ask a therapist. You know, for Pete’s sake, we have these people who work their lives to help people like you and I. Use them, get a therapist to have them help you with your mindset. Do your own deep heart inner work, your skeletons in the closet, your dysfunction, your journaling, your whatever, prayer, your support groups, whatever it is, doesn’t matter if it sounds cheesy. Do it. Like have the mindset ‘you deserve this,’ have the mindset. You deserve this. with mindset be okay with a struggle. It’s cool. No, it’s not fun. Yes, it’s frustrating. We frustrate ourselves. But it’s okay. We’re not special. We’re not the only ones here on this planet struggling, this is the human condition, it’s cool. We’re not special. Okay? Next with mindset, figure out your values in this precious life. What are you spending your time doing? What are you squandering? I was sick and tired of wasting time on certain things in my life with my executive function struggles. And I really, really examine my values. What is most important to me? How do I want to spend my time and my energy during this precious lifetime? What doing here on this planet? You know, what are you here for? Figure it out. It’s precious. So and as I said before with the tragic loss of a couple of former students who left this planet before their time, you and I, we have an opportunity to live today right now. We’re here. Like, let’s use this, you know. Don’t squander it. So those are my thoughts on mindset. Number three.
Number 4: Number four, reliable planners. You and I, we need a reliable system. Now adults are, my kids are resistant to planners, I have adults who are resistant to using planners, and they say the same thing that kids do. “I’ll remember it, I have a to do list, or I have a million to do lists,” whatever. So you need a reliable way for planning things. You have to prioritize really creating this. It takes a lot to create a good system of planning, planners, calendars, daily plans, long term planning, all these things. It doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us who struggle with this stuff. But yeah, you and I, number four is we do need reliable planners. You need to invest time in really designing a system that works for you.
Number 5: Number five, oh my gosh, number five, so easy. Use a timer. Use digital timers, use timers on devices, use timers all the time, like we are so resistant, and we need to chunk things down into small bits of time so that we can trick ourselves into getting started. So just buy some timers and put them everywhere, and you use them. They’ll help you. I know it sounds like the silliest thing. But if you don’t use them already, try them out.
Number 6: Number six, number six. Number six is very important. This is accountability. You and I resist, and accountability helps us to get moving. I don’t care if your accountability partner is your spouse, your best friend, someone you aren’t even friends with but who really, you admire the way that they are able to execute. I mean, I have a trainer at the gym that I pay for, and you better believe I’m paying him a lot of money, I’m going to show up to that gym. And without him I don’t show up as much. So like that’s accountability. There’s lots of ways for accountability. So building accountability, you know, it’s so important, because we won’t to execute without good accountability.
Number 7: Number seven, number seven. Envision, envision. What does that mean? So, essentially, what you’re wanting to do on some levels is to coach yourself. What you can do is literally take some time, close your eyes and envision coaching yourself. Envision. You know, if you envision yourself as a child, what would you coach yourself to do as a child? Write it out, envision what you need. Envisioning and creating mental imagery for me is very important in my process of change. I do it daily, I have a particular way I do it, I have a three page document that I update every once in a while with different areas of my life. I sit down, I read it every morning, I close my eyes and envision that thing. It is so powerful, please don’t ignore this number seven. Take time to daily envision things, envision coaching yourself, envision what you need, envision things going really well. You know.
Number 8: Number eight. Similar to accountability, number eight is called get help. Do not do this alone. We are social creatures, we need other people. Yes, that’s the hardest thing in the world to ask for help. As you know, we want our kids to be able to ask for help. Ask for help. It’s humility. It’s it’s the hardest thing, but it’s the best thing. We are in this culture where it’s like, “Oh, we’re not supposed to ask for help.” That’s complete BS. The strongest, most successful, happiest, most people that I admire, ask for help all the time. That’s how they get good at the things that they do. So anyhow, that’ll help with accountability, too, is asking for help. Ask people who are good at it, “How do you do that?” I’ll give you one quick example. When I started my business in 2010, and before that, for about two years, I asked everybody I knew who had a business if we could grab lunch and to teach me something about business. And I took nuggets from all these different people. I didn’t like everything that they said but they helped me absolutely 100% jumpstart my business. Okay, so I asked for help, and that’s just in one area. I didn’t know how to do it. Ask for help. There are people out there that know how to do whatever you’re trying to do.
