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Can ADHD people MEDITATE?

PART 2: An actual 3 min meditation (starts at 2:15) Today is about: Can people with ADHD and Executive Function challenges meditate, why does it even matter, and how to get started.

Meditation has been the BEST thing for adhd/ef ever, because it helps me manage my attention/focus, and as a result, I have a better life in multiple areas.
But resisted for years because I had a story that I can’t meditate, it doesn’t work for me, because I can’t stop thinking. I had excuses, and completely misunderstood meditation, and I definitely missed out.
Here I discuss the BENEFITS of meditation, HOW to meditate in an easy way, and I will do a 3 minute meditation with you.
Video 2 is JUST the meditation so you can practice any time with guidance.
333 MEDITATION CHALLENGE: Meditate for 3 days in a row, 3x a day, 3 minutes each time and see what happens. Comment if you want to share, it would mean a lot to me and others.

HOW TO:

You can journal after
Find a timer you like
Remove distractions
Position should be comfortable
Start timer
Get comfortable
Start with 3 long, soft belly breaths, 6in 8 out
Be the watcher, observe, witness, notice. Notice forehead for a few moments, then eyes, cheeks, nose, etc..
Notice distractions: Thoughts, emotions, urge to fidget, noises, etc. At end, take time opening eyes
Check out video 2.

Please share with someone if you like it.

🎦 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

Video Transcript: Coming soon

Emotional Regulation & Executive Function

Hey parents and teachers, Emotional Regulation is part of executive function, and it’s important because the better a child can regulate/manage emotions, the more they will be aware of what works and what doesn’t work. This means that they will be able to process emotions rather than avoid and distract in unhealthy ways. This is a quality of life issue. Here are 8 tools that will help in this video. Please share with someone if you like it.

Video Transcript: Coming soon!

The #1 Executive Function skill that SHOULD be used over Summer Break?

Parents, what’s the #1 Executive Function skill that SHOULD be used over Summer Break? By the end of this video you’ll know what it is, WHY it’s important and HOW to support your child. Teachers, you might like this one as well.

Video Transcript: Coming soon!

Students: How to plan summer EVEN IF you hate planning

The problem is that summer goes by in the blink of an eye, and many students miss out on things they wanted to do because they didn’t plan well. I get it! And here is HOW you can get started planning, even if you hate planning, and it’s pretty easy too. Check it out and get started, so YOU can have the experiences that matter to you this summer, and NOT miss out on things that matter to you.

