🧠 ADHD Kids and the October Pattern

Why is October so difficult for kids with ADHD? So for kids with ADHD when it October is a different month than other other months uh of the whole entire school year. Now if you live in different countries, this is in the United States the way our school year typically is scheduled.

You can adapt this for wherever you live if you have a different school calendar. But basically what’s happening here is that October is the longest month. And it what I mean by that is it’s a slog. It feels very long. It usually feels like a fivew weekek month with no breaks.

That’s how it feels to kids. About the only thing in the United States that sort of breaks it up is Halloween which is at the end of the month. So let me explain this a little bit differently.

For kids with ADHD, executive function challenges in general, kids who struggle in school, usually from fifth grade on through graduate school. For these kids, that month, that fiveweek month is a slog. it feels very long and things fall apart. I’m going to back up a little bit more.

The beginning of the school year usually for us starts at the end of August or the beginning of September. Everybody’s excited to get back. Everybody has their new systems, their new folders, their new teachers, their new books. Everything is fresh and things are kind of going along and they seem okay.

Now, in my um my name is Seth Pearller, by the way, at sethpor.com and I’m an executive function coach. I’ve been doing this a long time. And in my methodology, I talk about this this very predictable pattern. And what happens is that it starts, the semester starts with a strong start the first couple weeks.

Then we hit the dip. It is predictable. 6 to 8 weeks into the school year, my students with ADHD, executive function challenges, hit what I call the dip. That means that 6 to 8 weeks in, like clockwork, you find out there’s a lot of late work, missings, incomplete zeros. They have to do test corrections. And usually parents find this out like very suddenly, like they get a report card or they get a progress report or they get an email from a teacher and parents find out very suddenly and then they dive into the portals and they’re like, “What the heck happened? Everything fell apart.”

And so that that’s happening usually mid Octoberish. It depends on the school district and when you start, but that happens a lot of times right around then. So now I’m going to back up again. Now, let’s imagine September’s gone by. October starts. September, you have a holiday. September, you you have a four a three or four day weekend. Um, it’s exciting. November, you have usually there’s a Thanksgiving or a fall break in November. Usually that break is some some schools have five days off. Uh, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and some schools have nine days off. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So th those are the two breakdowns in the United States. You either have five days or nine days off in November, plus usually another 3-day weekend in November. So November has some spaciousness to it.

December, you have winter break, which is usually mid December. Usually December is about two weeks of school and then they get to look forward to break. But October is week after week after week for five weeks, often without a break.

Sometimes there might be an exchange day for um parent teacher conferences or something like that, but it’s a very long month. And what happens during that is the dip is happening first of all, but it, like I said, this is the third time I’m saying it, it’s a slog. It feels very long. It feels daunting. The weather is changing. It’s getting cooler in a lot of the states in the United States. Our our bodies are sort of getting ready for winter hibernation, if you will, and uh it can feel very long. And what happens is that pile of missing work and late work and incomplete work gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And in order to climb up that mountain to get caught up, to not be behind and get caught up, it’s very overwhelming for these kids. So, what can you do about it? Where can you start?

Sorry, I’m just watching a new bug crawl up my wall. I’ll go say hello to him and let him out later. What do you do to help your kid? Whether you’re a parent or a teacher or an ADHD coach, what are you going to do to help that kid?

Number one. Number one. Number one, it starts with mindset. It starts with buyin. It starts with buyin and ownership. If you’re making your kid or you’re being your kid’s executive function or you’re enabling or you’re doing too much for them, that may seem to help in the short term, but that is not giving them the skills, the executive function skills they need to independently or learn to independently manage these things on their own and have the skills to do so.