Number 9: Nine. Where’s nine? Number nine. Very important, very practical. Clean slating. I’ve worked with people for a long time, we have a lot of clutter. A lot of mental clutter, a lot of physical clutter, a lot of digital clutter. Clean slate, how do you clean slate your life? Two ways I’m going to suggest you, micro-projects and massive action. Micro-projects and massive action. Massive action means that’s when you’re gonna say “Okay, I’m sick and tired of this office. I am going to take massive action. I’m going to turn off my phone, shut the door and I’m going to clean this office for an entire weekend, or two weekends in a row, or I’m going to have some really organized friends come over and for two weekends, I’m going to pay him and buy him some food and whatever and we’re going to clean this office,” massive action. That could be with anything. But these are giant projects that you need to get done. “I’m going to do all my files. This stuff has been bugging me for years. I’m going to do all the files,” massive action. Number two, micro-projects. Always be doing micro-projects, tiny projects, tiny little overhauls, decluttering, minimizing, downsizing. I’m telling you people, the clutter interferes with our quality of life, with our relationships, with our ability to be present in life. Start with clean slating.
Number 10: Number 10, 10, 10, 10. Visual homes, visual homes, visual homes. I create homes for everything because I was so disorganized and now I have homes for everything. And it’s very visual. So I have homes for I mean, the simplest homes are things like you’d find the kitchen, it is called a pantry. Where are the plates? Well they’re in the home where the plates are, you know, the kitchen is kind of an easy. Where are the forks? Where’s the trash can in the kitchen? Those are, even the trash can is the home for trash, right? But how can we apply that to other things, visual homes? What do you need a home for, your hobbies, your electronics, your cables? Like start making visual homes. Your files? What do you need homes for in your life? Like getting organized, just keep it simple. Just make a home for everything, get some boxes, color code, and visual, make it visual. Otherwise, you put things in the wrong place and the cycle continues.
Number 11: Number 11, 11. You will like number 11. There, now we’re getting in a better mood with number 11. Play. Number 11 is play. Play, play, play, connect with the people you love, care about. Have fun and play, joke, laugh, relate to people smile, do things that are fun. Don’t forget, is very important. Yes, this is deadly serious that we do all these other things to improve our quality of life, and ADHD and executive function. But we got to remember to play. I know that I’m heavy on this video, but this is not the totality of my life. In fact, after I’m done today, I’m going to play, I’m going hiking. That’s something that’s play for me. Play, have fun laugh, relate to people.
Number 12: 12, the last one. I said I was going to save the worst for last. Here’s the worst one of all. There’s no quick fix. We get in these mindless habits, we’re unconscious of what we’re doing, we’re doing the cognitive distortions that I mentioned before, we run on autopilot. And lots of things can help this. But for me, the number one most powerful thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, ever to help me with ADHD and executive function, as counterintuitive as the sounds is meditation. Not ‘woowoo’, meditation. Meditation, sitting, stillness, quiet, focusing on breath. I mean, there’s a million ways to do it. I don’t really care how you do it. But I’m just telling you, you can do all the other things I told you. The number one most powerful thing in my entire life that has given me a better quality of life has been meditation. If you don’t do it, I can’t explain to you how it works, and why and all that stuff. You just have to experience it. It’s one of those type of things. So I just want to really encourage you. And start simple. You know, one minute in the morning, one minute in the evening, use a timer and just sit still. And breathe and listen. Listen, your thoughts, your emotions, just notice what’s going on. That’s it. One minute, start with that and go from there.
Alright, that’s it. 12 core concepts for executive function ADHD, for me, Seth Perler at SethPerler.com If you liked my work like it, give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment below. What did I leave out? There a 12 core principles I added. What principles or ideas or strategies do you have that really help you manage your life your ADHD? What’s one thing that you do well with it? Share with us, give us some ideas. And the very, very last thing that I want to say is this. Your kids need you, the people in your life need you. And when we have these struggles, it interferes with our ability to be present. They need you, they need time with you. It is so precious. So after you’re done with this silly video here, go connect with your kids. Go connect with the people in your life. Have a fantastic day. Thumbs up, leave a comment, subscribe, share the stuff. Peace out, later.
