Focus Forward: An Executive Function Podcast

When we look to a professional for support, we may be looking to improve our mental health or confidence, but at a fundamental level, we're really hoping to change our lives. So what does that mean when it comes to Executive Function support? In past episodes, I spoke with parents of kiddos who are in coaching now and have made great progress in their own executive function journeys. If you’ve listened to those episodes already, you’ll have heard them share that while it hasn’t been an easy or quick journey, the rewards for both their children and themselves have been tremendously life-changing. I really wanted to explore another perspective on the coaching journey, so I reached out to Fran Havard, who is a mom of four kids, two of whom have executive function challenges. Fran knows a lot about EF coaching because she’s one of Beyond BookSmart’s EF coaches and she also shares her knowledge with families in the role of coaching coordinator or, as you’ll hear her call it “CC”, by providing support by answering questions and sharing additional information about the process of change to help families and clients navigate their way through coaching. Fran and I sat down to talk about what she’s learned and how she manages all of this. Here are the show notes for this episode: Helping our Kids Learn EF SkillsActivities Guide: Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills with Children from Infancy to AdolescenceHelping Kids Who Struggle With Executive FunctionsSmart But Scattered Kids book by Peg Dawson, Ph.D.A Day in the Life of an Elementary Schooler with Executive Function ChallengesFinch App for Android or Apple devicesHelping Ourselves Practice EF SkillsExecutive Skill Challenges: Adults Have Them, Too!Executive Functioning in Adults: The Science Behind Adult CapabilitiesSupport for Adults: New Ebook from an Executive Function Expert by Michael Delman, Beyond BookSmart CEOHow to ADHD YouTube ChannelHow to Work or Study in a Noisy EnvironmentStaying Focused in a Noisy Open Office6 Ways to Minimize Distractions in a Noisy Work EnvironmentWhy Are Power Tools So Loud?Contact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. In past episodes, I spoke with parents of kiddos who are in coaching now, and have made great progress in their own executive function journeys. If you've listened to these episodes already, you'll have heard them share that well. It hasn't been an easy or quick journey, the rewards for both their children and themselves have been tremendously life-changing. I really wanted to explore another perspective on the coaching journey.So I reached out to Fran Havard who is a mom of four kids, two of whom who have executive function challenges. And Fran knows a lot about EF coaching because she is one of Beyond BookSmart's coaches, and she also shares her knowledge with families in the role of coaching coordinator, or as you'll hear her call it "CC" by providing support by answering questions and sharing additional information about the process of change to help families and clients navigate their way through coaching. Fran and I sat down to talk about what she's learned and how she manages all of this. I don't want to give too much away. But as you listen today, you'll hear that recording this episode challenged my attention and cognitive flexibility executive function skills like no other. This episode is authenticity in practice, we are truly keeping it real. Now on to the show. Hi, Fran, thank you so much for being here today. Do you want to start off by telling our listeners a little bit about you and your background?Fran Havard 01:48Sure. My name is Fran and I'm a parent first. I've joked with a lot of people around me that I wear many hats. So when they're interacting with me, they got to make sure I'm wearing the right hat. So if I go to meetings, and I'm in my journalist hat, I have to announce that ahead of time, if I'm in my doctoral classes, I announce that ahead of time. I am a parent first though, for children ages 5, 8, 9, 8? I think he's about to turn nine. So nine and 10 and 12. I have worked with adolescents most of my life. I coach, older us adolescents, usually at 19 starting college. And that is my favorite age group to work with.Hannah Choi 02:34Can you explain a little bit more about the roles that you've played at Beyond BookSmart? Just so we can kind of get a little more understanding about your perspective when it comes to executive function challenges.Fran Havard 02:46So I play two roles at beyond booksmart. One is I work with families as a coaching coordinator. So I sort of as a support with the coaching process, but not in the role of coach. I answer I, you know, explain or narrate the growth process to families and I you know, celebrate the successes when we've met another part of the change process. And we're in a different phase of development, I, you know, communicate what's happening in coaching, I answer questions about, you know, if there's resistance to coaching, what that means and how we overcome those hurdles. And I'm also a coach, so I work, I'm also living the challenges that our coaches are living with and living the successes that we're seeing through this process.Hannah Choi 03:35And, and you're also a parent, do you like I know myself being a parent, I, I bring a lot of what I what I've learned about executive function into my parenting, how does how does, being a coach and a coaching coordinator affect you as a parent?Fran Havard 03:56So actually, how I started coaching is an interesting story. I knew, you know, I was a stay at home parent, I had left teaching. And I was sort of working in virtual ed. And I had a child who was she was, I didn't know what it was, I'd been in teaching for a decade. She was messy. Everything was messy, like the hair, the books, the backpack, everything was all over the place. And I just started like, I mean, like the emotions, everything was just and I had an older daughter who was neat and tidy, right? And then the second daughter came along, and I couldn't believe how different they were and I thought that's strange. So I started like googling like anything else just seeking out why is like, literally Why is my kid so messy? And somehow I stumbled across this language called executive function. It was like new at the time. I don't know it was like it felt like new language that I hadn't even heard as a teacher as a veteran teacher. And so I started to look more about it, and then all of a sudden, I hit the on Beyond BookSmart. And I said, Well, you know, at that point I'm not working, but I applied for the job because I thought if I could learn what they're doing, and I could try it, maybe I could help this really messy kid I have. And that's how I started Beyond BookSmart. And it turned out that I ended up out of four kids, two are very messy. And what I realized the most through asking you like, your question is, what do I learn, I learned the language to communicate with them, you know, that I wouldn't, didn't, that I wouldn't have had without, you know, being an executive function coach, like, how to help them reflect on their experiences to help them grow, you know, and learn how to listen more to them, rather than trying to force them into a mold that they, they're, you know, like squeezing them, but you know, you can't put them I've learned how to accept that they're not going to be neat and tidy. And that, either I get them to, you know, through that messiness articulate their authentic selves, or, you know, I'm forever nagging and yelling at them. And I think executive function coaching, which you think, Oh, you must be so perfect and organized to do this job. But, you know, that's how I learned I had ADHD, that's how I learned my children had ADHD, you know, I learned what it was, through my interaction with it, it's a learning, you know, it's a, it's a different style of learning, and being and observing and knowing. And we just have to find how you can be that person in another environment that wants you to be a certain way. And then through reflection, through questioning, and I would say, you know, as a coach, and as a parent, that's what I've learned how to coach my kids.Hannah Choi 07:02Is I one thing that we hear a lot from parents, and I'm sure you have to is parents feeling like, like, I didn't know, like, I didn't know what was going on, or like, I knew something was off, but I didn't know what it was. And then, you know, like, I wish I had done something differently, or I wish I had found, you know, about executive function, just executive functions earlier. Did you go through any of that?Fran Havard 07:30Oh, absolutely. It was like, there's this expression, if you can name it, you can tame it. Yeah. And I found when I could name those EF executive function areas, like, you know, metacognition, or planning, prioritizing time management, task initiation, if I could name it, see the strategies that I could bring in. But before I could break it down and see those parts, I just saw a big mess. Once I can name the parts, I was able to analyze how those pieces were coming together to create what I was seeing in front of me. And that's knowledge feature, every parent, every kid needs to know. Because if you can say, task initiation is my struggle right? Now, I know I don't want to do this, but I'm going to give myself a five minute goal to get over this hurdle, you will find that they are the awareness to know what their drag is use that tool to get through it. And then it's not failure. That's why I love executive function coaching because these messy kids meet failure again, and again, because they don't know how to name the pieces. So it just seems like a giant mess. And if anything that I've learned from working this job, it's like it's and I always say this with clients. It's a constant unraveling, like this braid on the back of your head, and you're pulling apart the strands, and you're rebraiding it. So that it's, you know, how they want it braided but it has shape, it has definition and the parts are recognizable.Hannah Choi 09:15I love that. So when you're working with families, and you're working with the you know, so say the child is in coaching, and the child has you know, been identified as someone who is not like fitting in to the mold I mean, really they are they just haven't found the strategies that work for them to fit into society as it is. Now I'm sure there's like a world somewhere where messy people would just be like embraced and welcomed Fran Havard 09:44In their their messy world right? Yeah. children's book writer that has that messy character it's like this blob of color and you know, the sunshine guy he's got Mr. Messy is my favorite character of all because it's like You're just like, what is it? It's like, I wish I had a piece of paper, but it's like this big scribble guy walking around with.10:08I think I remember that10:08He reminds me of my daughter, you know, use that metaphor we use that. I use that with her so that she laughs about it, because, and you gotta you gotta have laughter right?Hannah Choi 10:20Yes. Speaking, I don't know if you can hear it, but there's some kind of loud noise going on Fran Havard 10:25Is someone serenading me? What's happening out there?Hannah Choi 10:28I don't know. There's like a loud drill or a saw, like people don't realize I'm recording right now? (laughter)Fran Havard 10:34I thought that was a song I was like, kids playing instrument out the window. (laughter)Hannah Choi 10:39No, it's the neighbors. Okay. A big part of parenting, at least I know, for me, and many of my friends is this guilt that we that we