5 Reasons I'm Not Helping My Kid Who Struggles With Executive Functioning

OF COURSE we've got to help our neurodivergent kids get organized! So why are they getting so mad?

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

Lost hoodies and devices, forgotten homework, missed due dates...

Of course we need to remind our children and teens about everything - otherwise they will forget!

It’s exhausting, but we have to do it, right? We’re their parents, so we need to teach them these skills, or they will fail. So why are our kids getting so angry when we help them?

Does any of this ring true?

“My kid really needs help but gets angry when I try to help.”

“It isn’t my fault that they are disorganized!”

“I don’t understand why my kid is even less motivated when I offer solutions!”

Are you praising your kid’s good grades? Offering lots of great solutions to the problems you notice? Checking your kid’s grades daily? That’s what being a good parent is all about, right?

So why is it backfiring?

“Should I just stop helping my kid?”

Honestly, maybe you should.

“Executive functions are skills everyone uses to organize and act on information.”

-Understood.org

My son Ocean’s executive functioning is really abysmal. He’s a curious, bright, absentminded kid (who is suddenly a teenager). Last year he came home with no coat the day before winter break (and we were about to board a flight to Arctic Tromsø, Norway). He hasn’t ever used his locker, but he managed to lose his lock.

I’m not a fan of homework, but when I was a kid I did it anyway, for hours and hours every night. I grew up being praised when I was helpful and productive, and dismissed or shamed when I spoke up for my needs. I learned that people pleasing was the way to survive. I cared a lot about what others thought of me.

For Ocean, his own agenda is a higher priority.

Who’s to say which of us is “normal?”

I’ve had to back off, for a number of reasons:

1. The main one is our relationship, which I’m unwilling to sacrifice. The volume immediately goes to 11 any time I “try to help” and we end up enraged at each other so fast. Words come out of my mouth that feel like I’m channeling a 1950s headmaster: “Why can’t you just…? If you’d only listen and do…! It’s easy! Just try harder!” Oh yeah. Not my proudest moments. Not everything in parenting flows intuitively, so I’ve had to learn how to communicate collaboratively.

2. Another is my own triggers. There’s a lot of reparenting taking place every day, because I was so hard on myself growing up. I was emotionally abandoned like most of Gen-X. Academic achievement was the only thing that got me the positive attention I craved. I became a perfectionist to try to hang onto that attention.

3. Ocean and I are different. He isn’t hung up on productivity like me, thank goodness. He’s really blasé about achievement, and I’ve had to work hard to stop myself from imposing my perfectionist crap on him. It’s really okay to respect that we are different people. I can influence him, but he won’t “obey.”

4. This is between him and the school. He has to learn to advocate for himself now, or when he is older he won’t have those skills. I’m still in the IEP meetings making sure his rights aren’t trampled. I’ll step in whenever he asks me to. I’ll convey the school’s messages to him so that he is informed, and ask him how he wants me to respond. Honestly, if he really can’t do the work without my help, he needs more support in school to scaffold it for him until he has built the skills he needs. That is between them.

5. Finally, I need to respect his boundaries. When I get angry, it is almost always a boundary crossing in some way. Either I’ve let myself down and crossed my own boundary (a whole other story) or someone is crossing mine. It’s the same with him. Each of us has a job, and I can’t do his for him.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

So yes, he may end up failing, not turning in homework, getting in trouble, losing his hoodies (OMG but every single one??). The worst case is that he fails and has to repeat, and then he won’t be with his friends. He doesn’t want that.

Collaborative conversations get us back on the same side when we get offsides.

I believe he will ask for help as long as I leave the door open.

Leaving the door open means:

• Listening, with more than my ears.

• Seeing him as capable of figuring out what he needs.

• Asking “How can I help?” and not jumping in to fix.

• Giving him the same loving attention for disappointments as I do celebrations.

• Modeling a growth mindset.