All kids are learning less lately, and the racial and socioeconomic inequality gap is even bigger! And Executive Functioning challenges make the impact even bigger still! Should we depend on schools to fill in the gaps? Here I offer several unconventional yet practical actions we can take to help kids. Please share if you like it.
Article: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-education-the-lingering-effects-of-unfinished-learning
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work.
👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom 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
Transcript: Click here to download the video transcript PDF.
Hey parents and teachers, what is up? So today we’re going to look at an interesting issue with your children or the kids that you work with. And that is looking at the learning that’s been lost. Has there been learning lost? And the answer is yes, I’m going to share with you a very interesting article here and discuss this a little bit, because it’s really important that we address this issue. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to look at this issue really briefly, show you this article. And then I’m going to tell you ways that I think if you want to support kids, if you’re a parent or a teacher, and you want to help address this issue, that you can address it in ways that are not really addressed in this article. So essentially, let’s go ahead and start with my major premise here. So are our kids learning less? Yes, we know that kids have lost a lot this year. So they’re quote ‘behind,’ does it matter? Yes, it matters. It matters to their mental health it matters to their social health, it matters to their economic health in their future. It definitely matters. So what’s the conclusion? What do I think? If you value what I think you’ve been following for any period of time, well, sadly, what I think is, do not depend on the school to fill this gap. We need to as the adults in these kids lives, take the measures that we can. And I’m going to give you specific things I think we can do to help. Now I also want to mention, if you’re not familiar with me, my name is Seth Perler with SethPerler.com, I’m an executive function coach and I wear a lot of hats here. But essentially, the kids that I work with who have executive function struggles, who struggle to get important things done, who’s struggling in school, doesn’t fit the school box. These kids, in my opinion, are at even more risk of experiencing more of the consequences, the negative consequences of how their learning and lives have been impacted with what’s been going on.
So, let’s take a look at this article. Real quick. Fantastic article, I’ll link it below. It’s from McKinsey COVID-19 Education, the lingering effects of unfinished learning. Look at this, this is really well written. United States, US states, and districts have the opportunity to not only help students catch up on unfinished learning, but also to tackle long standing historical inequities in education. Great, we have the opportunity to do that. Should you depend on them to take this opportunity? Do you have evidence in the past, and I’m not trying to act, you know, like, I mean, I love teachers. Teachers work so hard, teachers save our kids. I mean, they are the most amazing human beings in our society and provide so much. But the system the way it is, does it empower them to do their best to really do this? Are we going to take this opportunity to tackle these historical inequities in education? Anyhow, let me go through just the beginning of this, this is really well written. “As this most disrupted of school years draws to a close, it’s time to take stock of the impact that this past year has had on student learning and well being. It was, this year was as a whole, perhaps one of the most challenging for educators and students in our nation’s history.” And then they talk about their analysis of this, and this is very interesting. “The impact was significant, leaving students on average five months behind in math, four months behind in reading by the end of the school year. It widened pre-existing opportunity and achievement gaps, hitting historically disadvantaged students the hardest. In math, students in majority black schools ended the year with six months of unfinished learning. Students in low income schools, high schoolers have become more likely to drop out. Seniors, especially from low income families are less likely to go on to post secondary education. And it goes on.
Fantastic article, but we get down here and I want to show you a couple of interesting things here. So first of all about that it’s inequitable, we have not addressed the inequities in this country. And when we look here, at this chart here, this is very telling, it shows by race and by income and by location, how far behind students are. And then here, go down to this last one. This shows what happens with mental health conditions. And then finally, the last one I wanted to talk about is the economic gap caused by the unfinished learning. And how much worse, this is where it already was, the racial achievement gap, and then it got even worse, adding to a worse outcome. And you can look at those on your own. And that’s not what I want to talk about, I don’t want to focus more on that article, I want to focus on the solution. If you have a child who you are concerned about, and you want to be helpful, and you’re worried about the learning gap, what can we do? So here are some things that are concrete that you can do, so grab a notebook, and the ones that resonate with you take a couple these ideas if you like them, I hope they help you.
