Category: Advocating for students

Please CLICK above to share. BONUS VIDEO with Blake Boles: This video is for parents who have a child who really doesn’t fit into the school “box”. Here I talk with my friend Blake Boles, a great guy who is my goto person when I have questions about alternative schooling options. Here’s the link to Blake’s Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blakeboles/why-are-you-still-sending-your-kids-to-school/

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

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

Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up? Everybody? This is Stefan stuff Pro., new here today with Blake Boles. If you’ve been following me for any. Of time, you know them executive function coach of Colorado and help struggling students navigate this thing called school and my buddy Blake here who I’ve known I’d lie and I don’t even know how we met probably through world domination Summit or something. So we met through sort of a group of people who do unconventional work. A lot of them are bloggers are bloggers are podcasters are authors or things like that, but they don’t take traditional life cats so somehow we got to know each other over the years here and there and Blake just came out with a book and then we’ll talk about that minute, but I have like on today because a just mention what’s going on with the book that he’s working on right now and be because it’s so aligned with the stuff that I do that I want to ask. We discussed this before we started tonight. I want to ask him some genuine questions based on the concept of the book that you my audience are going to I think I appreciate quite a bit like what’s up? I sent it to Beaver. Tell them a little bit about your site and sub lakelet lived a very unconventional life. I love it, but tell me a little bit about your website how you got into this room and maybe your books in your offerings and stuff real quick. What are you writing my podcast and I’m scared to the travel company have been running for about a decade now for teenagers who don’t go to school and I’ve called that unschool Adventures, but previously written about teenagers like this. How’s it go to college? If they don’t have a high school diploma about what they can do if they choose not to go to college at all still look her up and be successful and another book about self-directed learning in this what that looks like because it’s phrase that we were around easily, but when it comes down to it, I’m pretty freaky thing. Awesome. So and your new book is called. Why are you still sending your kids to school? That’s it’s deliberately provocative and it’s it’s meant for parents whose kids are clearly not a good fit for school, but the parents think well, this is just what you have to do what you have to keep sending your kids to normal conventional school. So that’s why the title is why are you still sending your kids to school? Because I say there are lots of other really great things you’d be doing with your kid, but you’re not conventional school and they run a whole gamut from like just kind of more typical say that yet cuz that’s what I want to ask you about today. So don’t get into that right yet. So before you get into that, I want to set it up a little bit because got the people that follow me or following me because their kid is 2E or they just have executive function struggles. They start with planning time management organization blah blah blah. But there is a whole spectrum of kids that I work with and what you said before I find very very very true. And I even got another email today from a parent that that has a 10 year old that wants to do a consult with me and they literally want to do a consult with me about a 10 year old who doesn’t fit in the box and should they switch schools and so on and so forth and I have some stock answers that I used for that question, but one of them is that it’s always a crapshoot and you can send your kids to the school. That seems like it should be the perfect fit but I seen it so many times where they’ll go to a private school or Montessori school or a charter school or something that’s in a trust on paper and on the internet. It looks so aligned with what the kids needs but then they go they’re there and it’s just not what it seemed like aunt or they could stay in the same school or they could go to school that’s rated wayworth. Get a teacher. That absolutely adores that make them feel seen and heard in her stead and it’s the best experience ever. But either way I have had so many experiences Lake where I have families that we have been indoctrinated in the story that you go to school and you go to college then you get a job and you retire then you die blah blah blah what’s supposed to happen is you’re supposed to go through school and get the education you need. But as we know what these kids are start with executive function who don’t fit in the box, and I know that you’re those are more my terms of you probably say no divorce or other terms with these kids that don’t fit in the box. There are kids who they are suffering and they need some other alternative. So, Feel free to fill in the blanks of what I just said and then let’s start diving into what are alternatives. Yeah Yeah Yeahs inner diverse kids are definitely part of the audience there are also a lot of kids out there who might not meet that classification but are just bored out of their minds or the nana be that the bureaucracy of the school system just driving them towards like anxiety and depression symptoms for school and there are kids who just need a lot more time with its need the freedom to dive into one thing really intensely instead of being forced to do is just love bracelet so there’s always a good fit for school and you know the number of ones who are genuinely good fit for school I imagine they are out there but I really don’t think