I’m a work in progress too. I really don’t have all the answers, and that’s okay. I’m able to laugh at myself, and I’m actively reparenting myself with therapy, self-inquiry, community, and real self-care. (Yes, just like the new book Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmi. As an amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

At the beginning of 8th grade, I told Ocean, “I love you too much to fight with you about homework.” (directly stolen from the book recommended below).

Still, a few times I have slipped into his lane and we end up arguing.

There are a lot of folders in his backpack, and I’m probably the only one who puts things in them. One is for home-school communication, but it doesn’t work very well since it requires that he take the papers out and give them to the teachers. I saw a chart in there from his Occupational Therapist about how to use a planner. I asked him, “What planner?” He said he didn’t know, and also said he doesn’t need a planner. I choked back a guffaw. I believe he definitely needs a planner, and to learn how to use it.

I love my planner and couldn’t get through life without it. I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons about staying organized as an undiagnosed neurodivergent adult (who still struggles with time management, task initiation, decluttering, working memory, and planning out long-term projects).

But he’s not in a space developmentally to take any of that info from me.

I’ve noticed that the more I back off, the more responsibility he takes on!

Of course, it takes a leap of faith to let go and watch him flail a bit. But if he’s going to fail, I’d much rather he fail now, while he’s still living with us.

“Executive function describes a set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals.”

-Psychology Today

Rereading the quote above, what stands out is that it is about “their goals.” Not ours.

The 8 Key Executive Functions in Order of Development:

1. Impulse Control

2. Emotional Regulation

3. Flexible Thinking

4. Working Memory

5. Self-Monitoring

6. Planning & Prioritizing

7. Task Initiation

8. Organization

I learned from

Amy Weber

LCSW, play therapist extraordinaire (who writes Playing in Traffic), that we need to master these in order. Like, it won’t work to give a kid a planner if they don’t have flexible thinking. Impulse control comes before task initiation, and of course we need some emotional regulation before we can learn self-monitoring.

This all makes sense in theory, but how do we apply these ideas to life? Amy’s suggestion is…

PLAY!

Click here to get her awesome handout full of fun ways to strengthen:

• ‘The ability to resist temptation’

• ‘The ability to exert control over one’s own emotional state’

• ‘The ability to look at something in new and different ways’

Download the handouts from Amy Weber & Speak Learn and Play

In general, with respect to school, here’s what I do now:

1. When Ocean comes home, I ask what his homework plan is. I tell him about my own expectations, like taking the recycling out, and any schedule changes. I turn on screen time after his plan is completed.

2. When he tells me about something he needs to remember to do, I make a note of it and later check on his progress.

3. When I get emails from teachers and school staff, I read them to him and ask him how he wants me to respond.

I monitor health and safety. Those are in my lane as far as I’m concerned, as long as he’s living with me. Sleep, screen time, food, mental health, etc.

I have found this book so helpful and reassuring:

What Do You Say?: How to Talk with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home by William Stixrud PhD and, Ned Johnson. (As an amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.) The authors share examples of motivational interviewing, which is kind of like being our kid’s life coach.

It’s a respectful and compassionate approach to communicating about “specific, thorny topics of the sort that usually end in parent/kid standoffs: delivering constructive feedback to kids; discussing boundaries around technology; explaining sleep and their brains; the anxiety of current events; and family problem-solving.”

It’s a good Audible listen, too.

The issues with Ocean and school are improving. What I’ve noticed is:

• sometimes maturity takes care of developmental issues,

• sometimes intrinsic motivation returns when I back off, and

• sometimes he comes up with the best strategies all on his own.

He just decided this year that his grades are important to him, and so much has changed! Last night Ocean volunteered: “There are 14 math questions. What if I do 7 tonight and 7 tomorrow?” He took ownership of the problem, came up with a solution, and then communicated it to me. You could have blown me over with a feather. I think I had taken away some of his agency by not trusting him to get it done…

…but the hoodies are still disappearing into thin air.