About Executive Functioning

Mira is an Executive Function Coach providing services to children and adults who are struggling to manage everything from workload to toy storage, homework and study skills to closet organization and daily calendars for the family.

Executive functioning deficits are often thought of as an issue for people with ADHD and or ASD. However, executive function struggles do not only exist within these profiles, affect more than just school work, and can be lifelong.

What Are Executive Functions

Executive functions are our brains way of managing cognitive, behavioral, and emotional difficulties. They often occur as part of a disorder (such as ADHD or ASD) or are caused by a traumatic brain injury. But for some people, they will not be diagnosed with anything and they still need support with these things. People with executive dys-function struggle to organize and regulate their behavior in ways that will help them accomplish their goals. The main components of executive functioning are:

  • Self Awareness: the ability to manage our emotions and focus our attention,

  • Self Restraint: the ability to manage our impulses, inhibitory control, slow down and use critical thinking to problem solve,

  • Non-verbal Working Memory: the ability to hold ideas in our mind’s eye which helps in guiding our actions,

  • Verbal Working Memory: the ability to retain internal speech,

  • Emotional Regulation: the ability to hold words, ideas, and images in mind in order to guide our feelings about a situation, be flexible in our thoughts, and have interpersonal awareness (empathy, perspective taking), and keep calm,

  • Self Motivation: the ability to start something despite a low level of interest,

  • Self Monitoring: the ability to keep track of information and objects,

  • Sustained Attention: the ability to consistently stay focused on the task at hand,

  • Planning and Problem Solving: the ability to think through a given situation and develop a completion plan,

  • Completion: the ability to follow through on a plan to the end (turning in homework, getting to the doctor’s appointment).

How Executive Function Coaches Help

To meaningfully address executive function issues, it is helpful to have strong accommodations and support while people are learning the skills to help themselves. We cannot will these skills into existence. Contrary to many opinions, some children will not pick up the skills just by being in an organized classroom or home or shown where objects are housed. Mira often encounters parents who are surprised executive function skills can be and need to be explicitly taught to their children.

Unfortunately, children who are struggling with executive functions are frequently labeled lazy, unmotivated, or defiant when the reality is, they are working considerably harder than their peers to organize their thoughts, their time, and their things before they even get to the academic piece and may be spent or overwhelmed when that time comes. Many children and adults struggling to manage their executive functions feel shame because of how others respond to their difficulties leading to lower self esteem and a lessened desire to continue trying.

An EF Coach will help to nip this in the bud by helping form habits and learn skills around:

  • Time management

  • Organization at school, work, and home

  • Studying and preparing

  • Managing emotional regulation

  • Completing homework and turning it in

  • Setting SMART goals

  • Creating and prioritizing the steps to reach goals

  • Understanding how challenges with working memory, planning, organization, and goal setting affect more than just work or school work

Mira comes from the position that children do well if they can. If they are struggling, that is because there is a missing skill, small as it may be, that is getting in the way of reaching their goals. Mira helps figure out what skills are missing and she works together with you and/or the child on practicing those skills, always from a place of support and understanding, never shame. Mira provides consistent, supportive accountability and appropriate guidance based on a person’s current, individual level of ability, always changing the scaffolding as skills are learned.

Mira’s support between you, your child, and school will steadfastly remain as part of a collaborative process, not adversarial. It is important to work with the school as part of the team, not as a team unto yourselves.

The end goal is to become more self reliant. This may include always include some level of support.

Let’s empower you or your children to reach their full potential by discovering how they learn best.

To schedule a session, please contact Mira (she/her)

cell: 312.320.9544

email: mduncan@roughdraftsparenting.com