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF. Hey, what’s up, students? In this video I’m going to show you usually middle, high school, and college students, I’m going to show you how to plan for your summer, even if you hate planning. My name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education so that you can have an awesome life. One of the things that happens is that people often hate planning, people that I work with, often hate planning and I used to hate planning. So in this video, I’m going to talk about how to plan your summer even if you hate planning. I’m going to talk about a few things like who, why, where, how, when, and why again, but I’m going to show you exactly how to plan your summer, even if you are someone who doesn’t like planning. Parents and teachers, if you’re watching this and you have a student that you care about, that’s an awesome human being, and you want them to have an awesome summer and an awesome life, this video may be good for them, too. First of all, students, let me talk about the resistance. The executive function, the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the front third of your brain, helps you to execute tasks. If you have resistance, number one is if you have resistance to planning and you think, “I don’t like planners, I don’t need planners, I hate planners, planners don’t work for me, I don’t like planning, I keep it in my head out, I’ll remember it. I promise, I know, I remember.” And then you find yourself not remembering things. Then you find yourself thinking, “Oh, I’ll do this, I’m going to have this plan, I’m going to accomplish this thing, I’m going to go to this place.” Then weeks or months later, you’re like, “You know what, I never did that thing.” You can move on to other things. But you’re really missing a lot of opportunities in life. That’s part of executive function. That’s what I struggle with. You know, I’ve struggled to plan things. The reason I have a good life today is because I figured out how to work with executive function better, not perfectly, but just better. So I’m going to show you how I plan things and how you might plan your summer so that you can have a better summer. That’s the number one problem, the resistance. Number two, what I want to mention is this, that a lot of the stuff, I’m going to do a screenshot right here, this is the document I’m going to be working with. But a lot of the students that I work with, number two, they want to get a summer job, or they want to make money during summer, they want to do certain things with friends, or certain hobbies, or get better at certain things that they like. Their skateboarding, their art, their music, their hobbies, whatever, they want to get better at certain things. They want to do certain things, they have certain goals. They’re like, “Oh, I’m going to do this and this summer.” They think they’re going to do it and what happens with us, people like me, and maybe you start with executive function, like I’m someone who has ADHD. If you have ADHD, autism, dyslexia, whatever, or you just struggle to get things done, and you always have missings, and lates, and zeros, and incomplete work, and you forget about tasks and do things last minute, if you struggle with this executive function thing as I do, well, then we got to figure out how to plan. What happens is that opportunities pass us by over, and over, and over, and over. It’s hard to see how much collectively that adds up in our life. What I mean by ‘adds up’ is it adds up by not adding up, we’re not doing one cool thing, after another cool thing, after another cool thing, that’s good for our life. It doesn’t feel like it’s adding up because just it’s the boy, nothing’s really happening. But what’s adding up is something called opportunity costs. We’re losing opportunities, there’s a cost, that we’re losing out on things. It’s really important to be honest with myself about what the opportunities I’m losing out on are because I’m prioritizing things that aren’t really that important. Here we go. How do you plan your summer, even if you hate planning? We’re going to start with Who who are you? You are usually either in middle, high school, or college, or you might be a parent or a teacher who struggles with executive function. But you are somebody who might struggle with planning, organization, time management, getting things done on time, waiting to the last minute, priorities, prioritizing things that aren’t the most important thing. But you’re also somebody who wants to have a better life, you’re honest with yourself, you’re not somebody who just pretends that things aren’t going on. You’re like, “Yeah, I actually do I kind of struggle with this stuff. And I actually do want to have an awesome life and not be a victim and blame everybody. I want to take responsibility and have a cool life.” If that’s you, then that’s who this is for. Second, why does this even matter? Because we have this blip of a lifetime. You’re gonna be alive for what maybe 100 years? How old are you now? 10 15, 20? You know, we have this little bit of time. Life goes by so fast. Time is so precious. Life is so precious. It’s precious. It’s it’s valuable. Every moment is precious. When we waste away moments, then we’re really losing out on quality of life. So why, why does this matter? Because when we learn to plan better, we have a better quality of life. We contribute more to the world, our communities, to our families, to our friends, we contribute more to our own lives. We have a better quality of life, we are generally happier as human beings, and more whatever, however you define successful. You’re able to live the life you want to live. That’s why planning matters. So that’s the next one. Who, why where. Where. I’m going to suggest you do your planning is online. Basically, there are three main places as the where. One is a document, Google Docs is what I’m going to use today. Two is something called Google Keep, which is associated with your email. In fact, if you look right here at this little yellow button here to the right, that little yellow square is called Google Keep. It’s awesome, it’s a great place to make plans. The next one is called Google Tasks. And that is this little blue thing right here. You can also use a journal or a notebook, you can also use any number of other places. But the ‘where’ that we are going to do our planning today is just going to be on this document right here. Then we have ‘how.’ How do we do this planning? Alright, so let me show you right here. First of all, I’m going to go ahead and start here. I’m going to get rid of this stuff. I’m going to call I’m going to say here, “Summer Plan 2021.” In this case, I don’t know when you’re watching this, it might be 2028 for all I know. I’m going to make this some more reasonable size, like 18 or something, and watch what happens here. When I click right there, it makes the name of the document. So there’s my document. Now, I’m going to start here, and I’m just going to go back. Basically, what I’m showing you right now, I’m just making up. This is nothing special, okay? Listen, the magic of planning isn’t doing some, “Oh, I have the magic way. I have the best way. This is the coolest plan, blah, blah, blah,” it does not matter. Now I can show you a lot of cool ways to plan but it does not matter. All that matters is that you do something. Do it how you like to do it. Just do something. The worst thing that you can do is nothing because if you don’t, people who fail to plan plan to fail. Oh wait, yeah, plan to fail, that’s how it goes. So if we fail to plan, we plan to fail. What are your goals this summer? For example, maybe you want to make some money. And you can just list these out, let’s say you want to make $3,000, right? Let’s say you want to have fun, let’s say want to read two books for yourself, let’s say you want to volunteer and help the world or people in some way. Let’s say that you want to do some projects in your house, your bedroom, get rid of stuff declutter, let’s say declutter. Maybe you get to unsubscribe and deal with your inbox this summer. Maybe you do things to help your parents or your family, whatever. You have some goals. Now what you can do is you can prioritize your goals. You can just say, what’s the most important goal you have of all? Maybe your most important goal is to declutter? Is that even a word? But let’s just say that decluttering, let’s say you have a lot of clutter in your life, let’s say that, is I still misspelled it… let’s say that that’s your number one goal. Maybe you put that there. Anyhow, you want to now prioritize. Now we have some goals, now we can prioritize them. If I click this button, it organizes them. So what I like to do for myself is I like to duplicate the list, because I like to have a second list. This is where Google keeper Google tasks can really come in very handy. But I like to have a master list, which is that one. So I do these sorts of goals all the time, by the way. There, where are we here? There we go. So now I messed up the numbers, so I’m going to redo the numbers. If we take it off and put it back on, it’s going to put them back to number one through nine. Then I like to put sub-goals. So now this is huge. This is a giant font. For the details, I don’t want a giant font. I’m going to make details on these. Now, what am I going to declutter? Maybe I’m going to declutter my inbox then I’m going to declutter my closet one day, maybe I’m going to declutter the garage, or my sporting goods, stuff, my old clothing, my old books, toys, under the bed. Maybe drawers, whatever. Anyhow, so let’s say that that’s part of decluttering, those are some of the things. Maybe I get an idea for how I want to make $3,000, maybe I’m gonna like mow lawns, maybe I’m gonna get a job. Now, I’m gonna pause right here because a lot of my students say that they want to get a job, right? I mean, I’ve been doing this a long time, students, okay. A lot of my students will say, “Oh, I’m going to get a job this summer, I’m going to do this and this, I’m going to,” and the problem is with executive function is that they can’t plan enough to go get the application, to do the application, to figure out all the details of the application, to take the application back in. I mean, these are students like me who forget to turn in their homework, even though their name is on it and it’s done. How is somebody like that gonna even get a job application in? These are problems that you have to work with. But if you start the goal, then you can start thinking about stuff like that. The reason I mentioned that is because ‘get job’ doesn’t just mean getting job. ‘Get job’ means ‘go to 10 places,’ let’s say. Let’s say ‘do applications one day,’ let’s say ‘turn in applications,’ whatever. A job doesn’t just appear. Now, sadly, and what I mean by sadly, is for some of you a job does disappear. That’s because people did it for you. But you didn’t learn the lesson of how to do it yourself. People are holding your hand like you’re a little child. If you want to be treated like that your whole life, that’s cool, but nobody wants that. We want to be treated like adults, we want to be treated maturely, so we need to act like it. But when people are doing everything for us, it makes it really hard. We need to learn to, you know, is making $3,000, maybe get a job, what needs to happen? Anyhow, I could go through and I could go on with all these things, which I’m not going to do. But what you’re noticing me do here is I’m starting to make a plan. I’m starting to prioritize the plan. I’m starting to do what is called ‘chunking,’ chunking, chunking. We’re chunking these big things. The biggest thing here is to have a great summer. But we are chunking in smaller pieces. Here, my goal is to have a great summer. Here are my sub-goals to reach those goals. Again, I don’t care if he’s Google Keep, I don’t care if he’s bullets or numbers in your list, I don’t care if you use a piece of paper or journal, or write it on a whiteboard, or the refrigerator, whatever. Just take time to make a plan. Why? You are worth it. Life is this blip, you’re gonna have an awesome life. To have this awesome life, things don’t just magically happen. Because you’re turning into an adult, you’re growing up, you’re learning more responsibility. We talked about ‘who,’ we talked about ‘why,’ we talked about ‘where,’ Google Docs, Google Keep, Google Tasks, in a journal, whatever. We talked a little bit about ‘how.’ The other thing I want to talk about with ‘how,’ is as you’re doing these details, you might think about ‘when.’ The next one is ‘when.’ It doesn’t just happen, and people struggling with executive function, we tend to think things are just going to happen. So for example, if I’m going to go to 10 places to get a job application, I might write on Friday, June 15th, or whatever. I don’t even know if that’s a real date. But that’s what I’m going to do it. Maybe I’m gonna do it from 12 to 5 pm. I’m gonna ride my bike around, or get rides, or whatever. Do the applications maybe on Saturday and Sunday. The ‘when’ is really important because my students think, you know, it’s like January, they’re thinking, “I’m going to get a job this summer.” It’s February, March, April. It’s April, they haven’t done anything, they haven’t reached out, they haven’t asked, they’re like, “I’m going to get a job,” but they haven’t done anything to plan or think about it. It’s May, it’s June, it’s July, it’s August, it’s September and school is starting back up. Summer went by, nothing happened, no money was made, no job was made, or whatever the goal is. So the ‘when’ on your goals is really important. Let’s say one day, you’re going to work on your inbox or your bloset, which means closet, I spelled it wrong, or you’re sporting good stuff, or all your electronics, or whatever the stuff is, you’re going to declutter. Pick a time to do it. Even if you don’t do it at that time, pick the time. The important thing is to plan, it’s not as important to follow the plan. You don’t even have to follow the plan perfectly. You’re not going to do all this stuff on your goals, but you’ll do a lot more than if you didn’t make goals. I’m going to wrap up here, that’s just a little bit about goal making, you can go way deeper with this. The only reason I’m as successful in life today is because I learned to make goals and follow through. With my executive function challenges and my ADD, this was really hard for me. In fact, it still is, but I have tools and methods and ways to do this. I’m showing you one great way to do this. So go out there and let me finish with this last thing. The last thing is ‘why’ again. Why would I suggest that you plan? Because life’s a blip. Your life matters. You matter. What you bring to the world matters. We need you, the world needs you, I need you, your family needs you, your community needs you. Literally, literally, you have an impact on the world. We need you to develop into your best self and have an awesome life. Because the better you have an awesome life, the better you’re able to execute and get the things done that matter to you, and the things that are important, and the things that are of service to others, and the things that come from your heart, and that come from love, and come from kindness, and generosity, the more you’re better at having a great life for yourself, the more you contribute to everybody. So we literally need you. The ‘why’ to do this stuff this summer is for yourself and for the world. To have a better life, to have a better quality of life. Anyhow, I believe in you. If I could figure this stuff out, anybody can. Is it hard? Yes. Can you do it? Yes. Do the best you can and have a great summer. Again, my name is Seth Perler at SethPerler.com. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. What goals do you have for the summer? How do you set goals? How do you not set goals? Do you have any advice for us on what not to do? What are some of your thoughts? What’s one thought that you have on this video? Leave a comment below, give it a thumbs up if you like it, share it with somebody if you like it. You get to subscribe, do all the things, I don’t really care. Have a fantastic day, be good to yourself, be kind to others. Take care.

Trauma & Executive Functioning, how does it impact EF?

Parents and teachers, I got this awesome email, that opens up a big can of worms, “I’m wondering if you have any experience with 2e kids that are most likely 2e due to ongoing stress and trauma? My son has difficult life circumstances in addition to the 2e challenges. Thanks, Michelle” In this video I respond to the email with some good background, followed by 3 insights to help you help your child.