that they’re in the majority Awesome. So then what are the Alternatives and then I think my final follow-up question. I’m going to tell you now. My final follow-up question is going to be you’ve got a parent watching right now and they are just terrified there. Like we could never do that Blake. That’s like that is too scary like it. So I have parents that come from sort of the very flexible Minds that they’ve seen a lot of alternate is there used to that sort of thing. Then we have the whole other side is Bactrim where it’s like no you follow this path our kid needs to go to college. They need to be able to do this. I want them to be successful. I’m terrified that if we don’t go down this app, that’s not going to work. So let’s go to what are other paths? And then what do you tell parents? You were like? No, this is to Do intense sure. So the other has concluded the more like traditional Progressive schools like Montessori or Waldorf Austin as those schools at age up in the middle school and high school years. They start to Look Alot Like just any other private school I can attest to that. So I tend to focus more on the radical alternative schools. The one that really focus on self-directed learning and so these might be Sudbury schools or a Child Learning Centers or liberated learner centers are most people have not heard of but these cool Innovative. Very small learning communities are scattered all across North America and their numbers are grown. I’m I also talked about homeschooling and unschooling which is the world that I’ve spent the most time in which is just taking advantage of barylak sounds when was to focus exclusively on self-directed learning with your kitten Nursery in there. Those are the two main options that we talked about. There are some cool Charter School options are Virtual School. But by and large does temps you end up looking pretty conventional and for the parent whose super let’s breakdown self-directed learning in in just a brief description of that. Self-directed learning means you follow the child and that is a double-edged sword because a lot of parents are happy to do that when their kid is automatically interested in something that’s like societally approved don’t like the kid gets super into physics of course is super into I don’t know creating art something that’s easy to support a self-directed Learner in that case, but when your kid super into Minecraft and that’s what they want to do for 8 hours a day, it gets more difficult. But the ideas that you are you are actively nurturing intrinsic motivation drive and by doing that they are going to overcome obstacles. It’s the reason that games are such powerful forces in so many kids life game is very broadly speaking a game is something where a kid will voluntarily take on challenging tasks for the reward of just getting more challenging tasks. After they went and saw that is really what you want to be doing as a parent is encouraging young person to take on more and more challenging tasks, especially as they get older and they move towards and that’s the point of being a self-directed learner. It’s like, yeah that you can follow their passions not because what there’s no folks in on specifically in this moment is necessarily what they’re going to do, you know, the kid who goes to the Minecraft base is most likely not going to become a professional gamer or programmer, but they are learning what it’s like to be totally immersed in something totally focused which I believe is what most of us want in the end from the process of Education in able to Be an Effective at that attention that focus and can you follow the kids. That’s what being attracted to me. You made a really quick, that you kind of Blue by really fast for you said something about if they were doing things that are valued by society and so many things in that kid that so many of the strengths and interests and passions and Curiosities that kids have are not measured by traditional schools. So often times we measure Math Science Social Studies language arts Etc and we have we have constructed systems that where we are measuring things with certain metrics usually test in essays there are others but those are the most common and we just had we think that’s the way to do over there is so many other valuable things to learn and get interested in that are not measured. Can you speak to that? I think you did when you mention the Minecraft thing. I think that’s one of the biggest objections that parents would have the conversation about learning by changing the metrics and I think the really important metrics to talk about our engagement. And and that is what I say all the time. Like if the kid is totally engaged in something that that is when the magic is happening. That’s when the gross has happened. But if it’s something that’s not Society approved then it’s very difficult to be supportive as a parents and that’s where the work is for the parents to be able to see through. You know, what seems to be maybe a Mindless or a worthless activity with the c i a true that there is a high level of Engagement happening and I think that kid is in that flow State, you know as defined by the guy with the crazy last name me high chick sent me high. This is when kids lose track of when they become completely immersed in an activity so that it seems like nothing else exists and that I can be kind of scary thing to see as a parent because then you don’t exist anymore, but that state is worth Nursery. Yeah, so and that’s you know, if I had a magic wands and I had to pick one thing that we would change the way that we evaluate schools and teachers and teaching on OB that rather than looking at at all the data that we typically look at we would look at how is so there’s a there’s a lot to be learned from gaming and stuff like that. But the question will be how is engagement. So if you’re going to look for your A+ schools online, they would be the ones where kids are most engaged if we measured schools by Hound gauge the kids were we will be doing things very differently. I agree. Yeah, so I think you were getting too if it seems a bit rent. I don’t think this is a very I think it’s fairly linear where we’re going but I think you were getting too. Okay. So then what happens after high school? So we have sort of these Alternatives at younger ages unschooling homeschooling alternative schools and we get past the high school or into I guess if they were at being unschooled, you wouldn’t really call it high school right by school years, but we get through the high school years and we’re on to this next chapter is the traditional is go to college or go to vacations vocational school or whatever. One thing I really like about Blake is the gap year stuff. We haven’t I don’t even think to mention that yet, but I’m a huge fan of Gap years. But so it’s it’s after high school years. What are the options in the options are pretty much the same as the options for a kid. High school and what I’ve seen is that by and large kids who are unschooled where they go to these radical alternative schools where nothing is really ask them all day. They do you end up going to college the majority of them and they take advantage of the incredible powerful inaccessible system in the underrated unfairly maligned the very useful tool but it has a certain stigma around especially if your parents went to you know, highly selective colleges having but a lot of these kids end up taking part-time Community College classes starting around age 16 17 18, and they got these transferable credits that show that they can handle college-level work and then they either apply as a freshman using their transcripts. Their mom made for them in addition to some community college credits and maybe take the SAT or the ACT transferable credits to transfer transfer. And so a lot of them. Do you go to 4-year University? And essentially if they want to go then they get in there and just like regular high schoolers and their first choice schools. There’s no great epidemic of unschooled or radically alternatively school kids in a wanting to go to college and not being able to go to college and then some of them do you move straight into career in Cumberland take their time and they take a gap year then maybe they take a second job here and then they decide to go to college when their age 19 or 20 and they’re really ready for it instead of just following the herd. Awesome. Awesome. So let’s do a completely Shameless plug for the book and I just want you to really I mean you you do an awesome job. So what I just seriously like what the benefit of the book for a parent? I think the benefit of the book is that there’s lots of books that talk about homeschooling specifically alternative school and I just lay out all the auctions and talk about them unfairly eat. I’m also a given to a few places that radical alternative education Books Austin don’t touch like a lot of the research around parenting a lot of the discussion and the recent research around the value of higher education because all these systems are interconnected to say like, yeah, you should stop sending your kid to regular school. Rosin a lot of other considerations about like, well, what does it mean to be a parent nowadays? What does it mean for my kids economic future if I’m somehow jeopardizing their higher education prospects, so I’m trying in a lot of other topics a lot of other research a lot of citations in the book and it just goes beep and I think it’s a really great book. And a lot of my colleagues in the self-directed learning world have nice things to say about the early version of the manuscript that they bread and so I had I think it’s going to be good. I think it’s going to be a lot of parents to worry less about taking the nun National half when they see that that’s clearly what is going to serve their kid was suffering in school right now. I like the way you just worded that last sentence what’s going to serve them best. And so my last question, it’s a wolf link to I think it’s it’s on it’s a Kickstarter at the moment right? Kick starter in a Kickstarter will run until noon on February 20th. So we’ll link to the kickstarter if anybody’s interested in that check that link out and then the last question I would have is for the parent that’s watching that really is that parent that year after year. They’re like my kid is not built for school or school is not built for my kid my kid feels bad. Year after year, we keep trying different things are different teachers are different schools are different approaches. We feel like we’re failing our kid is parents like we’re doing something wrong or kid feels bad about himself everybody. Something is seriously not working. What is one action that they can take after this call today Harrison next couple days for that that parent that’s like my kid is not just school is not seem to be working. Is it probably an alternative to Conventional School in your area that you don’t know about yet. And so the action is to go find that I’ve got links up on my website play kohls.com. Why the letter Y to help you find resources in groups or schools that are in your area and just set up a visiting day go and visit this group or the school or the center for 1 hour take your 10 alarm to see how it feels kind of stuff out the Bible and that alone even if you don’t decide to do anything alternative, Just knowing that there are options out there can really put your mind at ease. Dude, you’re awesome. Thank you so much for doing the work that you do. I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed how you got into this. That’s not appropriate for right at this minute. But Blake, thank you so much for your time and your heart and your energy in and helping kids. Thank you very much that I take everybody.