feel. Regardless, like, regardless of what the topic is, what area of life it is we're bound to like find some, you know, something that we fault ourselves for. Do you? Does that come up in your conversations with parents?Fran Havard 11:02Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important that, you know, me having had the experience of not knowing what was happening and having an experience where I was yelling at my kid, you know, to get them to put their shoes on, or find their backpack or wonder why one morning, she grabs a backpack, puts it on her back and gets ready for school. And it's not even her backpack or you know, I've had those experiences, where you can't understand why they just don't get it. So for me to have made changes to my own behavior, such as: This is your hook. This is your backpack. For me to have made changes to how I parent and my expectations for her and how I can better support her and the youngest son made a world of difference on conflict in the house. So whenever I work with parents, I some part of the conversation that I'm listening to what they're saying, I'm hearing that your son is not filling out a Google Calendar. But what I'm saying to you is, what can we do to sort of support that process? How can we help? Because telling my daughter to pick up her backpack and put it on her back? Doesn't mean she's gonna know which backpack. And so just because your son has a Google Calendar, how can we increase the our interest in it, get engagement, you know, engage with that tool, as a family. And I feel like a lot of my experiences as CC is translating.Hannah Choi 12:44I know for myself, like my son is very forgetful. He's he's very much like me. And so. So every morning, it would it was this constant thing of me saying like, did you get this? Did you get that? Did you get this? Did you get that? And I'm like, What are you doing? Hannah, you need to you need to approach this like a coach. So we made a list. And we have a list on the door that goes out to the, we leave from our garage, so there's a door that goes out there. And so there's a list on there. And he's gotten so good every morning, he stands there in front of it. And he's 10. And he stands there in front of it and reads everything off and then scampers off to get the one thing that he forgot. And it and it's totally taken the stress out of the mornings. For us. It's, it's absolutely, it's taken the pressure off of me, it's removed that from my role, which is great for him and for our relationship.Fran Havard 13:33Exactly, because it gives them I know exactly what you're saying. Because there's this tool that I used with one of my children, I just started using an app where it's one of my clients actually showed me this, they said they use this little character, and you set goals for yourself. And you design your character and you set goals like brush your teeth in the morning, make sure your math homework is packed, wear underwear. Your parents of kids with executive function issues, like the first thing you're like is you put the underwear on, you know, because that step they miss. So like we have tags like that on this app. And then they he comes in the morning, and he'll slide that he did these things. And then the character will get moving. And the character goes on an adventure. And you don't know that's adventure. It's just it's little penguin walking. And and when you do more, it shortens the journey. So they, he will come home from school and he'll pick up his iPad to look at his penguin and what the penguin found on the journey because it's usually a four hour journey or five, he'll make find coconut milk, he's like, "Ma, I found coconut milk". And I'll be like "that's amazing!", but it all stems from him having done those acts and that's tied to the metaphor of task initiation. Right, right.Hannah Choi 14:51 Yeah. I love that. That's great. We will include more about that app in the show notes if anybody wants to get in We have that. So if any, any of our listeners hear this noise in the background, the house next to me is apparently undergoing some kind of alteration, there's some wild saw or drill or something going on. My apologiesFran Havard 15:13 I'm a bit nervous about the timber part, when whatever they're sawing falls down. Hannah Choi 15:20Okay, they obviously do not see the big red Record sign that I have, that I should have. Something that I write about a lot. And I, I struggle with myself a lot is this expectation that just because we are executive function coaches, we kind of put this pressure on ourselves, like, oh, maybe we are also supposed to be excellent in all of our executive functions. And I think executive function coaches are such great examples of how no one on this earth has perfect executive functions. And so where, what if What areas do you have to work on and what challenges do you find? Fran Havard 15:56You know it's funny because when I think about executive functioning coach, we're just having strong executive function, it doesn't always have to look neat and tidy. Like, I have a friend who is, I mean, counters are sparkling, everything is white, got three kids, right? Everything's still white, even with the three kids running around the house, everything has a container, I'll never be that person. So what executive function skills look like, for me, are not what they look like for other people. And for me, it's become like, it's about knowing how to prioritize what's important. That's strong executive, you know, how many projects we deal with every day, when we sit down? If you have four kids, three of those kids are classified special ed. I mean, that alone is a bucket, that alone is a task list. Yeah, that's how I think in those terms, you know, I think I have to do X, Y, and Z, my house doesn't look perfect. My purse, I, I haven't carried one in a very long time. Because I, I lose it, you know, like, but what I've gotten really good at is thinking in categories, and then sub categorizing. And I can, you know, I've gotten good at a planner or, you know, things like, things like that, when it comes to executive function, but and that's what I say, like, we have this image of what's perfect, what has very strong executive function skills. And if there is like, anything that I've learned as a coach, and as a parent, there's no perfect, there's no perfect if you can figure out like, you know, this is all about the change process, if you can figure out what you want to change, and own that and want that and that's the hardest part. And that is the hardest part of executive functioning as a, you know, strength. It's most people that are good at it, either a going through the motions, or B, they know what they want. And that that's nuts. That's the difference. So you know, if my friend has a perfect pristine house, she prioritizes that executive function area, all right, I don't. I mean, I literally went to bed last night with dishes in the sink. My friend would have a mini heart attack if that happened. Like she she says and understand she I called her once and I was like, What color should I paint for these cabinets? And she's like, I can't watch that video. I was like, Why can't you watch the video? She goes, You left all your cabinet doors open, who leaves the cabinet doors open? You know, like for her executive function coaching is everything neat and tidy.Hannah Choi 18:38My god, I seriously think there's someone. Also, there's like someone here.Fran Havard 18:45In your house? I didn't notice, I feel like you're doing great. But I'm like trying I'm like, I could tell there's a lot happening!Hannah Choi 18:55There's like someone in my house. My husband is working from home as well. Okay. Hey, you know what we said we were gonna go into this being really authentic. Well, listeners, I am treating you to authenticity today. Welcome to my life.Fran Havard 19:15Well, Hannah, you know executive function coaching is a lot about how you respond to things, right?Hannah Choi 19:20It is. It really is. Yes, I'm just gonna get through it. And I'm gonna just love it. And I'm just so happy that I'm talking to you. You can go through this with me. So something so two things that I wanted to talk about. One is you said something earlier about comparison and I feel like that comes up a lot. We have these assumptions in our head about how we are or our children are like supposed to be and how other like other kids It's other are like our friends, kids are a certain way. And oh, like my kids are supposed to be that way. And I think that I'm, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the parents of our kiddos that are going through executive function coaching are feeling this way. And it's just so important to recognize that everyone has strengths. Everyone has challenges, your kid is not the same as as someone else's kid, you are not the same. There's going to be things about your kid that are you know, that they're better at something than someone else's kid. And I don't know, that's just something that comes up a lot. I've noticed in conversations with friends and just conversations with other coaches and parents. That comparison is it's tempting to go down that road. And it's can be a little dicey. If you do.Fran Havard 20:56Well, I find that I have to fight that as both a coaching coordinator and as a parent, this idea of what's right. Fix my kid, you know, this is not what coaching is about, I always find I have a definite focus on what's your authentic self. Because these kids have learning differences. And it's not so much that they have learning differences, how they engage and see the world is different. That's why the result, what you see on the other side is different. Because the kids that we work with the ADHD kids, and other learning difference, kids don't see the same world. And I have to temper the expectation right away that that's a beautiful thing. They will never see the same world that x sees it or Y sees it. They interact in a very unique way. And that is something to celebrate. And so, I had a line with parents, that is where I go, allowing parents to understand that it is okay, that your child engages in different way with the world. Congratulations, you've birthed an individual with a unique perspective on the world. Yes, Well done for cultivating that through their early childhood. Well done for keeping that special bit of them right through, you know, school, and yeah, they might not have straight A's in high school, but we'll help them find a way to be successful.Hannah Choi 22:40Oooh, you're giving me the chills.Fran Havard 22:41I mean, like, yes, it's so true. Hannah Choi 22:48I, one of my adult clients and I were having a similar conversation, he was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and he did a project for grad school where they interviewed educators and just people from all different aspects of education, and about how so, so many people don't fit into this, you know, the mold of, of education, as it is today of most schools. And, and then we were saying that, but it's the people who don't fit in, that are the ones that you know, can really end up making change. And it's the people that are different, that see the world in a different way. And that, you know, that that interpret the world in a different ways. They're the ones that keep things interesting and keep us on our toes. And we need more people that think that way. And then in order for them to reach their goals, yeah, they need to develop some executive functions, strategies that support the areas that, that make it maybe make it hard for them to do X, Y, and Z.Fran Havard 23:53Yeah, I, the other