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF. What is up, parents and teachers? I got this email from Michelle, that says “I’m wondering if you have any experience with 2e kids that are most likely 2e due to ongoing stress and trauma. My son has difficult life circumstances in addition to the 2e challenges. Thank you, Michelle.” Alright, so that is a fantastic question and I’m gonna break that down for you. So for you, parents and teachers, this is a good one for both of you. My name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach, and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education so they can have a great future. And when we struggle to execute, it limits and impacts our quality of life and our potential in our future, quite literally. This is no joke here. This is legit stuff we need to figure out if we’re going to help these kids. What I’m going to talk about here today is trauma and 2e, but really trauma and executive function. I’m going to give you three super solid insights. I’m going to build this up for you so that you really can take these insights and have some ideas of what to do to serve the kids that you’re trying to be helpful to. So first, parents and teachers, let’s start with what is 2e. If you’re not familiar with 2e, or twice-exceptional, 2e kids (or adults) have two exceptionalities, generally speaking. That means that they are gifted and talented on the one hand, and on the other hand, there’s a learning challenge or learning disability or whatever words you prefer, it doesn’t matter. There are legitimate challenges and legitimate gifts. These people are very complicated, and the discrepancies oftentimes between the challenges and the gifts can really exacerbate a lot of the problems that these kids are having in terms of being understood by people who’re trying to be helpful. So that’s what 2e is. Now executive function and 2e, people who are 2e, who have challenges, usually the challenges involve executive function challenges. Challenges with getting important things done in very simple terms. Planning, prioritizing, focus, attention, concentration, follow-through, self-starting, anything involved with getting things done. These kids often will struggle with executive function. So now, what about trauma? We have this thing called trauma. Well, for those of you that think trauma is just a big event, it is not necessary, so you need to understand this, if you haven’t heard about big T and little T, please follow me here. But to back up a little bit. When I’m thinking about trauma, what I think about is we have the brain, the story, the mind, the narrative, okay? Then we have the body and the nervous system, let me explain. Our mind, our brain, our story or narrative in our mind is always looking out for danger. Sometimes we notice something that is dangerous, or that feels unsafe, or that feels threatening to us. When we feel threatened or our safety is being threatened, what happens is our story tells the amygdala, a small part of our brain there two amygdalae, and our brain, tells the amygdala, “Hey, watch out, something’s wrong.” In the amygdala, here’s the story and says, “Oh,” it doesn’t hear the story, it just hears that message, it doesn’t know what the story is. The story could be abuse, it could be a rattlesnake on the ground near your foot, it could be that you just stubbed your toe. It could be that you have to speak in class in front of a bunch of people and that feels really uncomfortable and unsafe. It’s anything real or imaginary, that we’re perceiving as threatening. With trauma, what happens is that we can become really hyper-vigilant and really fearful about the things that are going to happen. Does that impact executive function? Absolutely. I’ll talk about that. But let me back up here though with a trauma. So we have the story and the narrative. That tells the amygdala “Hey, we got a problem.” The amygdala goes “Cool, we’re in danger, I got this. I’m going to work with the body,” within a fraction of a second, the amygdala sends a message to the heart, to the adrenals on top of the kidneys, the adrenals send adrenaline to the heart, the heart sends adrenaline to the muscular system so that we’re ready for a fight, flight, freeze, faint, so that we’re ready to protect ourselves from whatever that perceived threat to safety is. That is what trauma is about. It’s about how we can have experiences that are traumatic, that really tell the nervous system, “You are not safe,” and then do we process that in a healthy way? Are we guided with other people who are working with us, and co-regulating with us, and loving us, and helping us move through that, or does it almost get, you could, say stuck in a way? What do we do with those traumas? Now I want to talk about the big T and little T. So the big t traumas are referred to like big giant events that happened. That’s what people usually think of when they think of trauma. Some big thing happened that was really traumatic to someone and that’s what trauma is, but that’s not just it. Little T traumas, anything that we’ve been through over and over and over, where it feels unsafe. You could have a teacher for a year who you feel shames you and criticized by, or anybody in your life that criticizes you and puts you down, nothing’s ever good enough. They’re always finding fault with you. It could be a boss, it could be a spouse, it could be a relative, it could be a friend, it could be someone you work with, it could be someone that you know. It just seems like there’s this trauma of shame, just drip, drip, drip, like water torture, just drop after drop, just continually for a long period of time. That can be traumatic. Okay, so anyhow, you have to understand that it’s not just big events, kids can go through, or anybody can go through, also what’s called little T trauma. We also can have something called attachment trauma, where we’re trying to attach and feel secure with our parents, or grandparents, or relatives, the adults in our life, or young children. Adults have attachment trauma too, obviously. But as kids, we’re trying to find secure people. When we feel that somebody is avoidant, or somebody is overbearing, there are two main types of attachment. We can have, most of us have, variations of attachment trauma. There are many therapy models that deal, there are many therapy models, and they are dealing with these traumas. How do we work through things in good ways? So one of my favorites is called polyvagal theory. It’s an amazing theory, and I run an executive function summit and Deb Dana will be talking about polyvagal theory this year on the summit at ExecutiveFunctionSummit.com, it’s amazing. But polyvagal theory is one of my favorite ways to describe what’s going on in the body. Anyhow, getting back to Michelle’s question, let me see exactly how this was worded. “Do you have any experience with 2e kids that are most likely 2e due to ongoing stress and trauma?” I would say yes. Or that if there was already executive function challenges, that the challenges are exacerbated, absolutely by trauma. I would say, yeah, sure. I think that’s not uncommon at all. Before I go on, we need to know that the brain develops from the back-forward. In the prefrontal cortex of the brain where executive function takes place is the last part of the brain to develop. In fact, it doesn’t develop until we’re 25 or 30 years old. I mean, it’s developing the whole time, but it takes a long time to fully develop. So while that’s going on, there are many, many, many, many influences on the developing brain and on how executive function develops. Things like chemicals and lead paint, and things like that. Obviously, alcohol, cigarettes, those things obviously affect a young person’s or in a newborn’s brain development. Sorry, my brain is a little bit fried, I did not sleep much last night. And genetics obviously influences our developing brain. And culture. When we’re learning executive function, particularly when we are around adolescents, cultural influences are very important. Executive function is going crazy during that time. There’s a huge burst in executive function development during adolescence. One of the things that are happening is we’re trying to figure out is how do we fit in this world? Who are we? What’s our identity? And cultural influences definitely impact our values. So that can impact the developing brain. Food impacts to the developing brain, sleep, income, is a predictor of executive function, even. People who have more opportunities and educational opportunities, and who have preschool and they have more opportunities to develop executive function. In trauma, yeah, it influences executive function. So a lot of the students that I work with have difficult life circumstances and or trauma. The good news, to me, is that when I work with these kids, when these kids have somebody safe, and who cares about them, and there are healthy and secure attachment, and these kids know that they’re safe with the adults in their life and that these people are there for them, and they show up and they guide them. I’ve seen these kids who have had tremendous traumas and challenges. I don’t necessarily like the word ‘overcome,’ which makes it sound like it’s just something that doesn’t continue to impact you. Anybody who is watching this right now, who’s had trauma knows that it continues to affect us. But it doesn’t rule them anymore. Or they can get to a place where it doesn’t rule them, where they can use it as an opportunity, they can use it for growth, and they can use it as an opportunity to really self-actualize. Many, many, many people have used their difficulties, myself included, to create careers that are really meaningful to them, where they’ve used the things that they’ve gone through to help other people. I just want to mention that there’s a lot of opportunities. The fact that you’re at emailing asking me about this, you’re one of those adults who is in this kid’s life, trying to figure it out and trying to be helpful, that matters, that is everything. So this child will be uniquely positioned as an adult to use their experiences to help others in some way. Number one: So, what works? I told you I was going to give you three things. What helps with kids like this? Well, the first thing I’m gonna mention if we want to help these kids is us, me, you, us doing ‘our’ as adults. Doing our own deep inner work on ourselves. Doing our own therapy, or support groups, or reading, or journaling, or men’s work, or whatever we’re doing to develop ourselves. We are modeling for them, even if we don’t even say what we’re doing, our nervous systems are modeling for them that we care about ourselves, we take care of ourselves, we take care of our mental health, we work on our stuff. We come and apologize for things, and we show up, and we hold space, we learn skills. Us working on ourselves is number one. We also are going to mirror emotional regulation better for these kids, we’re going to co-regulate with these kids when we’ve done our own deep inner work, meaning we’re a stable nervous system, and we’re telling them that we’re a safe, stable, nervous system when they become dysregulated. So that’s number one, doing our own deep inner work. Number two: We want to be helpful in teaching kids about trauma tools. Research on the internet, or wherever, trauma-informed schools, or trauma-informed this-or-that. Just the words ‘trauma-informed,’ and you’ll see a bunch of things that come up. What we want to do is we want to teach toolkits, toolboxes, tools, teach kids how to work with these things. You know, a lot of us grew up in families or in cultures or subcultures, where we were taught: don’t feel, it’s not good to feel, don’t cry, be quiet, stop crying, grow up, you know, let it go get over it. And we weren’t taught, “Oh, I value and respect that you’re having a feeling right now. What can I do? I’m here,” we weren’t told that. We were often invalidated. Teaching these things, teaching vocabulary around trauma, how to regulate emotion, there are many methods, how to be reflective and introspective, and have a reflective practice and self-awareness practices of mindfulness, and breathing, awareness of our breathing, what our nervous system is doing, and being able to talk openly about what we’re going through, and not shaming these kids for how they feel, or shaming at all. So teaching trauma tools is number two. Teaching. Teaching about trauma and guiding kids to have toolboxes to work with this stuff. Number three: Building secure attachment with them. I mean, we do that by doing our own deep inner work and by learning tools ourselves, but we want to learn about attachment theory and building secure attachment. These kids need one adult in their life, at least one adult who’s secure for them, who’s there for them, who’s got their back, who sees them and hears them, who understands them. We want to repeat these secure attachment messages, whether they’re verbal or nonverbal. We want to be saying, “Hey, I’m here for you, I may not be perfect, but I am here for you. I am trying to listen, I’m trying to grow as a human being. I’m here,” and repeating that over and over and over in many, many, many different ways that communication that says, “Look, I’m trying to be here, I’m here. I am here. I’m not perfect, but I am here for you. I promise I am here. I will do my best and I will keep working on it.” So anyhow, awesome question. Michelle. Thank you so much. Those were the three things that after setting up a base for you, I hope that helps. Doing your own deep inner work, teaching trauma tools, and building secure attachment with these kids so that they have at least one solid person in their life. My name is Seth Perler, I have a website called SethPerler.com. I’ve got lots of free resources for parents and teachers. Go subscribe and support me if you want. If you like what I’m doing, please support me. Leave a comment below. What did I leave out? What else could you contribute to the conversation? What have you learned or what questions do you have? Leave it in the comments below. How can we help other people in the comments? Give me a thumbs up and a like and all the things. But most of all, if you like this, share it with somebody who might benefit from this. Again, my summit, ExecutiveFunctionSummit.com is coming up in August. Go ahead and check it out. It’s incredible. And thank you for being here. Have a great day. The most important thing today is to go connect with your kiddo in a meaningful way. Take care.