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Here are two about Greta:

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

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

Video transcript:

Parents, teachers, what’s up with me Seth with SethPerler.com, Executive function coach Bayside Boulder Colorado and I help struggling students navigate this thing called school. And today I’m doing a different type of the post. I’m going to do more of a rant today in his blog and this is an honor of a Greta thunberg who is the activist the teenage activist that has really caused. A lot of people to be really inspired to take more action with what’s going on with the climate. Obviously. We know that this is no joke that this is a reality and that people who deny climate change. I just don’t get it, but we are at a point when it’s it’s it’s scary what we have done to the world that our kids are growing. Ben and I’m going to talk about that today. I got three things one. I’m going to rant and tell you about where I’m coming from on this and why it matters. To I’m going to tell you a little bit about what I do to make a difference in terms of protecting this Earth and three. I’m going to tell you what I wish. I am not intending to offend people and I’m sorry if I offend you but I’m going to speak my truth. There are a lot of things that I blog about. I try to stay out of politics. I try to really focus on helping kids are struggling with executive function. I try to stay in this area and I will tell you the only thing that concerns me is executive function issues. I am concerned about the future of the world the future state of the world for our kids. So anyhow, I’m going to talk about two that I know for a lot of you there’s there’s about 25,000 people who follow my my Vlog around the world and I know for a lot of you speaking preaching to the choir so to speak I’m stuck. I’m telling you something you already agree with her probably the vast majority of you. So why is that? I don’t usually speak on this level. This is not really about politics. This is about life on. Earth as far as I’m concerned and I have some notes her I’m going to be going by. I don’t do what I do to help kids to live in a world that is dying. That is suffocating by human interaction. I don’t do what I do to that kids have a bad future. I do what I do. So that kids can have a good life a good future and if the world is messed up they are not going to have that. It doesn’t matter how good their executive function is. So we have to start there. So I do my work so that they can have a good future and I am very very very concerned scared terrified outraged angered about what’s going on and I always say in my blogs. I always say to parents what you do matters. What you say matters what you think matters. It impacts your child now on when I speak these words. Usually what I’m doing is I’m referring to them in terms of your relationship with your child and how modeling works and how coagulation works and and how much we impact our kids even when we don’t know it and if we think back to our childhoods and the people who have impacted us, they probably at the moment didn’t really know how much their words or actions or thoughts are we’re impacting of positively or negatively, of course, they’re both in in our own past. So what we do is that all that matters and obviously in terms of what we do on the earth it matters, so We have an impact our actions my actions my entire life every year. I’ve been life everyday. I’m alive my actions impact the planet and what I want to do is have his minimal impact on the planet as possible. So in this sort of stuff, I am frequently disgusted and angered and pissed off and what keeps me up at night is seeing some of the ridiculous waste and abuse of the earth and neglect of the earth and non non noticing of the earth. I don’t know why I was born this way, but I don’t think it’s abnormal. I think that we are connected to the earth. I am a part of the earth. We do not own the Earth. We are a part of it. We are in relationship with that. We impacted impacts us. I don’t Stand how people cannot see that. It really bothers me some common things that bother me is at airports you get on a plane and there are there’s so much waste in an airport on airplanes in terms of plastic cups that are delivered in terms of packaging for the products that are delivered to the passengers in terms of aluminum cans that are used on the airplanes and then just thrown in the trash in terms of magazines and newspapers that are bought airports and left everywhere and in terms of the ways that comes out of an arid so anytime as men there for them looking at all this waste that is not going into recycling containers. Do some airports have some programs for this. Yeah, but the fact that there’s so little Consciousness about this another thing my parents recently. I went to Northern Europe and they said to me they said I would have really liked it because it’s so clean there because they take everything so seriously. Yeah. It’s a culture. Difference the culture their values protection of of the Earth in the end of where they live and will we tend to do here is we throw it to landfill out of sight out of mind. We have no idea the impact and we we are just blind to it and it disgusts me yesterday. I was somewhere and I walked by a trash can and I just saw these two plastic bottles in regular trash can that stuff drives me nuts. First of all, why do we need the plastic bottles for for water when we have filtered water? It’s accessible almost everywhere and in then that they were just thrown in the trash is just a lack of awareness few people don’t care. So I’m angered by this lack of awareness. I’m angered by the lack of action by adults and I’m angered by the lack of interest for adults to learn educated adults. Their lack of interest in learning about these issues and taking it on and taking the effort to go the extra steps, which is not a far step to do something that is protective. So I’m angry because this is not a joke and one of the things that I my brain goes to is if if there was a baby an infant in a room