Teaching our children executive function skills can positively change their lives.

All young people are developing executive functions as they grow.

Parents and teachers can support the development of skills like organizing, planning, and time management.

Myron sits across from me in the booth, his pancakes mostly untouched, his face smirking in reflection on his seventh-grade self. “I was such a mess back then,” he laughs. “I can’t believe you put up with me.” Myron’s in town to collaborate with fellow rental managers, called on to share his strategies for connecting tenants with community resources. His employer and the communities he serves celebrate his impact.

Seventh-grade Myron, however, was a different story. Devastated by a family death and struggling with undiagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Myron was that student on campus: the one all teachers knew but few had reached. His inner struggles were highly visible in his actions, words, and conflicts. When we met, he had, mostly accidentally, stepped on my foot on his way off the school bus, which was the same foot that had 17 surgeries. It was a........

© Psychology Today