Teachers, are you “GRADING” right?

Wowwwwww teachers, it’s been a crazy year. And you still have to “grade” kids, and those grades may impact the kids. So what is in the HIGHEST GOOD??? Here I make a plea for how to consider this bizarre year and how to “grade” your students.

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF. Teachers, are you stressed? Hey, what’s up parents, teachers, administrators, school counselors, therapists, tutors, paras, everybody working with kids right now. It’s the end of the school year, and are you a bit stressed? It’s been a stressful year, we are ready for summer break. My name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education so that kids can have a great life. And if you are somebody who’s been following me for a while, sorry, I didn’t vlog this week I’ve been traveling. I was in Los Angeles, now I’m in Florida. So I’ve been in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Florida, and I am exhausted. I did not get to my blog on Sunday, I apologize for that. Sorry, not sorry, because life happens. Anyhow, back to the topic. My intention for today, really, is to share with teachers. But the rest of you will probably really get a lot out of this. Teachers, my intention today is to share a plea, a plea with you. A plea to remember why you do what you do. A plea to do the highest good. So, teachers, I’ll get around to the details of this. But it’s the end of the school year, it’s been a crazy school year. Why do you teach? Why did you get into this in the first place? Do you remember? What’s your ‘why’? It’s to serve, to serve kids because you love kids, because you want to give. That’s why we do this. So in this video, let’s talk about grades. When I was teaching, I remember that as a teacher for 12 years, and we gave out these things called ‘grades.’ And I remember that nobody really explained to me how grades are supposed to be done. And I started learning as a new teacher that everybody did grades differently. What does an A, B, C, D, F mean? How do we evaluate that? How do we create metrics to determine whether or not a student earns or deserves a certain grade? Well, at this point in my life, I don’t believe in grades. I think they’re archaic. I think that they need to be done away with. They don’t tell what we think they’re telling. People don’t agree with what they tell. They’re outdated, they need to go. But you know, you teachers have to grade kids. That they exist [grades. They’re a necessary evil at this point. So you know, these broken metrics, there’s the saying, “Not everything that is measured matters. And not everything that matters is measured.” And this is particularly true when it comes to grades and how we evaluate human beings. To be very blunt with you, I think grades are stupid. They’re archaic and stupid. So anyhow, what’s happening right now, teachers, is that you are in a position where you have to make a choice about students’ grades. Now, I particularly work with students who struggle with executive function. These are often kids who are misunderstood and who fall through the cracks. You have to make a choice that impacts their life about what grade to give them. Or if you don’t think it’s giving it to them, if you think it’s that they earn or whatever, what grade is going to go on their grade card? The grade card is a big power. It’s actually a quite ridiculous power that we are given if you ask me. So what my plea is about is to really think about what is in the best interest of the child, the students? I don’t care if you’re working with elementary, middle school, high school, college, what is in their best interest for the totality of their life? Okay, so is it better to fail a kid? If they failed your class, what does that really mean? That they were not compliant? That they didn’t learn anything? That they didn’t try? I mean, what are we going to do? So anyhow, let’s also think about engagement this year. If we were to grade you or your administrators on how well schools engaged, let’s say we were to grade the administrators, how well did the administrators empower teachers to engage students this year? What grade would they get? A, B, C, D, F? Will teachers get A, B, C, D, F on how well they engaged students and meaningful learning experiences that were engaging? Were the students engaged on a level 10? They were so engaged, they just couldn’t get enough of the class? Or were they minimally engaged? Were they engaged as a one? What if we graded you on that? How would that feel? It’d feel pretty horrible to me, as a teacher, I know that. So engagement has everything to do with executive function. When we are not engaged, it is very, very, very difficult to execute, use executive function, the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the front part of the brain, to help us to execute on our schoolwork or any number of things. Engagement is huge when it comes to executive function, and this year has been incredibly not engaging. Why? Why has it been so hard to engage? Well, it’s really hard for the students to relate with a teacher when they are online and on a screen like you’re watching me right now. Like how engaging is this? Really? Are you really 100% focused on me? What if I graded you on your engagement with me right now? What if I put you into a breakout room with a couple of other people and I wasn’t even in there with you. The breakout rooms are so hard. These kids, a lot of these kids are essentially having to teach themselves. They’re not teachers. How do they teach themselves when they’re not? What if these are kids who hate the camera? Like what if they really do? Do you like the camera? What if they don’t want to be on camera? What’s that like for them? What is that due to? Executive function, engagement? What about technical problems, technological problems, problems just with turning things in? We’re even having the tech in their home or how many, you know, devices does a family household have? Families that have money, have a lot more devices, typically, than families that don’t have money. Is that equitable? So what about saving things because you struggle with executive function? What if they forgot to save something, and they lost all this work that they did? What about all this stuff they have to sift through online just to find out what the assignments are and stuff like that? So anyhow, how do we determine what we’re going to grade them on? Is it their effort? Is it how much they’ve learned? What if they got behind? What if they got behind because they were sick or tired, and they have to catch up all the time? Or somebody in the household was sick? What about kids who have processing issues or attentional issues and they get behind, and they have to catch up? What about social problems that they’ve had, and lack of social engagement, and being with their friends, and learning social things this year? What about how that impacts their engagement? What about their family and being suffocated with families all the time and the problems that bring up. The many, many problems that that brings up? What does that do to engagement? What about just the fear that these students have had? What about the implications of racial injustice that has been all over the place and how that impacts kids this year? What about just what’s going on in news and how that impacts the kids? And just all the unrest in culture and society in the world and how that impacts executive function and how well these kids were engaged? What about legitimate trauma that these kids have had, and what about the trauma that these kids experienced during this year because of everything that’s going on? This is a different year, a different life, but it’s the same system. We haven’t adapted enough to meet the kids’ needs. It’s a different year, a different type of world, but the same system? I mean, we’ve changed things. Of course, you teachers have worked our butts off, we appreciate so much what you’ve done. We totally do. We know how hard this has been for you, parents finally understand how hard it’s been for you, finally, or at least they a little bit understand because they’ve had to teach their kids and understand how to motivate them when things are not motivating. So anyhow, it’s the same system, we’re still covering the material and following the standards and all this stuff. As you grade these kids, for this year, my plea to you is to really think about what is in this child’s long-term best interest? If they fail your class, should they really retake the class? If yes, then are they going to retake it with you? How is your relationship with them? Are they going to take it with another teacher? How’s the relationship with that teacher? Is that a teacher who’s compassionate, empathetic, and understanding to neurodiverse kids? Or is that a teacher who’s strict and rigid, and they’re just going to fail again? Or they’re just going to plod through that class and not learn anything in it? Like, what is the point? So should they retake it? What is the best? I don’t know what’s in their best interest, but my plea is for you to really think about it. What if they shouldn’t retake it? What’s the benefit of that or the negatives to that? Should they have to take summer school and retake the class? So these are some things to think about. The thing I really want you to leave here with today is, again, your ‘why.’ Why are you a teacher? Why are you doing this? What did you get here to do? You get a lot of pressure from the system to do certain things, grade certain ways, cover a certain curriculum. But why did you become a teacher? Because you love kids, you want to be of service. So using your empathy, your compassion, putting yourself in the shoes of these students and knowing that you don’t know the whole story. And remember, what if you were graded for your performance this year at work with letters? And you think about the impact that this year has had on your relationships, your friendships, your self-care, and the days that you just couldn’t rally and you just struggled, and you were graded on all of this stuff. So the question is, what is in the highest good for the students that you’re serving? Thank you from the bottom of my heart teachers, principals, counselors, paras, all of you people working with kids. For the parents out there watching, thanks for watching. I hope that this gives you some insight as to what I might say to teachers, you know, as a teacher for 12 years and so I hope that this gives you some insights when we think about what are the grades gonna be. We’re at the last minute of the school year, what are you going to do teachers? How are you going to grade these kids? What is the highest good for these individuals? And again, from bottom of my heart, thank you for serving. Thank you for serving these kids need you, they need you. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us this year, I mean that. My name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach and my site is SethPerler.com, got a bunch of freebies for parents and teachers Find me on YouTube, leave a comment below. What do you think about grading kids this year, and about grades in general? Are they immoral? Are they ethical? Are they telling us what they’re supposed to tell us? What information do they give us? Are there better ways? Yes, there are. There are definitely better ways to assess students meaningfully. But what are better ways than using these letter grades? This clearly is not working this year, yet it has not changed and these kids will have grades that will impact their lives. What do you think of that? Leave a comment below in the comments if you’re watching me on YouTube or on my blog here at SethPerler.com. Have a great day. If you haven’t subscribed, subscribe. Give it a thumbs up, leave a comment, likes, things like that. Those help my message get out to more people. Be well, it’s almost summer. We almost get to take a big sigh of relief that the school year is over and hopefully onto a much better fall. Be well.