and somebody lit up a cigarette you would take that baby out of the room because we know that cigarette smoke causes cancer now decades ago. We didn’t know that now we know nobody questions it it it it if there you were in a place and there was lead paint everywhere and you had a baby or a child you would fix that problem. If there’s asbestos you would fix that problem. Those are three examples of problems that are invisible. You don’t see the effects of lead paint. You don’t see the effects of asbestos for a very long time. You don’t see these problems in real-time, but we know That these things have an impact we know it. So we we protect the child yet. I it just drives me nuts that we don’t that we don’t see it and we’re not outraged and we don’t think of it in those same terms. What we are going to the planet is toxic. It is toxic to our kids quality of life. That is so not okay. That is so not what I do why I do what I do. So that kids are left with this world that we have trashed and they have to deal with enough one dimension with Greta that she’s been such an inspiration like she is a neurodiverse kid who has used her gifts or talents or passion or interest to do something and that’s what I want for all my students and I don’t care if it’s an in this domain of climate change or what they do. But ideally I want your child your kid that I work with your kid that I work as a coach. To try to help the whole point is not so that they can go get some stupid job, but it’s that they can do something that matters to them. They can do something that’s important to them. They can do something that’s purpose both of them that’s meaningful to them. So they can utilize they’re getting their talents and their interest in their passions and do work that matters to them and we live in a time when kids we can help our kids grow up and that’s why I said executive function is so important because these kids have to know how to execute in order to be able to create a life where they have the choices to do work That Matters by Greta did work that matters to her. She started these protests and she started a little Ripple that Ripple turned into a wave and now it’s a tidal wave in there has been huge impact, so I don’t understand how we disregard future generations and how we don’t see the toxicity of the of these of our actions. Will we do what you do what I do and I’ll get to what I do in a minute, but it’s it’s just not okay, we can’t ignore the problem and it’s not okay to meet to not be outraged when I talk to people and have deep conversations with people that are close to me about what I think about education and how to change education one of the things that I say and we are not there yet is a culture is that you the parents people have to be outraged but they have to understand the issues in order to be outraged and a lot of times parents don’t understand executive function or they don’t understand a lot of the problems of school. We just take for granted that of course the school has our kids best interest at heart and they do and teachers do but it’s outdated and it needs a big 2.0 Big Time. So anyhow, I am outraged and disgusted. And I I cannot believe what we are doing to the home of our children this beautiful Earth. Another thing. I want to mention is consumerism. We live in a culture that says by stuff by stuff by stuff waste waste waste packaging packaging packaging year is how it looks you’re going to love it. It’s going to change your life and we bye bye. Bye. Bye and we don’t understand that every time we buy any product. It has an impact everything we do has an impact. So I was going to mention this sometimes I wish that there was like no trash pickup for like a month and people had to take all their tracks. They produce in a household and leave it inside their house for an entire month just to see how much trash we produce you can’t take it out to the curb. It has to stay in your house and to see the impact cuz then it’s not out of sight out of mind anymore or what if trash picker uppers didn’t come for a year and it was piling up in our yards and we really saw how much we produced sometimes. I wish that would happen so that people would hit a bottom and like it real because I really think people just are oblivious. So in the first two hundred thousand years of human existence on Earth took about 200,000 years to get a billion people 200 250,000 years to get a billion people. Do you know that we’ve gone from that 1 billion to 7 and 1/2 billion in just over 100 years. 250000 years to get 1 billion a hundred and some years to get the next six and a half billion to get up to seven that plane. Bauer impact the impact of that many creatures on this Earth is tremendous and to think then that we have we drive on these things called roads. We just take for granted that roads are there. They weren’t always there. We have had to destroy any of of the environment underneath where we built roads so that the impact of that and of houses and we have had a massive impact in to deny that is just makes me want to vomit and I don’t understand the motive for denying it. I don’t get it. Is that so that you don’t have to take a bath with me again, even if you questioned it. You Just Like Heaven the carcinogens than in cigarette smoke you just take the precaution because you care about your child. Just so just baffles me. Sorry now what we do matters. It impacts this here’s what I do. So now I’m going to transition for my rant about the problem until a little bit of what I do. So, I’ve always been the type of person. I’ve always been a highly sensitive person and one of the things that I’m highly sensitive about is life on Earth, I happen to work with kids. I could work with animals I could do whatever but I’ve always liked kids animals science and nature and things like that. And so I’ve always been like that in my first influences on this was when I was a child was Jane Goodall Jacques Cousteau Animal Kingdom in the thing is Jack Hanna and the Columbus Zoo and things like that people who who spoke about these things those were huge inspiration to me and they Had a big impact on me and how I live