day, a little I was in my son's third grade classroom. And we were doing a word search. And like, I've always been a sort of outside the box thinker. And it, I took the word search, and I started doing it with his class. And then I turned the paper to the side, because for me, I could look at letters, you know, turn around, I can all of a sudden see a pattern that I didn't see before. And I and I, all of a sudden, everybody's sitting at my son's table, turn their paper to the side because they had never thought and I thought and I always think when I work with kids who are, you know, have learning differences. They always have their paper to the side helped me see things a little bit differently, you know?Hannah Choi 24:32Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was talking with someone she was, I can't remember who it was, but she was saying, you know, like, if you walk into a special education classroom in an elementary school, you might see someone like lying on the floor and doing their work or someone you know, using some kind of manipulative or you know, sitting in some kind of unique chair or something. And that's what we need in every classroom. Like it should be just sort of accepted and standard. Some people work on the floor. Some people hold their paper sideways. Yeah. And that's, that's one thing that I love about coaching is helping people find what works for them. And I always say, like, I'm gonna make this suggestion, but I don't want you to think, oh, I have to do it this way. Like, I want you to say like, I want you to tell me when it doesn't work, I want you to tell me what you didn't like about it. I always start my question. Okay, you tried this? What did you not like about it? That's it's super valuable, really valuable information. I'm sure that you've had conversations with parents, when they say it feels like it's taking a long time. Because a common thing that we talked about with clients all the time, I'm sure you've talked about it with your clients. And I know it comes up a lot is like how long it takes to make change. I mean, there's 1000s of books on, you know, developing new habits, there's, you know, podcasts and executive function coaches and everything. And it just takes a long time. What do you how do you, how do you help parents understand that and how do you yourself manage it, when, when either one of your clients is taking a long time, or if you're taking a long time, or one of your kids.Fran Havard 26:11I'm a firm believer that you have to get underneath, you got to get up underneath the resistance to change. So you remember, we we learned a lot about friction when we that when we read the article I sent and you have to understand as a parent, as a coach, what's creating that friction, that resistance to change. And I think a lot about problem solving in those terms. Now, because change is slow because of this friction. And then when you look at like a kid who's, you know, 17 in pre contemplation, which is there, they don't even realize they have to change, they're so over it, they're so detached, and how to bring them to that line, that takes a long time, relationship building, and a lot of making that child feel like they can be successful. And then the more that you can reshape that perception they have of themselves, so that they can see I'm a person capable of doing good things, I am a person capable of having a conversation, then you get the wheel starts to spin. So you have less of that, you know, that friction, and you have more of that's what we're going for the snowball, where one good idea feeds another good idea. It takes it takes a lot of verbal unpacking, we have to change the narrative inside the head. And when we do that, then changes quicker. But and that friction causes that slowness then causes the rate of change to slow down. Like we use physics as we use Newton's law of motion in this company, in Beyond BookSmart to talk about, you know, force and change in the process. It's not always the carrot, I'll give you this and you'll do it. Right. That's artificial. We've learned as coaches that that doesn't work. What Works is how we change this.Hannah Choi 28:19Yep. And so much of that is confidence, right? The how you were saying like, like, if you are at the point where you've like, say, you've been labeled something, you know, you've been labeled, you know, disorganized or you just have, the messages that have been given to you growing up is that you are incapable of doing this thing in a way that people like, and so your confidence has been eroded. And so I imagine that a lot of the friction that we that we do experience is for is not necessarily being able to believe that we could change, right?Fran Havard 29:03That's exactly it. This is me Take it or leave it. That's pre-contemplation. This is who I am. I'm not capable of change. Right? Yeah, that mindset, that's what you're working with. That's what you're changing. You're you are, you know, Emily Dickinson said "Hope is the Thing With Feathers that perches in the soul", like you are giving them that hope that purchases in the soul and then grows so that they can feel that they are more than this label.Hannah Choi 29:32Yeah, yep. It's a it can be hard. It can be hard waiting for someone to, you know, or walking away. ItFran Havard 29:40can be hard because there's a lot of conflicting messages and you makes you think I need to fix everything. And that's why that's why the executive function pieces so great, because it's about the parts, right? Yeah. What are we going to fix this week? We're going to fix we're going to try to and see if we're ready to fix task initiation. We're gonna try by, by getting over this hurdle of going to the gym, or dealing with my physics teacher, or writing this English assignment, Hannah, you know, writing for me is, you know, where my energy mostly lies when it comes through executive function coaching and getting a kid over that hurdle of you write the first sentence, then that's huge. We can get the first sentence written when you know, if we can isolate those parts, then we're not taking on everything. And then those quick wins those small successes that you're feeling, I wrote a sentence. Great. You weren't or you had nothing before that. AndHannah Choi 30:43I opened the doc. Sometimes it's just opening the doc. Yeah, yeah. Yep. And I think that as an outsider, as an observer of someone who struggles like you said, you can you find yourself saying, like, why can't they just that without breaking it down like that so small into such small, tiny little goals can be challenging for the observer. Because it's, you know, we just don't understand. But for the person who is learning better strategies to support themselves, that's the key. And that's kind of why it takes so long right?Fran Havard 31:26To unravel the mess so they can see what they want to work on. Yeah. So they can realize it's not really a mess. It's just a beautiful bunch of parts looking different.Hannah Choi 31:36Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's all there.Fran Havard 31:40It's all there. You would necessarily want to see it or not how they feel that they should show it, you know?Hannah Choi 31:50Yeah. Do you have any questions for me?Fran Havard 31:52Why don't you tell us a little bit about how starting this podcast challenged your EF skills?Hannah Choi 31:58Oh, yeah. Well, that's a great question. As you know, I really love to write, if writer, if listeners don't know, I write quite a bit for Beyond BookSmart. Internally, mostly internally. And so I was super excited about doing this, because I knew that I was going to be able to write a lot. But that also meant I had to be extremely organized. We have a lot of working parts, we have the audio, the writing, the planning, there are so many executive functions that are tied up with planning a podcast. So I would say for me, mostly, it has been task initiation, getting myself to make sure that I do the things that I need to do, because there's a lot of things on the list. Writing everything down. Absolutely. So I don't forget. And organization, keeping it all organized. So yeah.Fran Havard 32:54But thinking what are you going to do next?Hannah Choi 32:56Yeah, right, right. And cognitive flexibility,Fran Havard 32:59right. Next steps is the most important executive function skill you could have.Hannah Choi 33:03It is yeah. So next steps is - we end every meeting with the next steps, you know, what are we all going to do next? I end every writing session. If I sit down to write I end, every single writing session with what's next. I think, Oh, I think if I were to give one tip to anyone in the world, would be to use Next Steps. What is your next step when you stop doing the thing? What is your next step saves a whole bunch of heartache when you can't remember what you're gonna do,Fran Havard 33:33What you're gonna do, like you get up a podcast, most people get up and Chuck their stuff, they go upstairs and drink a cup of coffee. If you sit there for 30 seconds, and take a quick note, you save all those ideas flooding your brain, it's like it's a time window, you got to grab it.Hannah Choi 33:48Yeah, it's so true. And a huge thing that I talk a lot about with my clients is frontloading and doing as much as you can upfront to save yourself a whole bunch of grief later on. And, and that is for me, too, is that like you were saying earlier to the whole reflection piece, like quick, like if you do our little reflection session after anything that you've just done, then you are frontloading a whole bunch of work for next time.Fran Havard 34:15Exactly. And it's like, it's like a flood after you're in one of these and you just got to gotta get it down. Got to capture. Yep. Well, thank you, Hannah. Hannah Choi 34:25Oh, thank you, Fran. I really hope that our listeners can hear it. And that's our show for today. I really hope that you found something useful in today's episode and maybe even had a little chuckle listening to our attempts to maintain focus while the house next door was attacked with a power tool. Here at Focus Forward, we aim to bring you authentic stories and give you opportunities to learn and also be entertained. So hopefully today's episode did just that. I'm so glad you're here and you took time out of your day to listen, be sure to check out the show notes for this episode. On our website and subscribe to the podcast at beyond booksmart.com/podcast we send out an email after every episode with links to resources and tools we mentioned thanks for listening