What is Executive Function?

Parents, teachers, therapists, students, What the heck IS Executive Function? This quick video will teach you the basics so you get it 🙂 You’ll know what it is, why it matters and 8 specific executive functions.

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF. What is executive function, executive function, executive function? What’s up parents, teachers? Maybe some students. My name is Seth at SethPerler.com. Executive Function simply means how the prefrontal cortex, the front third of our brain, helps us to get stuff done. It helps us to execute complicated tasks. So what’s the problem? Well, the problem is for the students that I work with at least, is that we struggle to execute, to get things done when it comes to school and our responsibilities. Who cares? Why does that even matter? Why it matters is because we’re worried that it’s going to impact somebody’s quality of life, this is a quality of life issue. We all must know how to execute in order to be happy, healthy, and successful. So here are eight executive functions to make this really, really clear to you. Number 1: Our brain, our front part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex. If we’re going to execute on something, let’s say like homework, we have to know how to number one, organize. What do we organize? We organize our stuff, our backpacks, and the papers and folders in them, our desks, our lockers, our bedrooms. We even organize things like our writing when we’re doing essays or our thoughts when we’re thinking. Number 2: Planning. Realistic planning and time management is so important. How do we really know how much time and energy it takes to do our homework, or write a paper, or get ready for school? Or can we do long-term planning like getting into college, or getting a summer job? Number 3: Prioritizing. The brain helps us to prioritize the important stuff over the fun stuff when that’s necessary. Number 4: Focus, concentration, attention. Can we focus on one thing until it’s done and not get distracted and be all over the place? Number 5: Self-starting. The motivation to get started, not procrastinate. Number 6: Decision-making. Are we making good decisions? The front part of our brain helps us to make decisions that are appropriate in the circumstances. Number 7: Metacognition, or introspection, or self-reflection, or self-awareness. Are we reflecting on our strengths and our weaknesses realistically? And working on, you know, what works? We keep doing what isn’t working. We’re changing? Are we self-aware in that capacity with executive function? And finally, number eight. Number 8: Super important. It’s emotional regulation. When we are anxious, or depressed, or overwhelmed, do we shut down? Do we lie? Do we make excuses? Do we get angry? Do we avoid? Do we deny? What happens when our emotions need to be regulated? Do we know how to do that? The front part of our brain helps us to regulate emotions. So these are some of them. And if we can’t execute, these are some of the aspects or the types of executive functions, and if we can’t execute very well, if we struggle with this, it can impact our quality of life. Fortunately, there’s tons of hope. I work with students all the time, we are looking for transformation so that they have good enough executive function. So if we’re proactive, there’s tons of hope. Anyhow, that’s a bit about executive function. If you appreciate this video on my work, it means a lot to me if you execute by commenting below. What did you notice about people who struggle with executive function? Leave a comment below. It’d helped me if you execute on going to my website, sign up, get some freebies, follow my work. And finally, execute on sharing this with three people today, send this to three people you think might like it. Be well, and I really hope that today you execute on the most important thing, which is quality time with your child. Take care.

How to Help with Disrespectful Behavior

Parents and teachers, I got this email: “Hi, Seth. I have been advocating like crazy, and got some nice 504 accommodations. I have made demands of his teachers, and they have stepped up. But…he is just crapping on them in the way of classroom behavior. Disrespectful defiance and resistance, after all they and I have done to make school accessible for him. It makes me so sad. I’m a patient person. I tell him he is damaging himself with this behavior. I wish I knew how to frame or reframe this. So I’m reaching out to you for your perspective.” Well, in this video I give my perspective along with 11 great solutions for compassionate and proactive parents and teachers. Please SHARE this!