Number two, if there’s some buy in and ownership, the next step is getting clarity. You got to get clarity from the teachers and from the school. You got to figure out, hey, what the heck’s going on here? How how much homework is there? Is are you updating your grades on time? Like, you got to email the teachers to get clarity for whatever you are unclear about. If you’re depending on your child, there’s my doggy here. If you’re depending on your child to convey to you acc your ADHD or executive function challenge child to accurately convey to you what is going on in school with all the missings and stuff. Good luck with that. You need clarity. You need to look at the portals, but you also need to just ask the teachers and say, “What the heck’s going on? Where should we put our energy? How often do you update grades?” Because some teachers are great about it and some teachers are horrible about horrible about it. And those are the teachers where your kid seemed like everything was fine and then all of a sudden one day the teacher put in a backlog of three weeks of grades and you find out that your kid’s failing because they have a bunch of missing work and zeros and stuff.

So you need to get clarity. What are the expectations in the class? How much time should my I’m just giving you some examples of some of the most common things I write to teachers at this point. Um what are uh how long should this child be spending on homework each night? What if they’re spending more? Where do we get extra copies of things? Uh we are unclear about the assignments perpetually.

What do we do to get clarity about the assignments because we really don’t understand uh and the when we see them online they’re hard to read. Anyhow, number two is get clarity. So number one was what?

Buying and ownership. Get some buy in and ownership. Legitimate real buying and ownership. That happens with connection. That happens with relationship. That happens with nervous system first approach. Number two, get some clarity so that you can figure out how to dig out the hole, how much digging you have to do, and so on and so forth.

And number three is to take action with a plan. Make a plan with your child. Make a plan. You don’t have to follow the plan. That’s the beauty of this. But you’re helping your kid build planning skills and you’re making a plan. You have to be realistic with your kid. You’re not going to follow it perfectly, uh, but you’re going to make it. and try to follow it. Yeah, he’s a happy boy. We just went on a big walk. So, um then after you’ve made a plan with your kid, then we are going to execute the plan.

Now, what do you need to execute the plan? I know you parents are out there saying the same thing because I’ve been doing this for many years. You’re saying, “Okay, Seth, great. We have a plan. My kid’s not good. My kid knows what to do. It’s a matter of doing it.” And that is why executive function coaches or understanding executive function or executive function methodologies uh or models can be helpful.

And my model I talk about um mindset systems and habits and routines. But what I’m going to talk about here just is the systems. If your kid doesn’t have the right systems to manage things and you are their executive function, they need to be learning these skills to build out the executive function systems that they need or you will be their executive function forever.

Well, you won’t be forever, but um for way too long. That is not serving your child to continue to be their executive function for too long. And for any of you students, I know some students watch my videos.

You don’t want your parents to be your executive function forever. Um, so that is where we’re at. We we really want to build the systems. And then the and I’ll wrap up with this. The secret then to the execution is not magic. It is hard. It is hard work. It’s a struggle. It’s a challenge. And when we’re learning executive function systems, one of the systems or skill sets we’re learning is how to task initiate or self-start or get the ball rolling or get the train moving. However you want to look at it, that is a skill set. It’s not a matter of motivation.

My question is not how did you get your kid disciplined, how do you get your kid more motivated? Those are the wrong questions to ask as far as I’m concerned. The question is how do we do the thing that needs to be done even when we’re not motivated? That’s the question. And we learn systems and skills around task initiation, follow-through, completion, um planning, organizing, uh study skills, note-taking skills, etc., etc. Anyhow, October long month, daunting. It is the longest month of the year. Give your kid a break. Uh, and and one of the unusual things I sometimes recommend is like tell your kid at the beginning of the school year, we’re going to take a mental health day in October. You pick the day, any day, and I’ll call you in sick. Now, teachers might other schools might not like to hear that, but your kids’s mental health is the most important thing. So, that is an option as well to proactively plan for it and give it a little bit of spaciousness because it’s a slo. All right, good luck with October. If you like my work, share it around. My name is Seth at sethpor.com. Grab some freebies there. Share my work around. I want to wish you peace of mind. I want to wish you joy. And I want to wish you connection with the people in your life, particularly the kitchen in your life. Take care.