*Mental Health & ADHD/Executive Dysfunction section starts at 20:21*When we talk about Executive Function, we also need to talk about mental health. Taking care of our mental health is important for everyone and studies show that there is a connection between executive function challenges and mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety. There are many, many ways that executive function challenges affect mental health. In today’s episode, I’ll explore just two of these: emotional regulation for kids and the impact that ADHD can have on kids’ mental health. I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with two guests to talk about these interesting topics. Sherry Fleydervish joined me from Chicago and Sean Potts joined me from Brooklyn, NY. Sherry is a child and family therapist who is trained in many therapeutic areas, including theraplay, dyadic developmental therapy, art and play therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Her areas of expertise and interests include anxiety, depression, ADHD, parent support, family transition, divorce, and separation support, trauma, attachment issues, and social and relational skills. Learn all about her work with Best Self Inc. here. Sean is one of Beyond BookSmart's earliest coaching clients as well as the producer for this podcast. Now, as an adult, Sean has developed a passion for raising awareness around ADHD and is especially interested the increased risk for mental health disorders and the societal stigma associated with ADHD. He uses that passion every day as a driving force in the work he does as Beyond BookSmart's Marketing Specialist  Check out some of that work on BBS's Facebook page and blog. ---Here are some readings and resources for topics that came up in my conversation with Sherry & Sean.You can find more about Sherry and her work at https://www.bestselfinc.com/Mental Health and Executive Function Challenge ConnectionExecutive Functions in Students With Depression, Anxiety, and Stress SymptomsWhat Should You Treat First? ADHD or Mental Health Challenges?Executive Functioning: How Does It Relate To Anxiety?Academic Anxiety: How Perfectionism and Executive Dysfunction Collide3 Ways ADHD Makes You Think About YourselfSelf-Regulation and Co-RegulationExecutive Function & Self-RegulationWhat is Co-Regulation? | Best Self Family PostDeveloping Kids' Executive Function, Self-Regulation SkillsHow Can We Help Kids With Transitions? - Child Mind InstituteContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. When we talk about executive function, we also need to talk about mental health. Taking care of our mental health is really important for everyone. And studies show that there is a connection between executive function challenges, and mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety. There are many, many ways that executive function challenges affect mental health and vice versa. And in today's episode, I'll explore just two of these: emotional regulation for kids and the impact that ADHD can have on kids' mental health. I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with two guests to talk about these interesting topics. Sherry Fleydervish joins me from Chicago and Sean Potts joined me from Brooklyn, New York. Sherry is a child and family therapist who works with infants through adults, and also supports the parents and families of these children. She is trained in many therapeutic areas, including theraplay dyadic, developmental psychotherapy, mindfulness, sandtray, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Her areas of expertise include anxiety, depression, ADHD, parent support, and family transition, divorce and separation support, trauma, attachment issues and social skills. And Sean is one of Beyond BookSmart's earliest coaching clients. And now as an adult, Sean has developed a passion for raising awareness around ADHD, and is especially interested in the increased risk for mental health disorders, and the societal stigma associated with ADHD. He uses that passion every day as a driving force in the work he does as Beyond BookSmart's Marketing Specialist, and it's the reason why I thought he'd be a great fit for today's topic. I also need to mention that Sean is my partner in crime for this podcast, he does all the editing and all the sound, which is good, since I can't stand that kind of stuff. So without him, this podcast would not exist. Thanks, Sean. Okay, so keep listening to hear my conversation with Sherry and Sean, and learn some great strategies to support both our own emotional regulation and that of our kids, and to hear how ADHD impacts the mental health of students, and how we can help support kiddos with ADHD. Okay, now on to the show. So today, I would love to talk about two topics that are really, really important to me as a coach, and also to, I think everyone, the first is emotional regulation. And that's how we manage our emotions. And emotional regulation can be challenging for everybody. And it is especially challenging for kids, because they don't have a lot of experience, yet their executive functions are not completely developed yet. And they just haven't had a lot of opportunities to practice emotional regulation. So I'd love to talk about some, you know, ideas that you have shared from your perspective. And and then I would love to cover the idea of the connection between executive function and mental health. Because we see that a lot that there's a lot of challenges by people who have executive function challenges, often go hand have some also some mental health challenges along with them. So if we could cover those two topics today, that'd be fabulous.Sherry Fleydervish 03:48Absolutely. You know, something that I talk about, every single family session, every child session intake is just emotion regulation. You know, a lot of times I've see, I start my intakes with parents, and they come in, and they tell me what's been going on. And oftentimes I hear, you know, these behaviors are showing up and these labels and these things that kids are experiencing, and my mind immediately goes to regulation and where they got in their, in their ability to do that, and their ability to regulate and then the parents ability to help them co regulate to, which is something I talked about. But all of that comes from a deeper lower part of our brains that take so much time and years and experiences and everything to start to build. And so that's that's oftentimes regulation is oftentimes the first place that I really start with families.Hannah Choi 04:43And I feel like so many of us, at least in the generation that is old enough to have kids and then then the generation before us. There wasn't a lot of education about about self-regulation, emotional regulation, and especially co-regulation. I think, maybe even a lot of our listeners don't know what co-regulation is. Would you like to explain that a little bit? Sherry Fleydervish 05:03Yeah, absolutely. So what I often say is that we are sharing our nervous systems, especially with our children. And when they're little and they're babies, we're really doing everything for them, we're rocking them to regulate them, even when they're in our bellies, we're rocking them, we're regulating that, then we're feeding them, we're watering them, we're doing all of those things for them. And then as children get older, we start to help them use build their own ability to regulate themselves, but you know, even, we're even co-regulating with, with our high schoolers to, you know, instead of, maybe before you would pack their lunch for them, but, you know, now you're just putting things in the right spot in the, in the fridge for them instead. And so all those little pieces are helping them regulate, you know, instead of maybe holding them, you're just sitting next to them while they do their homework now, instead of really being there, but it really is just sharing your nervous system and sharing your regulation with your child. And I'm also always, you know, talking about how different energy states require a different type of regulation. So if you have a child who was really upset and sad, you can mirror that with your body, you can get lower with them, and you can talk to them at a lower level and put your hand on your on their shoulder. But if you have a child who's really angry and frustrated, "My brother just ripped apart my favorite stuffed animal!" and, you know, I, I invite parents to match that same energy with their child and get bigger and meet their effect and just tell them how frustrated it is that they this just happened. That's co-regulating, it's showing through your body through or voice through your aspect that I hear you, I see you. And then a child begins to be able to regulate themselves as we, as we kind of practice and learn and model that.Hannah Choi 07:03So so much of, of helping our kids is learning first, for ourselves what we need to do to help ourselves and then through that we can help our kids.Sherry Fleydervish 07:16That conversation invites a lot to understand our own systems, you know, I help parents understand what comes up for them as their child moves through different things that maybe, maybe transitions are really difficult. And so I invite them to wonder what does that feel like for you to when that is happening. And so the first step is regulating yourself, you can't help you can't help your child you can't help them regulate when you are in that state of dysregulation as well. So it really starts with just taking, taking a deep breath, and being you know, taking care of yourself first.Hannah Choi 07:52And it's so hard to do that. It's so hard to, at least I personally find myself feeling like well, that whole idea of putting your putting that mask on the oxygen mask on first, it's so hard in the moment, or just in the busyness of life, it's so hard to remember to do that. And, and that's, that's why I am always I think anybody who knows me, well, I'm always talking about self-care. And, and I think part of it is because I'm trying to remind myself like Hannah, you have to do that too. But it's so important to to take care of ourselves first. Sherry Fleydervish 08:28I think even just hearing that it's okay to pause and put your mask on. And model that's, that's a modeling moment. You know, mom needs a break, mom needs 10 seconds before she can figure out how to help solve this problem. That's, that's everything. And your kiddo feels like they can do that, too.Hannah Choi 08:43You mentioned transitions. And I know that's a really big, that's something that a lot of our clients find challenging. And I just know kids in general, and even adults can find transitions challenging. What what do you suggest for parents or ourselves? If we struggle with transitions? Do you have some kind of go to strategies that you'd like to suggest?Sherry Fleydervish 09:08Transitions are so so hard, and especially ones where we're moving from something that we're really enjoying and really liking and maybe can be regulating for us too, for example, you know, if your kid's playing video games that is actually really regulating and then they're, we're asking them to move to homework or dinnertime or whatever it might be - bedtime, that isn't so regulating for them. And so, just being mindful of that piece, too, when we're supporting our kids through a transition, it's just how you're approaching it and your own. You know, I talked about expectations a lot - the expectations that you don't even realize you have as you're leading up to a transition, what you want it to be like, even if you're expecting it to be abrupt because maybe it has been in the past and then tying in this topic of Co-regulation, how can you use yourself to help your kid get from A to B? Does, you know if the video game is super regulating, can you come in and say, "Okay, you have five minutes left. And then as soon as you turn off, we're going to pass the ball outside. Or as soon as you turn off, we're going to go, you can pick up your favorite game, and we're going to play it for five minutes before we move to dinner", or get out the house or whatever it is. You are offering yourself up to play into be almost like the little train to get from regulation to task that I don't really like so much. But just use yourself as a tool to do that. And that's in the moment. And then before it's trying to set up for structure and as much as as much as you can you have a plan for how often or how long you're going to be playing each game or doing each activity or whatever it might be, so that your child feels as as prepared as they possibly can for the next for the next things.Hannah Choi 11:08Transitions are so hard. I see just parents struggling with them on the playground