my life. So I think because of those things I always knew how important it was to protect life on Earth. So here’s what I do first thing very important parents teachers. Whoever you are watching by the way. Oh as always thank you for your support of my blog and Vlog in my work here is what I try to do. First of all, I don’t try to be perfect. I don’t do everything you can see in this office. Like I have posters I purchase them on Amazon. I’m sure there was an impact that I made a choice to do that. I made a conscious choice to do that, but I made a choice to do that. So there are you know, there are things I I use soap, you know, I use products to clean my house and so be perfect. That’s not the point. The point is this to be very conscientious and very mindful of everything you touched and the impact so first thing is don’t try to be perfect. But to be mindful of the impact next I don’t use single-use plastic as much as I can. So it’s been a few years now that I haven’t used a single water bottle Coke bottle any of that stuff even use the single bottle for years now single-use plastic bottle now, I do use single-use with other things and I don’t like it but that would be things like if I buy a big thing of hummus or guacamole, and it comes in plastic that’s single-use plastic usually so am when I can I use glass containers go in and fill up my own container. So that’s something that I do. I set an example for my kids. So here in my office. I have plenty of places for recycling I talk about Recycling and composting and I set an example for them by showing them that it’s important to me that’s modeling. I am a very minimalistic I declutter I get rid of stuff. I declutter my entire life a few years ago my whole life fit inside the back of my Subaru and I cannot tell you how much of an impact that had on my life every single new thing. I ever bring into my life. I really contemplate. I don’t want any new stuff. I went through so much energy to get rid of stuff my life feels so clean so empty. So I am good way because that emptiness of stuff and clutter allows me spaciousness to have experiences, which is what’s really important to me. So it makes my life easier. I recycle at home. I reuse paper bags. I reuse anyting I can I reuse paper for scrap paper. So reusing is very important. And of course not using using bags for the grocery store that a reusable. There’s no reason to beat use plastic bag to ever again in my life. I’d so I don’t use plastic bags. I only buy what I need some very specific about what I buy I buy from reputable companies and stores that care about the environment when I do take out from restaurant. I don’t think the plastic bag. I don’t take their forks. I don’t take their materials. I don’t need extra materials. I don’t want to contribute to the problem in that way. I consider the packaging from anywhere from a restaurant whenever I don’t you go to restaurants that use styrofoam and I if they have extra plastic, I don’t use it. So I bet him always considering the packaging of anything that I purchased and what it’s packaged in and what’s going to happen to that packaging. You know, that something is biodegradable like cardboard or is it going to just contribute to the problem and I don’t like if I’m at a hotel I don’t take the pamphlets of the newspapers or I don’t add to the paper problem. I just don’t consume. Stop. I don’t absolutely need especially when they can be found online. And that’s some things I do and now I’m going to transition to the end my ask look parents teachers what we do matters. I don’t know you I hope I’m not offending you but I really don’t care because if I offend you but you changed some action that contributes to helping the kids on this planet have a better quality of life in a better future than so be at this is not about that. This is not about you. This is not about me. This is about the future. This is about this giant organism that we call Earth and protecting it and honoring it in keeping it alive and is preserved and is healthy and happy as we can keep this planet so that our kids can have a great future where they can grow up and for Generations, they can have better quality of life. Why else would I be doing what I’m doing? So please my ask is to notice that what we do matters, please may I ask is that you do your research your due diligence? The find out what you can do with your impact and my ask is that you please consider every item you ever touch Everything You Touch and your life consider its impact and and just think about it and think about if it’s something that you believe in and want to use or or not and then finally I have a lot on my plate but I’m so inspired by good at that. She started doing what you called future Fridays and that is where she started protesting and I’m what I would like to do and I’m not going to make any promises yet. But I do want to try to make a future Friday video for you every Friday with a little rant about something because you know, I always talk about executive function, but there are a lot of issues. I don’t talk about that. I am just chomping at the bit to talk about that a talk with families about that impact your kids. So I want to do future Friday’s wear. I’m really looking at on Fridays what are some things that we can contemplate some issues that we can contemplate that help? Our kids have a better future, whether it’s environmental whether it has to do with things like a letter grades, which is a huge issue that I do not believe in letter grades. I think they’re morally wrong, and I would love to explore that with you in a future Friday, and now that impacts gets it said her. I’m going to let you go now, my name is Seth Perler has been a long one. Thank you for sticking with me here for 20 minutes. I hope this is benefited your life and health benefits your kid’s life. Again. I’m an executive function coach at Boulder Colorado. If you haven’t signed up for a website stuff perler.com, please do you unsubscribe on YouTube? I’m you can subscribe give it a thumbs up and leave a comment if you want. Tell me what you think. I appreciate you and I hope you have a fantastic day.