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF. Hey parents and teachers, what’s up? And Happy Mother’s Day to those of you parents and teachers who are mothers, thank you so much for what you do and how awesome you are. We appreciate you, your kids appreciate you, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. Thank you for what you do. So today I’m going to talk a little bit about behavior, disrespectful defiance, and probably going to approach this in a way that might be a little bit unusual or surprising, or I might not take the perspective that you’re expecting somebody to take in this, but I think you’re going to get a lot out of this. I got this email from a parent and I thought, wow, this is a good one. I really want to address this. I think it’s the end of the school year, I think this will help all of you right now. It says this. “Hi, Seth, I’ve been advocating like crazy and I got some nice 504 accommodations.” First of all, good for you for advocating like crazy, because sometimes that’s what you have to do. Sometimes it’s really difficult. I hear all the time parents who are trying so hard to be heard and you just have to keep going. So that’s great. “First of all, I’ve made demands of his teachers, and they have stepped up. Awesome. But he’s just crapping on them in the way of classroom behavior, disrespectful defiance, and resistance. Even after all they and I have done to make school accessible for him. It makes me so sad. I’m a patient person. I tell him he’s damaging himself with his behavior.” Yeah, he’s probably not hearing that. How do we get heard and that sort of situation? Is that landing? “I wish I knew how to frame or reframe this, so I’m reaching out to you for your perspective.” Alright, so I’m gonna give you my perspective. The first thing that I want to mention to you parents and teachers out there is, what would you do in a similar situation? You’ve been in a situation for years, and I’m not sure how old this kiddo is, but you’ve been in a situation for years. Let’s say it’s with a job, or a relationship, or a store that you go to, or a restaurant that you go to, or a school that you go to as an adult. But I want to use the example really of a restaurant. Let’s say there’s one restaurant in town and that’s the only one you can go to. Let’s say that you have to go to it five days a week for at least a meal a day, you have to go. But let’s say that when you go, you don’t feel like they hear you, you don’t feel like you’re getting what you’re asking for, you don’t feel like you’re being seen, you don’t feel like they care about how different you are with your needs for food or your preferences. They’re just telling you that you have no ownership in what you choose to order, no choice, you know, you just have to go with the flow. How would that feel and what would you do? Now, what if you could get out of that situation? What about a job? What if you go to a job where they’re not listening to you, they’re not asking you what you think, they’re just telling you all these things to do. Then when you try to do them, they’re saying it’s not good enough, or you get an F, or do it over or finish it. It’s not good. So what will we do in a similar situation? What if we were in a class or we went to an adult class for something, and it wasn’t engaging, and it wasn’t fun, and we were asked to do all this busywork? I’m not saying everything in school lacks value or anything like that, but that your child has had a lot of experiences where they’ve tried, and it’s just not been engaging, it’s just not been rewarding and they have to go again, again, again, year after year after year. So how would that feel? And then if they said, “Hey, we change things for you. Viola! Welcome back. Everything has been changed. Now we know how to give you the service of this restaurant, the food that you’re asking for. We’re ready.” Would you trust that? So why is this child in this situation? Why are they so resistant and defiant? Well, the child doesn’t trust. And why should they? Their experience has taught them that it feels bad. Now, does that mean that what y’all are doing isn’t great? No, absolutely not. I’m sure that all these great things have been in place but his nervous system has learned “This is not safe for me.” So that’s what we got to understand. Why is this happening? One, he lost trust and his nervous system is having an experience. And two, he has maladaptive choices or dysfunctional mindsets or cognitive distortions, or whatever you want to think. What that means is that one, his nervous system is saying this isn’t safe. But two, his story and his narrative has come up with ways to justify not taking action and not trusting this So these things called cognitive distortions, for example, might include things like black-and-white thinking, playing the victim, blame, things like this. So we have these maladaptives. We all do, adults and kids alike, but to a greater or lesser extent. As we mature, we learn that these are not working for us and ideally we change. So anyhow, that’s why. First, I wanted to start with why. Then I wanted to say, why, why, why, why is he having these maladaptive behaviors and these feelings? Number 1: His nervous system is uncomfortable, it’s dysregulated. And it feels bad, very simple. Number 2: Fear. He’s afraid it’s not gonna work, it seems easier to him to stay stuck. So there’s fear there, that this can’t work. Number 3: Maturity. He just doesn’t have life experience to understand how to move forward and how to use like executive function in this case. Number 4: Short-term thinking. With executive function, a lot of times kids who struggle with executive function, lack future thinking, good future thinking. They’re not connecting dots well. So the short-term thinking is, well, in the short term, it’s easier just to stay stuck and play the victim and have excuses and procrastinate and not accept help and be defiant, and things like that. I’m going to give you 11 really, really good thoughts that might help regarding what can work. What helps? What’s going to work with this kiddo? Number 1: Well, sadly, the number one thing that I’m going to mention here that’s going to work is that you’re in a marathon, you’re not in a sprint. There’s no quick fix to this. This is not overnight, there’s no silver bullet, this is going to take time. So number one, what works knowing that you’re in the long game? Number 2: What works. Don’t give up, be patient with your child’s timeline, not the school’s timeline. It’s not yours, be patient, and be persistent. Keep trying, you’ll get there. Number 3: Baby steps are everything in this game. So small wins, what I call micro-successes. So my program that I do with all these families towards the end of the semester, we’re seeing that a lot of these tiny little micro-successes that the kids had over and over and over. Little successes. Finally, by this time in the semester, we’re saying, “Okay, now there’s some bigger successes. Now they’re getting momentum, things are really starting to turn around.” It’s all about small wins and baby steps. So if you’re going to write anything down for number three, just write down micro-successes, you want your child to experience micro-successes. Number 4: Very important. Connection, connection, connection. Research attachment theory, your child needs to feel emotionally safe, connected to you, connected to the teachers, connected to the tutors, connected to the support staff. Having heart-to-hearts with this kid, being compassionate and empathetic with his child. The connection is everything. Number 5: Be proactive with, be proactive with, keeping an eye out for serious mental health needs. Sometimes kids have very serious, legitimate mental health needs that are not noticed or taken seriously. I have so many parents of high schoolers or college kids or even older kids who are really struggling to get their life together, where they say, “I wish I’d started sooner. Why didn’t I start sooner?” And they’ll often blame themselves and feel guilty. But, just the sooner you can start the better. But keep an eye out. Keep an eye out. Don’t just and wait. What happens is we see a red flag and we are in denial. Well, I’m telling you right now, if you see a red flag, explore it. be proactive about keeping an eye out for serious mental health issues that need to be addressed. Now don’t wait. It’s better to address it now and find out that you don’t have anything to worry about, then not adjust anything now and later on find out you wish you had. Number 6: Do your own deep inner work, and this is for parents and teachers. We all have baggage, all of us. 100% of human beings have some sort of baggage, we all have dysfunction, we all have maladaptive patterns, but obviously some more than others. But the problem with these patterns is when we’re not conscious of them. When teachers are not conscious of them, obviously they can impact kids and they do impact certain kids in their classes. When parents are not aware of them, obviously they impact kids, so do your own deep inner work. When we don’t do our own deep inner work, we tend to stay stuck in enabling or over-parenting, sort of encouraging kids to develop more ‘learned helplessness,’ which is not what we want, or we don’t give enough of the right support. Number 7: If you are a couple, do couples counseling. This is a part of your own deep inner work. But our dynamics and our things that we’re not aware of, I mean, people have studied to become couples counselors for years. Take advantage of it. This is what they do, this is what they studied. People are good at this, like use it. You know, there are amazing people out there that can be really game-changers. But when I say this to parents, a lot of parents are like, “Couples counseling?” Yeah, it’s not just your kid. It’s the whole dynamic. We’re all connected. Try it. Number 8: Modeling. What we do you know how they set them Do as I say, not as I do. That’s crap. What we do as adults is what our kids see. What we model for them, or regulation or dysregulation, our connection, our relationships, our careers, our effort, our resistance. Our kids see what we do and that’s what they’re learning from. So, what are we modeling? When you’re modeling deep inner work, and a willingness to seek help for yourself, and self-care, and taking care of your own life, and things like that. They see that and they learn from that. Super important. Number 9: Now, this one’s a little more practical. What needs to happen here is teachers can’t just say, “Well, the kid needs to advocate for themselves, the kid needs to ask for the accommodation, blah, blah, blah.” You need to have teachers who have a heart, and who understand that they can do little things to make the kid feel important. It’s so simple. How does the teacher make the kid feel like they matter? And a lot of teachers, I would say most teachers do this really well. It’s really hard online right now for teachers to do this, it’s really hard with the online stuff. But simply, the teachers that need to do this are probably the ones that resist it. The teachers that are already doing it don’t need to be told this, so that’s kind of complicated in the situation. But teachers really need to go to your kid and be like, “Hey, I got this accommodation for you. I want to encourage you,” or, “Hey, let’s do this baby step today.” Or, “Hey, I’m going to make a modification for your assignment today. How does that sound?” Or, “Hey, let’s give you some choice, how would you rather do it differently?” Where teachers are just actively taking an interest. That’s it, just taking an interest in pushing your job forward, baby step, by baby step, by baby step. Great teachers do this naturally, they’re always pushing your kid. And trust when you have good teachers, trust them, let them do their job. When you have teachers who are disconnected, try to find ways to work with them so that they can take an interest in your kid and get your kid moving forward. Again, it’s hard with online and it’s hard when there are some teachers who say, “Oh, well, they have to ask the accommodation,” or this crazy stuff we have in the system that prevents kids from getting where they need. Two more. Number 10: Ownership and buy-in. You know, we don’t design a system that gives kids a lot of ownership and buy-in in the first place in terms of their learning. But how can we have an education that gives them ownership and buy-in? Where they’re taking ownership of their learning, they’re taking ownership of their life, their situations, their choices. We’re not giving them advice, and using logic and reason, and punishment and rewards, and all these things to try to motivate them. We’re helping them get motivated because they have a stake in it. They have made choices, they own their learning, they own the experience they’re in, they have buy-in, they want to do this for their life. Not for you, not for the teachers, not for the tutors, not for whatever, they’re doing it for them. We have a lot of work to do as a culture in terms of changing the whole system so that there’s more ownership and buy-in. But I’m telling you 11 things that work, and that’s something that I work with my families, and we work on how do we get more ownership and buy-in. Number 11: The last one. Parents and teachers, don’t give up on this kid. Never ever, ever give up. I know it’s daunting. I know it’s scary. I know it seems like, “Will they ever get it? Will they ever engage? Will they ever have a decent executive function?” It’ll happen. It might happen when they’re 30, it might have when they’re 25, it might happen when they’re 22. It happened to me when I was probably about 22. It might happen tomorrow. But don’t give up. Have the heart-to-hearts, tell them you love them, tell them you’re there for them, tell them “I’m not perfect, but I will never ever, ever give up on you. I’m here for you. I’m doing the best I can. How can I be helpful? What do you need?” Never ever, ever, ever give up. They’ll get there. I know you’re not gonna give up anyway, but I just want you to know that your efforts are paying off. It may not seem like it’s sinking in, it may seem like it’s landing, but it is. Trust yourself. trust the process. Don’t give up. Be patient and persistent. That’s all I got for you. Again, Happy Mother’s Day if you’re a mother. My name is Seth Perler at SethPerler.com, we got TEFOS, the executive function online summit, my online summit. ExecutiveFunctionSummit.com, I’ll put a link below. At ExecutiveFunctionSummit.com I have my summit coming up. Third-year this year, in August. Check it out, register for free, it’s amazing. And register for freebies on my website, and give me a thumbs-up, and likes, and comments, and share this. If this helps you and you appreciate what I’m doing, please share it with someone. That’s how my work gets to other people. Be well. Have an amazing day filled with joy and peace and connection. Some good connection with your kid