after school. When the kids are they've come out of school and they're going on to the playground to play and then it's time to go. And I often hear parents say like, "Oh, I don't want to tell them it's time to go because then I know what I'm going to have to deal with". So what could a parent do in a situation like that?Sherry Fleydervish 11:34Oh my gosh, notice that notice that dread? Notice that worry? You know Where's where's this gonna go today? Are we gonna get to the car, are we gonna have a dragging, screaming kid to the car. Just be mindful of that. First off, take a deep breath before you're going. And then how? How can you enter that same playful state that they're in right out there on the playground? They're playing. They're having so much fun. And then they hear time to go right now? What if it was, "Hey, this seems like such a fun game of tag. Can you go and tag whoever it is that's next. And then we're going to head out". It's - you enter, join in the play join in even if it's for a minute, I bet that that minute ends up being more worth it than the potential 10 minutes or the potential screaming, you know, just join in notice what they're playing and then kind of come out together to the car.Hannah Choi 12:40That's so smart. Seems like co-regulation is I mean, it probably doesn't work every time I imagine. But if it sounds like it's a great strategy to practice a lot.Sherry Fleydervish 12:51It might not, you might get, "I don't want to I don't want to go. This is too much fun. I don't want to leave". You can still co-regulate, right? You could say "Yes, I know you're having so much fun. And you don't want to go to piano. You think piano sucks. And this is so much more fun". That's still you're still entering and you're still like meeting them for that really frustration. But we do have to go so like I'm, I want to help you I want to problem solve right now how to make this easier.Hannah Choi 13:19So sure, that read that makes me think of this idea that we should just stay calm, you know, and so that kind of makes me think maybe we shouldn't just stay calm. Maybe we like you said we need to meet them where they are. And it feels a little strange for me to think Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, to get angry with them. But, but then it really shows them that we understand where they are. Sherry Fleydervish 13:43I hear this so often, it's um, I tried to stay so calm, I stay so calm, I have, you know, me as calm as I can with my voice and all of these pieces. And that's incredible if you can, if you can be there. But that idea of mirroring your child's emotion, emotional state, it's okay to not be cool as a cucumber, you know, because if you hear a child to saying, you know, I'm just I'm so so sad. I'm so bummed out or I'm so angry and I'm so frustrated. Kind of like what we said earlier, it's, it's okay to meet them with that with that same emotion it shows mom and dad or whoever feels can feel that way too. SoHannah Choi 14:30I remember my mom when I first started working with kids as a teenager, my mom gave me some advice. And she said, when a kid is upset or just won't stop talking to you just say back to them what they have said to you, just repeat back to them what they've just said to you. And and it's and they just sometimes just want to be heard. So this idea of it's almost like this idea of co-regulation like they you are acknowledging their feelings. You're not You're telling them through your behavior that these feelings are okay. Is that would you say that's an accurate description?Sherry Fleydervish 15:07I love that I love that advice so much because it just shows a child it shows your child that it's it is okay to have all of these feelings. And later on, you know, addressing the behaviors and the way that you express them. That's that's a different story. But you you're modeling that it's okay to have have all of those different emotions, and they're welcome here, too.Hannah Choi 15:28Yeah great, thanks, Mom!! One time I was in a store and there was this little boy and he was probably three or four. And he kept saying he was with his grandparents and he kept saying over and over and over again. Like, I want Mommy, I want Mommy and they were they were yah. Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, you'll see her later. Mommy's busy or whatever, and I want mommy he kept saying, I went up to him, and I said, you want your mommy? He said, Yeah. And then he stopped yelling about it. Like, see, you just need to say back to him, He just wants someone to acknowledge that.Sherry Fleydervish 16:11Sometimes we just we miss that piece. And, and, and it's almost out of the moment, it seems so simple or from, from that, from the observer, you saw that, like, that kid just wants his mom, you just want your mom so bad. You're so you just miss her. You know, and it stepped him right? Back into right back into it like, well, this adult just heard me okay.Hannah Choi 16:35But I guess it shows that when you are the parent or the caregiver in the moment, it's hard to, to step out and say, and like look at it, like an observer. Look at it like that crazy lady who just talked to my grandkid.Sherry Fleydervish 16:52It's a lot easier not in the moment to do that. Yeah.Hannah Choi 16:55So do you have any strategies for when you are in the moment, and it's hard, and you're having trouble getting out of it as as, as an adult.17:03The first step, it's just it's noticing, and maybe taking a step back, and maybe even getting lower getting on your child's level. And just even if, if it just means, you know, just looking at them in the eye and saying, you're just, you know, you're so worried about, you know, the test that you have tomorrow at school, if your kid just won't stop talking about I have to study I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to prepare this way. And my my advice is, is not so much to focus on the behavior, but to focus on the emotion underneath of what your child is saying. And just get curious with them, they might not be able to tell you how they feel. But they're communicating through even that little boy in the grocery store was probably feeling worried or missing, or just wanted, wanted his mom. And that's an opportunity for us to say and wonder, I wonder if you're feeling worried right now you don't know where Mommy is. Or I wonder if you're just nervous for your test tomorrow, we can pull the emotion out of the over and over and over talk that we hear. Notice maybe what it's bringing up for you, that might be the same feeling that your kids feeling, and isn't able to communicate it.Hannah Choi 18:22Being able to label your emotions is so important. And I feel like I and I think that is a skill that goes along with emotion with executive function. And just sort of that emotional awareness. And that's a big part of emotional regulation is labeling your emotions? Do you have any strategies for all ages for little kids up to adults for helping to figure out what you're feeling or maybe helping someone else to figure out what they're feeling? Because I imagine a lot of our coaches might need to help their clients figure out what they're feeling and maybe the client doesn't know what they're feeling, and they're hoping to figure that out.Sherry Fleydervish 19:04I always say as the whether you are the that whatever adult you are that's in that child's life, or that teenagers like it's, it's okay to guess and it's okay to guess wrong. You know, if you're noticing that a child is something just changed, you can just say, Oh, I just noticed something changed now. What happened for you, but what's going on right now, and it might not come out as a feeling. It might be I'm thinking this or you can you can still use that to be curious about the moment and if they can't connect to what they're what they're feeling, then maybe you can help them connect with what's going on in their body and I invite all ages, clients of all ages to do that. And if they can't express to me what they're feeling then I asked them to just draw it you know, can you pick a color can you draw what that what that feeling feels like in your body? Can you identify it somewhere inside write up your body right now. Or where that change just happened. It doesn't have to be through communication through through verbally, we can find other outlets. And maybe it's just a quick journal for a teenager or for us to just, I don't really know what's going on. But I'm just going to write for a minute and see what kind of comes out.Hannah Choi 20:20So something that that comes up a lot for, for us as coaches and I think just us as humans, and is what I talked about in our first episode is this idea of failure. And I the emotions that go along with that, and how I think with for people with executive function challenges, we, you know, people can often feel like failures, and there's a lot of emotions there and anxiety that might come up. And do you do have any, what's your insight on that, like the connection between between executive function and feelings, emotions,Sherry Fleydervish 21:05To follow up on the conversation about failure that you bring up is just how I loved the first episode that you released when we were talking about failure, because it is an it is a learning opportunity. But in the moment, it sure doesn't feel that way. It was really, really, really bad. And we have our own self beliefs that show up and start spiraling. And then we have all the messages that we've heard, you know, and if you're a kid or teenager struggling with some executive functions as well, then at school, you're probably oftentimes getting redirected and reminded and something wrong. And it's really hard not to internalize all of that, and end up with these negative thoughts about ourselves kind of swirling.Hannah Choi 21:56Well, I was just going to ask Sean, if he was comfortable sharing your own experience growing up, I know that you can relate personally to some of what Sherry was just saying, you want to share any of your experience.Sean Potts 22:09Yeah, I, I grew up most of my life, not really knowing I had had ADHD, it was one of those things where I would never really love going to school, it was very hard for me to sit still, it was very hard for me to like, have that sort of rigid, structured time. And that, you know, there was definitely a lot of friction that happens when I was younger around that, you know, and my parents noticed it at a fairly young age. And that led to me getting my first ADHD diagnosis tests when I was probably in fourth grade. And for whatever reason, I didn't get diagnosed at that time. So the problems continued to get worse. And until about halfway through middle school, when it was just sort of kind of hard to ignore the level of executive dysfunction that I was experiencing. I mean, I was a C/D student and I, you know, could never sit still, I was constantly getting kicked out of the classroom for whatever annoyance my 12 year old self was contributing to the classroom and distracting from learning. So I eventually at that age, was able to get diagnosed with ADHD. And that was sort of the beginning of my journey to treating it. I mean, of course, getting that diagnosis is huge. So from there, very soon after, you know, we started doing trials with medication. And also, I mean, that was a big component. But the biggest for me, it was definitely the executive function coaching. I got, I started working with a coach when I was at this point about 13, 14. You know, it took a little while, probably a year after my diagnosis before I really got moving forward with coaching. And for me, the