Number 1: Model, modeling. We the teacher, the adult, the parent, whoever you are, we model behavior. There’s the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do,” that’s a horrible saying. “Do as I say, not as I do,” that is so outdated and bizarre. That’s not reality. Kids do what we model. We are teaching them through our behaviors, our actions, our words, we are modeling how to be in this world. And are we modeling what we really want to model? So we want to model here is a value for education, value for reading, value for writing, we want to model that we value it. I think that one of the worst things I ever have heard students say, that one of the most sad things that I’ve ever heard them say is “I hate learning,” or they’ll say “I hate school.” So they’re creating an association in their mind that they hate learning. They don’t hate learning. They hate the experiences they’re having or the way that they feel in what they’re associating with learning, but they don’t hate learning. So to model a value for learning, to show, “Hey, I’m learning a new song, I’m learning a new thing on guitar, I’m learning a new thing in my hobby, I’m learning a new thing from this book I’m reading, oh, I’m doing math right now, this is so cool. We’re looking at something in our everyday life, how cool,” to model your value, how you value it, to model it more explicitly more intentionally so that they can really see that this is important in their life.
Number 2: Connect with the child and do the thing with them. So whatever we are modeling in terms of reading and writing and math, these basics that we really need. In order to get them to, you know, the problem that we’re losing learning. So connect with them and do those things with them, do math with them, science with them, social studies with them, reading with them, writing with them, connect and do those things with them. We have very busy lives, I know, but to have times where we connect and and do that with them.
Number 3: Use their own interests to do those things. So when you’re connecting with them about the things, use their own interest and help them see how whatever they’re interested in, anything they’re interested in, has an aspect of math and science and history and reading and writing and art. So help them connect those dots through using their own interests and pointing out how we use those things in their interest. Now in teaching, that would be called ‘interdisciplinary education’ or ‘interdisciplinary lessons.’ It’s where you use multiple disciplines or where you use math and science and reading and writing, where you use all the things together as you go through a unit or a course of study.
Number 4: Metacognition. Metacognition is thinking about thinking, or self-awareness, or being conscious of what you’re doing, or you could say mindfulness. metacognition is being aware of how we think and learn and feel and process, but use your own metacognition, your own awareness of when you are using math or reading or writing in a viable way. You can do what’s called a ‘Think-Aloud.’ And what that means is that you simply think aloud about, I’m trying to look for a good example, but you simply think aloud about the thing that you’re doing. For example, if you’re on your phone and reading something, you can literally say, just talking to yourself, you’re thinking aloud, you can say, “Wow, I’m so glad that I know how to read and that I value reading, this is a really interesting text thread that I’m reading.” Now, it might be a text, might be an article or might be whatever. But just thinking aloud so that they see this is related to modeling, they see that you are reading, even on the phone, or doing math or when you’re setting timers, or things like this. Setting timers is math. But we use in everyday situations, we use these disciplines. So just thinking aloud and helping them see that you’re using all of them will help them to connect the dots as they go through their day to see “Oh, I always do this. I never really thought about it but I’m doing math right now. Oh, I always do this, I never really thought about it but I’m doing reading right now or writing right now, doesn’t seem like I’m writing a paper but I am writing.” So metacognition in everyday activities, using ‘Think Aloud.’
Number 5: Know when to cut corners. Okay, now this one’s interesting parents and teachers, know when to cut corners. So there are times when the school or life has us do busy work that is meaningless. And so for you parents out there in particular, when there is busy work, and you know that this just is not a value to your child’s life, like you have only so many hours in the day, and you want to pack in as much connection time, family time, social time, emotional time, and learning time. When there are things that you’re really looking at, you’re like, “How’s this helping my kid?” Know that you can cut corners, and that that’s not a bad thing. It’s ethical to cut corners at some times. So when do we scaffold executive function and do certain things for them? And when is it actually helping? When is it holding them back? Really looking at those things, and when to advocate and email the teacher and say, you know, “We’re not going to do this, this is not working, we did the first three problems my kid was done and we needed family time or they got burnout,” You know, like, or when to do certain things for them. So know when to cut corners in an ethical way, in the best interests of your child. And for teachers out there, know when to cut corners when you have administrators or districts that say you got to jump through X, Y, and Z hoops. And I know teachers know how to do this anyway, it’s called, teachers call it ‘close the door and do what you need to do for your students.’ So know when to do that.