On Boys Podcast: Executive Function

Janet Allison, Jen Fink, and I have a discussion about boys and executive function for their podcast, On Boys. CLICK HERE to listen to the FULL episode. Does your son have a problem with executive function? Let’s put it another way…. Does he struggle with homework, procrastination, time management, or lack of motivation? Does he have ADHD? If so, he probably needs help developing his executive functioning. Boys who have executive function challenges typically struggle in two areas: Schoolwork and responsibilities. And parents who are distressed at their sons’ lack of achievement aren’t necessarily helicopter parents. Intuitively, parents realize that if boys can’t figure out how to get stuff done, their future options dwindle. But simply nagging these boys won’t help. In fact, nagging often makes things worse. Pay attention to these three things: systems, mindsets, and habits & routines.

In this episode, Jen, Janet & Seth discuss:

What is executive function?
Why boys with executive function challenges don’t struggle with Legos, video games or other activities they enjoy
Why punishments & rewards aren’t effective motivation strategies
Establishing reasonable expectations
Helping kids who are behind (on turning in assignments, etc) “catch up”
When (& how) to reach out to your son’s teacher
How to deal with resistance
Why it’s OK for your son to aim for a D (vs. a B)
Exploring other educational options

CLICK HERE to listen to the FULL episode.

Podcast Transcript: Coming soon!

Top 10 Executive Function Tips

Parents & teachers, you’ll love this, and after watching you’ll know if you want to share with your child. I was recently asked “what was the #1 EF skill that helped me turn my life around?” GREAT question, because I failed out of college and always struggled in school, and felt hopeless! So HOW did I turn it around? Well, here I describe the top 10 EF skills that helped me, and I think you’ll love this video because you can apply it to your life. COMMENT below to share YOUR thoughts! -Seth