transformation that happened was just like, was unbelievable. You know, within six months, I would say I was coaching, I was almost a completely different student I was, I was getting A's, which was the first time in my life and you know, I, there was no C's to be found on my report card. But more importantly, I rebuilt this confidence that I felt like I had lost from my years of going to school with untreated ADHD and just feeling like I was so different. That was huge. All of a sudden, I was like, teachers were complimenting me and I was, you know, like, the, my parents didn't have to nag me about homework. And I was feeling really confident in my abilities. And it was a big revelation. I think that confidence was sort of the the boost I needed moving forward. And now looking back, it's been what? Over 10 years since I had started coaching at this point. I'm 25 and the you know, I still am so grateful for the experience I had then, but I also recognize a lot of the problems that I had are not isolated incidents that I only experienced. I mean people all over the world have on untreated ADHD and the consequences of that can be really substantial, both on their mental health, their sense of self and their, you know, future prospects. So I'm have become very passionate about that. It's why I also love my job now working as Beyond BookSmart's Marketing Specialist, where I'm able to educate and spread awareness and advocate for a lot of the stuff that I struggled with and so many other people struggle with. So it's really cool to be here and talking to both of you about this, it's really, it's kind of an amazing, full circle to be here and be able to talk about it in the way that I am.Sherry Fleydervish 25:35Oh, that's, it's a really important piece to bring up. And I appreciate you sharing a little bit about that diagnosis coming a little bit later in adolescence too and what that must be like to experience or go through all of those years of school and not really understand what's different about how your brain works, and what your brain needs, until later on. And when we tie in mental health. And what we know about regulation, as well, is that we can't really access those thinking decision-making parts of our brains when we're not emotionally regulated. And so mental health, and if we're struggling with, even if it's stress, or anxiety, or depression, or whatever it might be our whole, we aren't able to plan and organize and our memories impacted. All those pieces that we need to be successful are, it just makes it harder to do that to get there.Hannah Choi 26:36And I imagine if you have grown up with this continuous message that you're hearing over and over and over again, that you're a failure, I mean, that maybe that's not the words they're using. But that's might be the message you're receiving. And imagine that that causes an amazing amount of stress on the brain, and then makes it even more challenging to access the executive function skills that that are already challenging.Sherry Fleydervish 26:59Absolutely. Yeah. You. It's, you know, those beliefs and your own perception of your own abilities, and can lead to some of those thoughts. And then that I can imagine how then having those feelings, and maybe leading to that either leading to avoidance or anxiety and not wanting to go to school or not wanting to go certain places where maybe those feelings have come up in the past and all of those things, kind of becoming comorbid and leading to each other.Sean Potts 27:33Yeah, absolutely. That's totally true. And I think, from my own experience, and from the research that's been done, I think there was something that said that by the time someone with ADHD turns 10, they've heard, I think, 10,000 more corrective messages than their neurotypical peers, which is, I find very sad, because that has a big ripple effect that impacts someone with ADHD's perception of themselves, first and foremost, but also of their capacity to do things and their confidence. And that, again, it has a ripple effect later in life that really impacts your mental health, your sense of self, your, again, your confidence. And I find that to be one of the saddest things about untreated ADHD is the fact that there's this coexisting mental health risk that people with ADHD also have. This leads me to my first real question, which is for you, Sherry. And it's that I'm very interested from the work that you've done, how you've seen some of the impact that that type of corrective messaging or other challenges that people with ADHD have, how that's manifested into mental health challenges, and the clients that you work with, would love to hear anything you have to say on that subject?Sherry Fleydervish 28:53I'm just thinking about the first thing that comes to mind is this environment, the environment of school, and what is expected of students, and how if you're not fitting in, maybe because of your ADHD diagnosis, executive functioning challenges, you're not fitting in with what is expected. And where I start, oftentimes, I do collaborate with schools, and I'll kind of talk about how I do that with my clients. But it's first starting with, with my clients and with their families, and recognizing that maybe these pieces of the environment actually aren't working with me or for my brain or for how I needed and so not necessarily adapting yourself in that moment, but I'm more wondering how can the teachers support the state that you have, and how can we adjust this expectation to fit in with what you what you need and talking with teachers and maybe even providing some education to about how oftentimes these students are experiencing redirections? And how can we You help them without constantly correcting correcting their behaviors. Instead, working with teachers has been really, really validating for for all the families and the clients that I work with. Because just knowing just a student going into school knowing that my teacher gets it, you know, she knows that I'm not trying to misbehave, or trying to be a bad kid, or whatever it is that had been coming up in the past is is not the case and knows that, you know, I'm trying to try and make the best that I can.Hannah Choi 30:36Have you noticed an increase in opportunities to work with teachers? Like are, is there more of a, are educators becoming more aware of kind of like a holistic approach to teaching?Sherry Fleydervish 30:52Absolutely, I, I really, really appreciate all of the teachers that I that I'm able to collaborate with, and that they're able to take the time to speak with me for, you know, 15, 20 minutes about one of their 30 students, and there is so much more social emotional learning going on in the classroom these days, it's truly incredible. And then that insight is so helpful for therapy, I use everything that the teachers are giving me all those observations, and bringing them into the room. And then life on on the flip side, as well, I feel that teachers are craving this piece and needing it and wanting to know what works best for each student. And they're so willing to implement it, because that's all they want is the success of their students. And then unfortunately, a lot of times, it's you know, what, if you're not supporting my kid, you're not doing what they need. And teachers are self-internalizing, to, like, I can't connect with this kid. And this is so hard, where, you know, I try so hard to just let teachers know you're doing the best that you can. And it's not, you know, some kids have different needs, and how, how open they are to having those vulnerable conversations, something I'm really grateful for.Hannah Choi 32:03And I imagine that there's also it also varies from school, depending on the, you know, the the leadership, and how aware of the leadership is of, of the importance of social emotional regulation, and just how important that piece is, I was just talking recently with our, my, my children's elementary school principal. And, and she was saying that, that for her, that's number one that's, that comes first. And the happiness of her teachers, you know, is just so important, and that she sees mental health as the most important thing first for everybody. I love. I just loved hearing that. And, and so that's great that you're seeing a lot of partnership between schools and mental health providers.Sean Potts 32:48Yeah, that's a great point, Hannah. And Sherry, I'm just curious, I just have a quick question for you, too. Do you find in the work that you do, that teachers have become more aware or perceptive to the, to these issues around ADHD and executive function than they were, let's say 10 years ago, because from my experience growing up, it really felt like, almost no fault of their own, teachers just didn't really know about these challenges, they didn't really know how to handle them. And because of that, oftentimes, you know, that would manifest into frustration or other areas like that. And I'm just, I'm just curious, if you think that's changed at all, in the last 10 years, in the work that you've been doing,Sherry Fleydervish 33:27I think, you know, to Hannah's point, it definitely depends on the administration, the higher-ups and what that, you know, the different environments and of each school as well. But overall, I definitely see teachers were invested on that mental health, emotional piece, I think, because there's so much more education out there on it, the stigma is decreasing, and so many more people are open to therapy, and there isn't this huge stigma on it, for lack of a better word, that it seeps into education, and it seeps into the teachers as well, you know, they are recognizing that they have their own things going on too, then it's so much easier to see and to connect with students who are also experiencing that. And so, I think overall, just it's, it's a lot easier to have those conversations and teachers are really willing to go there.Hannah Choi 34:27And breaking down that stigma around mental health and therapists and you know, taking care of our mental health is so important. And and why continuing to have these conversations and normalizing the idea of having a therapist normalizing the idea of, yes, everyone has executive function challenges like I am the first one to admit Yeah, I'm a coach and I love helping people and I also really struggle with in certain areas of executive function, and you and just just having these conversations and showing people You can talk about it, and it's okay. And talking about it is going to help, it will help, it'll help someone. Oh, that's great to hear that that conversation is happening more.Sherry Fleydervish 35:13And sometimes even just talking to teachers on that note of acknowledging your own challenges, whatever, whatever it might be, you know, that is such a great way to connect with your kid, you know, or your student, whoever it might be that, you know, I have a really hard time organizing my stuff to, here's something that has helped me or let's problem solve together, let's, let's work through this, let's figure out how to do it. Just that little piece, that little nugget, I'll have kids come in, and just tell me that they had this great talk with their teacher, and the teacher might not have even noticed that it was just this little piece little thing that they connected on, you know, I felt this way before. That's everything can be everything.Hannah Choi 35:50I see that a lot in my clients, whenever I you know, if I share something that I've really struggled with, I see, like visible relief on their face, like, wow, this person who's supposedly, you know, obviously, she knows something about executive