Number 6: Particularly for parents, but find mentors that are not you. Find mentors that are not you. Tutors, role models, coaches, sign up for a thing that has a teacher, your teachers who are not you, talk to them, become friendly with them. But find people to help mentor your kid to help inspire that value, as I said in number one, the value for education and for reading and writing and math the value for it. So again, the problem is we’re losing learning. So how do we minimize this? How do we have more learning? Well, we really want to show the value for it, but have people who are not you do these things with them in everyday life. I don’t know that I’m explaining everything very well today, sorry, I’m a bit tired today. If you’ve been following me, hello, what’s up? It’s me Seth, I’m a bit off today.
Number 7: Documentaries, movie night, number seven. Documentaries are learning. So if we’re losing learning, documentaries are a really great way. If you have movie night with your kiddo, and I don’t know, they can be high school or they can be a first grader, but you’re watching documentaries where you’re learning cool things. That’s a great way to pack in more learning.
Number 8: Similar to documentaries is to go back to the library. Take your child to the library, spend time in the library just reading. Value it with no distractions, with no phone, with no laptop, go spend time in the library on a weekly basis or whatever.
Number 9: Daily, daily. Have talks with your child, and this is great for teachers too, about what you’re learning. So it would look like this. “Hey, it’s dinnertime. What’s up? Hey everybody, what did you learn today? What did you learn today? I learned this today, I learned that today, I did math in this way, reading in this way,” point out what you’re learning today. Teachers, you can see the kids on the playground, “What are you learning today? This is what I learned today.”
Number 10: Block out time. Block chunk time for deep dives into projects that are interdisciplinary. So parents, like do fun, cool, interesting projects. With your kids, but you have to block time out for it, and deep dive into things. When you deep dive into a topic with your kiddo, even if it’s something like Minecraft or something that is online, you can still learn with them, you can study Minecraft with them, you can create art with it and write and make a cool project with it, a diorama. I’m not trying to sound cheesy. I mean, there’s just a million ways that you can dive deep into projects, interdisciplinary projects with your kid that are fun.
Number 11: Do executive function at home. You’re already doing executive function at home parents, teachers, you’re already doing executive function in the classroom. But you might not call it executive function. Well, point it out to yourself. Point it out to them and do the think aloud saying we’re setting up this system for this. These kids with executive function struggles I’m really worried about after this year, and I mean, I already have and that’s why I dedicated my life this, but after this year, it’s just like, I’m really concerned. And we really need to do as much as we can to help them build these skills, and you’re already doing it. So figure out where you are doing it and use the thing clouds in modeling to help them connect the dots. The biggest problem here is that when they don’t connect the dots, that executive function or learning or the systems or these things that they do in their hobby areas, that these are things that they can apply to other areas of their life. And they’re really losing out on it because when they’re older, and they don’t know that they already have these skills, that’s really going to hold them back. They’ll figure it out eventually. And they’ll find their own workarounds and stuff, it’s just gonna be painfully longer than it needs to be. And we want to do everything we can do.
Number 12: The very last one that I want to talk about, the most important one that I want to talk about is the relationship, our relationship with our kids. Now, this may sound counterintuitive in terms of “Well, what does that have to do with losing learning?” Well, when our kids are losing this learning that is really, in their future, if this impacts them economically in terms of their career, in terms of their relationships, in terms of their mental health, if this impacts them, the relationship is the core, it’s the most important thing. It’s the thing that allows them to come to us, to trust us, to receive help from us, what happens a lot is we tell them what they need for help. And we have the sort of topdown approach rather than a collaborative approach. But building the relationship and the simple word, love. Love your child, love the kids you work with, spend time with them. Love is in action, spend time with them, be with them. We’re so busy today, I just can’t say this enough. Taking the time, without devices without distractions, to have quality time with your child all the time. Having fun with them, not talking about school all the time, having connection, doing yours and mine, doing our own deep inner work. If you’re not new to me, doing our own deep inner work means working on ourselves. When we work on our quote ‘issues,’ our stuff, our baggage, we all we’ve all got it. All of us, when we work on that we are modeling for our kids that we care about ourselves, that our mental health is important. We’re showing them through our actions. So anyhow, the last one was the relationship.