Sarah

Please **CLICK** above to share. Thanks! Seth My brother is thinking about sending his kiddo to a new school next year. Here are the things I find myself repeatedly saying to families who are considering changing schools and asking my 7 thoughts:

1. Refocus on the right things: big picture, the purpose of education, what you want your child to get from education
   1. Doesn’t matter public, private, Montessori, homeschool, unschool, what matters is if the school effectively meeting this purpose.
   2. What do you want your child’s future to be like?
2. They all look good on paper/internet
   1. Be skeptical – what are the metrics used to evaluate a school? Best school on paper may not be right. Worst school may be great. My favorite metrics = engagement, secure attachment, future success, happiness and health.
3. Observe vibe of kids/parents/staff after school
4. How much structure they need is grey
5. Trust your gut
6. School culture/values aligned?
7. Relationship with teachers/school is everything
   1. Are they experiencing secure attachment?
   2. Engagement, strengths, interests, passions, matters, purpose, meaningful experiences?
   3. Do they WANT to go to school?

Please **CLICK** below to share. Thanks! Seth

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

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

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

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

Thank you for leading. — Seth Perler

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

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

Video transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth

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

Video transcript:

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

Please CLICK above to share. This vlog is based on a recent email:

…He is now twelve, in 6th grade. Because he will be going to secondary school next year the sped teachers are hugely focused on executive function. Where it breaks down is their approach which assumes competencies he doesn’t yet have. And he (mostly respectfully) pushes back. The sped teacher says they are open to suggestions and I’ve shared your toolkit. Thanks for what you do.

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

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

Video transcript:

What’s up with me Seth or Steph Curry. Com. I am an executive function coaching Boulder, Colorado help struggling students navigate this thing called school. So how do we help these students? Well, I have a letter here today from somebody and she’s talking about her 6th grader. It goes like this. I just learned about your site and I look forward to exploring him or he is now 12. He’s in sixth grade because of me going to the secondary school next year that the sped teachers are hugely focused on Executive function. Where breaks down as their approach which assumes competencies. He doesn’t yet have and he mostly respectfully pushes back. The best teacher says they are open to suggestions and I shared your tool Godiva free to look at on my website when you sign up for the block. Thanks for what you do. So, this is a great a great email and what I really am going to focus on here is this part where it says where breaks down is their approach which is soon competencies. He doesn’t yet have many many many many teachers do not understand executive function, even if they think they do even if they can defy me even if they can talk about it. They don’t really understand it. It’s a relatively new term being used a lot and people don’t understand it. If you want to get to know it look at my website on the executive function article where the exhaust Italy goes into it because it is not simple. But basically you can assume that most students who struggle in school struggle with executive function in some way shape or form and here it says they assume competencies. He doesn’t yet have that means that a lot of times teachers Educators parents too, but they’ll they’ll think that a student can do more than they can and then that brings up this whole awesome topic of is it a cancer or is it a won’t is it that the student can’t do it or that they won’t do it and that lying sometimes gets gray and I think it gets more won’t to the more the older I get the more in the middle and high school. They get the more frustrated more than more. They feel beaten down the more it becomes a won’t But I want you two to consider that most often. It really is a can’t they do not have the complexity skills the navigate school to do planners to do the process of homework and and take care of themselves and have free time and down time in Balance live it they literally do not so when I’m wearing this to new Star Wars with executive function, I am helping them grow millimeter by millimeter. I’m not trying to if they don’t have certain competencies. I’m not trying to get them from here to here. I’m trying to get there from here to hear. Okay. So one of the things that I hear a lot particularly and middle and high school is the teachers would the student will have accommodations and the teachers are the school or somebody will say yeah. Well the student can have these a comedy But they have to advocate for themselves but hear this says assume competencies. He doesn’t yet have oh my God. It drives me nuts because these kids if they’re not advocating for themselves. Do not understand have the skill of being able to stop Advocate yet. They haven’t learned how to do it. So when you tell student, oh, yeah, you can have an accommodation but you have to ask for it first and they cannot even they don’t even know where their backpack is. They don’t even remember the combination their locker. So they Jam everything their backpack. They don’t even know what class had neck then even know what time it is. They don’t know what they have for homework. They bought their planner again the really struggling with so many things they’re having social situation you got to eat. These are the kids who were really legitimately struggling and then the school is like, yeah, but you have to do not do not understanding that this is something that the kid can’t do not a won’t sew competencies. He doesn’t yet have our cans. So as a parent or as a professional We have to really look and determine is it a can’t or won’t or is there gray and how do we support them? From where they’re at to get to the next micro-level not to get wet up here. Are we support them to be able to do that? You get so much farther by taking such smaller steps. I’m going to say that again parents and teachers you get so much smaller by taking so much farther by taking smaller steps. We want them to have successful experiences. So what you can ask yourself is what is the next step that can be taken that they can see that they’re successful in the way that I look at it as I want to push them beyond their comfort zone because if I don’t push him beyond their comfort zone, that’s an enabling world that’s in coddling world. You want a person pass a comfort zone, but you also don’t want to push them pass through threshold because of you pushing past the threshold they withdraw they resist they give up you lose them so that they can Be a very small area to plan sometimes Mac and be a very big challenge that takes a lot of time to develop but essentially that’s what we’re looking for. We’re trying to figure out where is that zone that we can push them that we can Elevate them just a little bit so that they can get the next level do they have giant breakthroughs and epiphanies and stuff like that sure sometimes but I’m not as a professional banking on that to help make the kids regrets that is not where it’s at. That’s lucky if we get some of those I’m looking at how can we take very real small steps to get them to the next level and whatever the area is that we are working on. So hen in the last thing I want to talk about is the iceberg here. So the tip of the iceberg is is what we see but beneath the surface again is where we need to be working. This is where a resistance is. It’s beneath the surface or something beneath the surface. It’s emotionally stressful. They’re having a visceral experience that means somatic stressful experience their avoidant what their stuff going on below the surface so we often see this and what did the tip of the iceberg often is is they look non-compliant. They’re not turning in the market missing saving complete them 30 minutes in the projects are not aware of what’s going on. We see the symptoms, but we don’t see often the cost. So what happens with that also a lot at all is that we often see the symptoms and we attribute the cause to the wrong thing. And here’s what we often attributed the cause to we often attribute the Cause 2. He or she is lazy. They’re just not putting forth enough effort. They’re not trying hard enough. They just must not care about school and things like that these shaming messages that do not offer any sort of solution. If you’re lazy than the solution is just get unlazy if you’re not motivated. The solution is get motivated. If you’re not this one the solution is get this one. If you don’t care about school enough the solution is care about school more. You’re not trying hard enough to the messages. Just try harder these these messages with the kids internalized them and they feel them very deeply but they are shaming in these messages. Do not offer a solution. Okay, just go do your homework just go spend more time. So they don’t know how they don’t add this person said half the competencies do I have just want to break that down a little bit for you? And I know this is hard but just focus please on the baby steps to small steps with underneath the surface and how can we Elevate them a little bit and support them from where they’re at and be Very realistic about it so that we can actually move them forward and not move them backward not make them more resistant not make them less motivated not make them more ashamed and stuff like that to hurt my sights set the Pro. Com sign up for the free gifts subscribe on YouTube thumbs up at throw comment down there. Tell me what you think. Have a great day.