function. She has struggled with it, too. And it's, yeah, it's so important to share that. Although it can be scary to be open about your own struggles, your own challenges. But I think it gives everyone else permission to think, oh, I actually feel that way too sometimes. And that's okay.Sherry Fleydervish 36:24I've worked through that over the years as a therapist, and how to self-disclose and learning how to disclose in a way that's really validating, and opening up this place of, of comfort. And it sounds like you're working on that same thing, too. And just showing, no, I have, I have these struggles, too. And I have these feelings. And these eyes open up so wide, some of these kids like, well, you know, adults that I model also experience struggles.Hannah Choi 36:56And it's okay. Something that reminds me of the idea, I can't remember what it's called, you probably know, the, the idea where you can feel two different two opposing feelings about the same thing at the same time. So the idea of replacing but with and then so that reminded me of Sean, your your experience growing up? And how, if you had, maybe you've received the message, like, you know, you, you are, you need to work on your organization or whatever, and you're, you're a great student, or you're a good, you know, you might have heard like, yeah, you're smart, but you, you know, need to work on this. And it kind of negates everything that was said first. So do you is that a strategy that you have shared with people? Or is that something that's coming up for you lately?Sherry Fleydervish 37:56I think that when you're when you're offering that opportunity of learning, right, that's usually what what we're doing, at the end of the day, when you're offering criticism, or you're offering your observation or whatever it might be, it's an opportunity for that other person to, to learn or in your mind get better at whatever that challenge is. And so we have to sandwich those pieces with, obviously, things that will make them feel proud of themselves and feel accomplished. And then when you're adding in these pieces of but you can do this next time or but whatever it might be, you know, here's the place, sometimes I'll say it like this, you know, your brain works really, really good at your, you have a great memory, you're very creative. And you have an ability to see all these little details that everybody else may not be able to see, but your brain at, or I don't even want to say but your brain has a little bit of a harder time with shifting attention from this to this or from whatever activity we're doing before to this one. And so maybe connecting with, with that actual piece that they're struggling with. And saying, you know, I'm here with you, I want to help. I want to help you strengthen this part of your brain, I want to help this not be so hard for you. And connecting with you know how hard it is for them feeling that comes up for them. And then working together to be kind of kind of like a consultant or that you know, how can we problem solve together?Hannah Choi 39:36And that makes me think of the idea of meeting someone where they are and and not asking more of them that they are then they're ready for and figuring out what their strengths are and how they can use those strengths. Sean, do you remember do you think have you ever thought about that concept of like, of, of you can be this One of the thing and the and the kind of opposite at the same time. And do you think that any of the messaging that you received growing up as a kid with ADHD, do you think if you had been told this message of you have challenges, and you're like, you're this and you're that instead of you're this, but you're that, do you think that would have made a difference for you?Sean Potts 40:21Oh, yeah, I think that would have made a huge difference. Particularly around when I was maybe nine years old, I remember I just had this one teacher that just never really understood or got me beyond the surface level challenges that she saw. And my mom often recalls this one parent teacher conference, or the typical one that would happen near the end of the year, where she, you know, once the conference with my dad, and you know, for the next 20, 30 minutes, my teacher just kept listening, all these negative things I was doing wrong. And eventually she just snapped and was like, "Do you have anything positive to say about my son?" And I think that's the best example of what it was really like for me being in the classroom every day with the teacher who saw me in that way. And I remember the next year, I had just such a an upgrade, where I had a teacher who immediately got me and saw some things that I didn't even see in myself, particularly around writing and creativity and some things that I've since learned that I really like. And the first time the parents come into the classroom, she mentioned how the first thing she said to my mom, when she came up to her was your son, so creative. He's such a great writer, and my mom tells me that she just started crying, because from her perspective, she had been hearing these negative things. And that was in stark contrast to what she knew about me. But at a deeper level, it was a stark contrast to it, I felt like I knew about myself, but I had really impacted me hearing all the things I had heard that year before from that one teacher, and some of the ways that she approached my challenges. So, you know, I really think it would have been a huge help to have had that earlier. And I think, you know, overcoming that was a huge part of my journey with my ADHD and the executive dysfunction I was experiencing. So no, absolutely, I think that would have made a huge difference. But I also do recognize that I was lucky to have had a teacher like that. And I also recognize that there are a lot of students who don't. And that's really, really sad and unfortunate, because I think anyone growing up with those types of challenges, needs to needs to meet somebody who can see you as an individual beyond just those sorts of those surface level challenges. So that you can realize that they're really just that surface level challenges. They're not some inherent character flaws that makes you you know, irrevocably messed up are different. They're a challenge that you have a whole lifetime to be able to overcome. But within that, you also have your strengths. And if you can have a teacher or somebody in your life who can help you realize that as someone who's young with ADHD, I think that is one of the most important ingredients for future success. And I again, I feel very lucky to have had that both in that teacher but also in my coach.Hannah Choi 43:07Yeah, and then what you said about confidence, I mean, that keeps coming up in every conversation that I have had, I feel like about everything recently, but especially these conversations for the podcast is it all seems to come back to confidence. And I imagine share, you see that a lot in both your clients and the parents of your clients. And that when you learn the skills, then you become more confident, which then helps in I imagine more ways than we will ever know for people.Sherry Fleydervish 43:39That is something that comes up in almost every intake, "I just I want my kid to feel more confident". And that shows up in every aspect, then up up their identity. And when I bring kids into my office, that is one of the first things that I work on is Where do you feel your best? Because these are not, kind of to Sean's point, these are not conversations or things that kids just inherently think about, you know, where my where am I? Where do I feel the best? Where do I feel strong? Where do I feel empowered, and confident? I bet you every kid you speak to will actually have an example of it. But then and offering your own piece if they don't you know why see how how focused you are whenever you're drawing in session. Or seems like you're three steps ahead when we're playing Connect 4 for every single week. Those are these little pieces where you're starting to notice other their notice there's their confidence when they might not even be seeing it themselves. And then using that to work towards some of the challenges and the pieces the things that they want to see different in their own lives. Even five year olds can tell me "I want to feel less of this feeling and more of this feeling". Like, Okay, great. Well, using the things that I know where you feel competent, we're going to, we're going to build on those pieces that feelings you don't want to have any more the challenges you're having at school. You're not just this one thing.Hannah Choi 45:17That reminds me of a conversation I had with my family recently, we went around the room, and we challenged each other to come up with five things that we were really good at, we had to say it about ourselves. It was so hard. It was such a hard thing to do. And I think you're right, we don't naturally think that way. And, and so how great to start off, you know, a conversation with someone that way i when I've meet for when I first meet a new client, I always ask them, so what are you good at? And it's it's hard to think that way. But it's important. Yeah. Great to have any. Sean, do you have any other questions for sherry?Sean Potts 45:59Yeah, so for the clients that you work with that have, let's say, anxiety and depression, but also have ADHD where these two, these two, or maybe even three things are existing simultaneously? How do you assess where to start treatment? Do you start with the ADHD? Do you start with the depression, anxiety, what's the focal point for treatment, and why?Sherry Fleydervish 46:23This happens often, right? Where a client is experiencing symptoms of different diagnoses, and maybe if it has comorbid diagnoses already coming into, into my session. And I start by just really, really, really, for a moment, putting aside that diagnosis, and noticing what is what is showing up the most, and what is the most symptomatic, and what is getting in the way most for this client. You know, if they have dual diagnosis, then maybe we need to first focus on that anxiety. And that is the most important and to figure out how to calm your mind calm, your body be a little bit more regulated. So then you can tackle some of those some of those pieces and those thoughts. And then we can dive into the other diagnoses or the other symptoms, you know, that the diagnosis is important and really validating for so many people. And for me, too, and it helps with treatment, but just kind of looking at a client and a person as a whole, and parsing out what is what is really the most important thing to support in the beginning. And everything else will eventually fall into place.Hannah Choi 47:36I find that to with coaching, you know, we always start off like, what's the thing that's the hardest for you right now? Like, what's the thing that's causing the most stress for you, and the thing that, that that's keeping you up at night, and just starting there, and you're right, I do find that the other things kind of end up naturally just getting involved and and leading into them. And then and then I do notice also that some of the challenges that came up, once we address those challenges, they actually were associated with some of the other stuff too. So then it makes the other stuff that used to be super challenging, also a little bit less challenging, just by working on this one other thing.Sherry Fleydervish 48:19I wonder if it's that they're building on their strengths, or they're starting to feel more competent in one area, and it kind of just even without even that conversation