I’m sorry if this was a kind of random, but I’m gonna tie this together in a more sensible way for you right now. The problem is that our kids are losing learning and the consequences of learning, losing learning. And my suggestion is don’t wait for the schools to do what this article says and that they have this opportunity to start changing things. Don’t wait for that to happen, start right now doing everything you can. and the best things that we can do is really to model the value that we have for education. Because what happens is these kids start thinking, “I hate school, I hate learning.” And when they have, excuse me, when they have a mindset that says “I hate this thing,” and they’re not valuing it, even though schools have their own dysfunction, that doesn’t mean in schools, that doesn’t mean that education or learning is bad. And learning is the key for them to be able to have a good quality of life. Learning is the key for them to do what they need to do, to be who they are in this world. So anyhow, those are some ideas that we jotted some notes that may have worked for you and I hope that was helpful to you.
My name is Seth Perler, I have a site called SethPerler.com. If you like what I’m doing, share it, I appreciate your support. It means a lot when you like, subscribe, and comment on my YouTube channel. If you want to get more out of what I do totally for free, go to SethPerler.com and sign up to get my, I send one free weekly email with brand new inspiration to support kids, straight from the heart, straight for you at SethPerler.com And I also have one called ExecutiveFunctionSummit.com. Anyhow, have a great day. Most of all, go connect with your kiddo. Take care.
“Natural consequences… one of my takeaways from the summit was to not be my kid’s executive function (at least as much), and allow natural consequences to happen. Yesterday was a test for me. My daughter started community college two weeks ago. Yesterday, she had classes start at 8a. Her alarm went off at 7a. And again at 7:09a. Then silence. I told her the night before I’d give her a ride as long as she was ready by 7:30a. But after that, I had commitments. At 7:19a I started getting anxious. At 7:24a I was irritated. I watched the clock tick down reminding myself not to save her. That was hard.”
WHEN can we let kids “Fail Safe? When is it rescuing? Enabling? Saving? Maladaptive? Helping too much or not enough? Here I explain several core concepts to empower you. Please share if you like it.
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Video Transcript: Coming soon
The Parenting with Impact Podcast with Elaine Taylor-Klaus and Diane Dempster informs and inspires parents and professionals guiding complex kids to become capable, independent adults. This episode will dive into:
The 3 tiers of executive function: foundation, implementation, maintenance
The importance of systems, mindset, habits, and routine
The most important thing a parent can do to help their kid is to start by focusing on their own self-care
Why executive function sets kids up for a quality life
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work.
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✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers.
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🙏 Thanks! — Seth
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Excellent question: Are there any good apps to support children/teens with Executive Function challenges? Here I give a quick deep dive into what you need to know. ALSO: 🧠 my Executive Function Online Summit is THIS FRI AUG 20, it’s Free, Check it out: https://executivefunctionsummit.com/
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work.
👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest.
✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers.
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🙏 Thanks! — Seth
Video Transcript: Coming soon
“What ADHD support should PARENTS ask TEACHERS for?” is a great question, and in this video I break down the ideas you might want to know to help your child get the support they need.
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When parents try everything and nothing seems to help or work, it can feel incredibly frustrating, like you are spinning your wheels. Here I dive into some key insights that might help. “No matter the strategy, list, chart, routine, song, consequence, reward system – on and on …. I cannot get my son to follow through with adaptive skills.”ps- FREE AUG 20, 2021, The Executive Function Online Summit for parents, it’s an incredible way to learn strategies to support your child. Check it out: https://executivefunctionsummit.com/
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work.
👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest.
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Parents, teachers, THIS fall I’m concerned about how we are going to support our kids in such a divided world. I worry that there are going to be a lot of unforeseen problems this fall and that if we DON’T proactively think about this, that we are increasing the problems our kids will experience. On the other hand, if we DO PROACTIVELY start living in the solution, we will be able to support our kids better! Here I outline several ways to help.
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In this video, Sarah Kesty of The Executive Function Podcast and I discuss several excellent ideas about how to make an “Executive Function Friendly Home”. Doing this makes it much easier for your child to manage life. Comment and add your thoughts to the conversation!
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work.
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🙏 Thanks! — Seth
Video Transcript: Coming soon