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF. Hey students, what’s up? It’s me, Seth. Parents, teachers, this one I made for students. You obviously will want to watch this and I think you’re gonna love this one parents and teachers. Students, I think you’re gonna like it too. I made it just for you. So, what’s up? My name is Seth. I’m an executive function coach, which means that I help struggling students navigate this thing called education so that you can have an awesome life. And I was speaking in some conference thing the other day and this, I got this question in the Q&A that was a really good question. Let me tell you this little background here. Basically, here’s the deal. I have always struggled with ADHD, executive function, these sorts of things. I was not a good student. I knew that I was smart, but I just was not good at doing the school thing. I almost failed out of high school, I did fail out of college, I went to another college and almost failed out but I dropped out before I failed out. So I felt like a failure and I felt like I was lazy. Feeling like a lazy failure really held me back because those are just stories that I really used as excuses to not do things that I needed to do to have a good life. This person asked me in the Q&A, they said, because I’m always teaching people like how do you work with this stuff? You know, what do you need to do, or what works? They asked me, “Seth, what was the most important executive function skill you learned,” they asked for one thing, “to help me become successful.” Today, I have a good life happy life, I love my life. And I get to be free, and have choices, and opportunities, and possibilities in my life. I’m not limited like I was when I was struggling with a lot of executive function stuff. So basically, I gave them the same answer and then I thought, you know what, this would make a great vlog for you all. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to tell you my top 10, and I have a bonus one for you. I’m gonna do them in reverse order, sort of, but my number one that I get to is going to be the one that I answered this person, that is my number one. So leading up to number one, number 10. You have to understand first that executive function skills are interrelated, they all work together. So if I talk about organization and planning, those two things have to do with each other. So these are interrelated. Number two, you need to understand, students, that executive function skills are skills. You can practice them like guitar to get good at them, like riding a bike, like anything that you’re good at, like video games, like using technology, anything that you’re good at is a skill that you’ve practiced. The problem is we often haven’t practiced these skills. But that’s what these are. Number 10: So number 10, number 10. The number 10 executive function skill that helped me to change from a failure to being able to go back to college, being able to get excellent grades, be successful, have a great college experience and create a great life for myself. The number 10 one is what’s called metacognition. Metacognition is you or me looking at myself, honestly. So metacognition, introspection, self-reflection, selfawareness, mindfulness, consciousness, these things are all similar. But let’s talk about in terms of self-awareness. Am I aware that building the skill of being aware of who I really am, what my strengths and weaknesses are? Because what I did, is I lied to myself. I told myself, “I can get this assignment done in five minutes. Oh, I’ll get it done tomorrow. I’ll get it done later tonight. Oh, I’ll procrastinate on it but I’ll get it done.” I would lie to myself, and I would think it would be easy, and I would think that I would just get it done. It would take me forever. So being able to be self-aware is a skill. Because it’s easier to just lie to ourselves until it’s not easier to lie yourself, you know what I mean? So that was a skill I had to build. That was one of the key skills that I built to turn my life around was selfawareness, metacognition. Number 9: Number two executive function skill, or number nine, is focus. Focus skills, skills to focus. Focus, concentration, attention, same thing. What’s the opposite of focus? Distraction, distractibility, not focused, not paying attention, not concentrating. So I had to build skills to focus because I couldn’t focus. Okay, I had to build skills. It didn’t just come because I wanted it to, I had to work at it. It’s a skill. These focus skills helped me with study skills, because before then I didn’t really study. I always put the least amount of effort into it as possible. Reading skills, I skimmed things, I pretended like I was reading. I would read pages of things and be like, “I don’t even know what I just read. This is stupid. I’m not gonna waste my time on this.” And I gave up. I had to build the skills in college to learn how to read again. Seriously, I had to re-learn how to read. Listening skills, listening to a teacher, paying attention, focusing. I’d be wanting to daydream so much, la-la-la, teachers talking. I would have to learn and practice the skill of focusing. I’d have to practice skill of getting rid of distractions along with the skill of focusing, I can turn off anything that’s a distraction. Close anything that’s a distraction. That’s a skill to override that. Number 8: Planning skills, I was able to turn my life around because I worked on my planning, my calendaring, my agendas. I learned to have certain planning skills, like one of them was to over plan. So I would think, “Oh, I’m going to work on, I’m going to plan a half-hour to study for this test.” While I learned that I really needed to plan two hours to study for a test for one hour because I would lie to myself or I would misestimate how long things would be. I learned to overplay and that was a skill because I underestimate the amount of time and energy it takes to do my homework and studying. I learned to plan my study times, which I hadn’t been doing. I learned to plan, I got everything on my planner. That was a skill because I learned that I can’t rely on my brain and I shouldn’t rely on my brain for planning, and for remembering details, and remembering what my homework is and when the test is. I used to try to keep it all in my head, and I thought that I was doing it even though I was lying to myself, but I wasn’t as evidenced by my D’s and F’s and everything. Number 7: The next one, number seven is self-starting skills. I am a procrastinator, I do not feel motivated to start things. So I had to learn how do you self-start. And what I thought I would do is I would wait until I was motivated, I do not do that anymore. I learned to not wait until I was motivated because that doesn’t work. I’m never motivated do something I’m not motivated to do. So I procrastinate a lot and I had to learn how to self-start. In doing that I learned to use timers, I learned to use accountability, that we’ll talk about more in a minute. I learned to chunk things down into small chunks that I could see myself actually doing it, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes of something. Rather than thinking, you know, “I’m going to study forever,” I would study for long periods of time. But in order to start, I had to think of it as a smaller chunk. So anyhow, I had to build skills for starting skills for starting. It’s not just, “Hey, choose to start, you just need to motivate yourself.” I don’t do that. So I had to trick myself into starting. I had to learn those skills. Number 6: Next, number six. Maintenance skills. One of my problems was that I might set up a great system of folders, I might set up my bedroom, or office, or study area in a great way. I might, you know, organize all my papers, or all my emails, and get everything organized. Well, the problem was that I didn’t maintain those organizational systems. I didn’t maintain my planners. Because I didn’t maintain them, they fell apart. What I had to do is learn that it’s not just doing it once and you’re done. Like I have to maintain it’s like sharpening a sword, you know, gets the dollar. So you have to maintain it. And with a car, you have to get oil changes to maintain it. Like I had to maintain my systems, my organization, all of those things. Number 5: The next number five was Frankenstudy skills. So basically that was I had to learn how to take notes, how to study, how to show up to class on time, how to do all these things my way. There are so many people that give advice, “Here’s how you use a calendar, and a planner, and the folders, and the three-ring binders.” Some of it worked for me and some didn’t. But what I had to learn was to take the advice that they gave me and pick the parts of it that I liked and apply it to myself and not just say, what I used to do is I’d be like, “Oh, planning doesn’t work for me.” And I would make these stupid excuses, “Oh, yeah, studying doesn’t work for me. Oh, that doesn’t blah blah”. I would have these things and I would just put myself in a position where I’m not able to get anything done. I’m lying to myself, saying it doesn’t work for me because I wanted to give up because it wasn’t easy. I just wanted to do things that were easy. That did not get me anywhere in life. The next one is sacred, oh, you know what, with my own Frankenstudy skills, I learned to tape-record my notes. Not the teacher’s lectures, but my notes, me reading my notes and listening to them. Oh my gosh, I felt like I was cheating. It was so easy. I would hear my notes, and then I could hear them in my head. It was one of the most helpful things ever did. I would draw my notes, I would doodle on my notes, I would make visual reminders for myself. All these things to Frankenstudy and tailor it to myself really worked for me. Drawing my notes, I’m creative and drawing my notes, just drawing and doodling on them really helped me learn faster and easier. My notes did not look like anybody else’s outline notes, like my notes look like a big piece of art and I learned better that way. Number 4: Sacred study space skills, number four. I had to build skills to maintain a study space. Right now, I’m sitting at my sacred study space. Literally, I’m at a standing desk, I have my chair, I sometimes stand when I’m working, I have my microphone here, I have my drawer with all my sticky notes, I have whiteboards, I have everything in the sacred study space. It’s clean, I have the lighting I want, I have plants here. I’ve made it mine, I had to learn to create it. I couldn’t just study at the table, I couldn’t study in bed, I couldn’t study on the couch, you know. Because when I did that, I didn’t get anything done and it took me forever. I wanted to get on to doing fun things and really learn how to study. So making a great sacred study space was number four. Number 3: The decision-making skill. Part of executive function, part of what the front part of our brain does is executive function. It does all those things that I mentioned, but this also helps us to make good decisions or not make good decisions. With my executive function, I did not make a lot of good decisions. I had to learn to do what I call take contrary action. Meaning my first decision that I make in my mind usually is not a good one when it comes to school, because my first decision is “I’m going to put it off, I’m going to procrastinate, I’m going to make excuses. I’m going to get my parents off my back, my teachers off my back. Don’t bug me, my decision is I don’t want to do this thing, because I got more fun things to do.” But that was setting me up for miserable life where I failed out of college, dropped out of the next college, I just didn’t have a lot of opportunities and that did not work for me because I lied to myself. So with the decision-making, take contrary action. do the opposite of what I think I should do. My first instinct was “No, I don’t want to do it.” Doing the opposite of those things was really important in my decision-making. Number 2: The number two skill was the accountability skill. That means going to study groups telling my parents, “Hey, will you bug me about this? Will you remind me about this?” Telling friends, “Will you remind me about this?” Telling people, “Oh yes, I will be there at the study group. I will study with you from this time to this time.” Accountability. I wasn’t motivated to do all my work on my own, but when I would tell people I’ll be there, I at least would show up and get a bunch of stuff done with other people. It was more fun that way. Accountability on Zoom, or whatever, there are so many ways to have accountability but that was the next skill. Number 1: Now, the number one most important skill, when this person asked this question, executive function skill that I used to turn my life around, the number one most important thing is, literally the number one most important thing that turned my life around is learning the skills of asking for help. It’s so hard to ask for help. It was so hard for me to ask for help at first. That got easy, I didn’t know it would be so easy until I tried it several times. Advocating for myself saying, “I care about myself, I love myself, I want to have a good life. I don’t care that my brain tells me not to do a bunch of stuff. I’m going to figure this out. I’m not going to let my mind hold me back with my resistance and my decision-making. I’m going to make a good life for myself. And I need help. I cannot figure this out. I don’t know how to do this. Other people have figured it out, I’m going to ask people, how do you do this? I will go to office hours with professors or teachers. I would go to the writing center, the tutoring center, tutors, therapists,” I’ve had plenty of therapists, they’ve been so helpful to me. Some people think that seeing therapists or counselors or psychiatrists or psychologists means that there’s something wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m not broken, I don’t need to be fixed. I am good enough. But asking those people, therapists, they know what they’re doing. That’s what they’re trained in, for help. They have helped my life. Tutors have helped my life. Getting tutors proactively, not waiting until there’s a problem and learning to ask for help before this problem. Like at the beginning of a semester, math was hard for me. So I would go to the tutors at the beginning of the semester and get off on a strong footing with that. Asking for help is the number one most important thing. Telling my parents, “Hey, I need help. I don’t know how to do this.” Telling my friends, “I don’t know how to.” It’s so easy for me nowadays to say “Can you help me?” in any situation. It’s crazy. It’s just so easy now because I don’t have my ego tied up and thinking that there’s something wrong with me if I need help. Everyone needs help. Every single successful person, successful athlete, musician, artists, entrepreneur, every single successful person that you admire and respect has learned to ask for help. They would not be where they are without asking for help. None of them. I 100% guarantee that. Bonus Skill: And I told you I do a bonus, so those were the 10, my bonus is this. My bonus skill that I learned, and I think this is really important, really big picture, but the bonus skill that I learned that really helped my life and really help me be happy is the skill of service. The skill of giving. Every Sunday I make a video for people, why? I want to give, this is part of how I give back to the world. People gave to me, I give it back. The skill of service, of helping people, helping my parents with the dishes or cleaning the house and not complaining, like offering help. Helping somebody who’s in trouble, helping somebody who’s broken down on the side of the road with their car, like just being helpful to people and not expecting anything, just being helpful to be helpful is one of the biggest skills. It’s called generosity. We live in a scarcity world, a world that says, “Oh, I’m not going to have enough.” But the trick is that the more we give, the more we get. The more we’re giving, the more we really get. It brings us happiness and joy, it brings us connection. So service, generosity, and kindness. Kindness. Building the kindness skills, like really trying to be of service, to be helpful, to be generous, to be kind to people, has been one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. So there you go. There are 10 executive function skills, tips. And those are really real things that really helped me turn my life around when I was in a really scary dark place where I felt really hopeless and I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to make anything of myself. Those are the things that helped me. Again, my name is Seth Perler. Give us a thumbs up if you like it. Leave a comment. What skills have been most important for you? Or what skills do you really want to develop to create more change in your life? What stood out to you? And leave a comment below, and on my website, SethPerler.com. Go ahead and subscribe, I send something out every Sunday. The world needs you. You have amazing talent, skills, and gifts. And we need you to develop who you are. I hope this was helpful to you. Have a fantastic day, go connect with people, go laugh with people, go be good yourself. Take care.