happening. It's just starting to morph into those other places. Other things.Hannah Choi 48:32It's pretty magical to see. So I imagine you have that experience as well. Yeah, thank you so much, Sherry. It's just so interesting to listen to you talk and and you have such a calm manner about yourself. I bet your clients just love talking with you.Sherry Fleydervish 48:51I loved this conversation, I feel like we just I wish it happened more. I wish these conversations were out there more just kind of normalizing therapy and parenting support. You know, it's just, you need the space, you know, and it's not just a drop-off service. I won't let that happen. I don't let that happen in my office. I make sure parents know from the beginning. I don't care if your, you know, your kiddos coming in here, five or 17. You know, I want to work together so that what's going on in my sessions is is coming and translating at home, too.Hannah Choi 49:32When when my kids were little I lived on Cape Cod and I have to give a shout out to Cindy Horgan at the Cape Cod Children's Place. It's a an organization that provides support for young families on the outer and lower cape. And my kids went or my Yeah, my kids went to preschool there and she approaches it like that when you. Yes, your kids go to school there, but she supports the parents so much and you could just make an appointment to go talk with her about any parenting challenges that you're having, and she just wrapped you right up in her, you know, figurative arms and just kept you, you know, gate gave you great strategies and and, and she was so great she was so open about her own challenges and just normalized everything so much. And just what you were saying right there just reminds me so much of that experience and I wish that every, every child, and every parent would have an opportunity to work with someone like Cindy Horgan. So. So thanks, Sherry, could you share with our listeners, where we where they can find you if they're interested in asking you more questions or learning more about you? Sherry Fleydervish 50:42Absolutely. So you can find my profile on bestselfinc.com. And you can also find a whole lot of other resources for children, teens, parents, families of logs, and resources are all on our website. You can even subscribe to our family newsletter. And we often will send blogs through that updates, anything that we've written.Hannah Choi 51:08I'll be sure to include all of that information in our show notes, too. So if you're listening, check out the show notes. And you can find it there too. Thank you so much to both of you for joining me today. I just I loved every second of this conversation. I feel like I could have talked for a whole nother hour, but maybe maybe another day.Sean Potts 51:28Absolutely. Thank you both. This has been such a pleasure to join this conversation.Sherry Fleydervish 51:33Thank you so much. It's been really wonderful to be here.Hannah Choi 51:38And that's our show for today. Thank you for joining me and taking time out of your day to listen, I really hope that you found something useful in today's episode. As Sherry said, it's so important to have these conversations about mental health, executive function challenges and parenting support. The more we talk about these so called stigmas, the more we normalize them, and by normalizing them more and more people will be able to access the support they need without negative reactions from the people around them. And here at Focus Forward, we will continue to have these important and sometimes difficult conversations in the hopes that we help someone, somewhere. If you are interested in normalizing these topics, please check out the show notes for some tips on how you can help. Oh, and hey, you can start off by sharing our podcast with your friends. If you haven't yet, subscribe to this podcast app beyond booksmart.com/podcast. You'll get an email about every episode with links to resources and tools we mentioned. Thanks for listening

Supporting kids with Executive Function challenges is hard enough, but what happens when they're feeling resistance towards changing their habits? How can parents and key support systems work together to inspire real change - even in those who may not see the value in it just yet? On this week's episode, I sat down with one of my favorite people, Kim - the mom of one of my long-time coaching clients, Skyla. As you’ll hear in today’s episode, our first session together four years ago was just one step within a long and challenging journey that has blossomed into a truly amazing story about the transformational power of love, consistency, support, and trust. I have always wanted to share my experience as Skyla’s coach and I can’t quite believe that I finally have the opportunity. So listen in to hear her mom Kim and I tell our story of Skyla’s success. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the journey and that you leave feeling inspired in your own Executive Function journey.Here are some readings and resources for topics that came up in my conversation with Kim about her and her daughter’s journey.Test Prep and Managing Test AnxietyUnderstanding Test Anxiety How to Overcome Test AnxietyStudent Stress: Untangling the Anxiety and Executive Function ConnectionOrganization ResourcesClutterbug - Find out what kind of organization strategies work best for youUnderstanding why kids struggle with organizationEmotional RegulationSelf-Reg with Stuart ShankerPermission to Feel by Marc Brackett, Ph.D.Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.Foster Care and AdoptionAdopt US KidsChildwelfare League of AmericaInternatonal AdoptionResources for Foster FamiliesNational Foster Parent Association ResourcesContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:03Hi everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins, you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. So four years ago, I was paired with a new client, and her name was Skyla. And at the time, she was a fourth-grader who was in the process of being adopted, and she was being adopted with her younger sister by a woman called Kim. And the first day we met, it was a sunny day in March of 2018. And we met up at a local public library for our first coaching session. This was BC, you know, before COVID, before we switched to entirely online coaching. Anyway, I knew from the start that this was going to be a unique experience for me as a coach. As you'll hear in today's episode, that first day was just one step within a long and challenging journey that has blossomed into a truly amazing story about the transformational power of love and consistency and support and trust. I have always wanted to share my experience as Skyla's coach, and I can't quite believe that I finally have the opportunity to do this. So keep listening to hear her mom cam and I tell our story of Skyla's success, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the journey. Hi, Kim, this is so great having you here today? Could you start off by introducing yourself and sharing your family's journey to executive function coaching? And before you start, I just want to say thank you again for talking with me today.Kim 01:51No problem, happy, happy to do it for you, Hannah. Yes, so I mean, I my journeys started, geez, it was probably 2016 in in, you know, looking to adopt children and going through the process of becoming a foster parent, and then identifying two girls, young girls that were in need of a permanent home. And so, you know, Desi and Skyla, came into my life and began living with me in 2017, February of 2017. And, you know, certainly in foster care for reason, their background was was quite a difficult one and a challenging one. And they had a lot to sort of work through and had missed, you know, a lot of, you know, critical academic aspects of of learning, because of their biological home and the circumstances, they're so sort of coming in and putting them into a parochial school with a hope that, you know, some structure would would help them be able to, you know, advance in their studies and catch up quite a bit. But, you know, became clear that additional supports are going to be needed. And so I think I found Beyond BookSmart on just doing a Google search, I feel like that's the way I came across it. And it turned out to be great. Uh, you know, I was hooked up with you, Hannah, and, you know, I think starting in March of 2018. And from that point forward, you've been working with Skyla, and, you know, amazing progress. I mean, really, just, like I said, from, you know, night, today day to night, it has, it has been really a, a real metamorphosis, so to speak. And in terms of her approach her thinking, her emotional regulation, her, you know, confidence is incredible as to where it started. So it's been, it's just been so helpful. And, you know, I think that it's, it's not just about the work and, you know, helping her with the work she needs to do. It really is more of the emotional and organizational skills that I think she she just had no idea how to do those things. And so, this was a huge, huge step in the right direction for her. Hannah Choi 04:47So I know it's been four years. But do you remember how you felt?Kim 04:53Yes, I do. I remember being just frustrated and had no idea how to handle some of the issues that were coming up. You know, there was significant meltdowns, you know, at homework time that carried on for hours hours of, of her just crying, "I don't know what to do. I'm stupid. I don't know how to do this". And, you know, was it a, an attempt to avoid actually doing the work? Or did she really feel that she didn't know how to do it? And I think, you know, looking back, it was a combination of the two. But yeah, it was really frustrating, like, how do you help her when, you know, she's so clearly emotional, and upset and unable to even like, get to a starting point, and then try to go through it. So it was, I was, I was very frustrated. And, you know, she was very frustrated too. So was really looking for some help, just how do we, how do we make this better? How do we help her focus more and, you know, understand that school is something you're going to have to do, you're not going to get out of it. But, you know, let's just try to try to take this emotion out of it. And try to get the work done.Hannah Choi 06:33I, I remember, really vividly once working with her in the beginning when she was still in fourth grade, and she was doing something, something with math and and it was really hard for her. And I think, like I remember the session ended, she was really upset. And, and then a few weeks ago, I was talking with her about math, and she was doing an online math thing that in the past has really challenged her emotional regulations. And I and I asked her, "What do you do now when you are working on that math and it's really hard." And she said, "Well, I just notice that if I'm starting to get upset and frustrated, I walk away from it, I just take a break. And I go back to it later". And I was just I told you I was gonna cry. I mean, it brings tears to my eyes to think about how, what a gift that is for her to have figured that out after so long that now when she's in a frustrating, frustrating situation, she knows how to manage her emotions. And yeah, and like how that is applicable to so many things. It doesn't just have to be math.Kim 07:54No, everything, everything. Yeah, yeah, no, I made it. And I know you really hammered that home with her like throughout many of your, your sessions with her and, and that, you know, that ability to just stop pause, whether it's breathe, walk away, just take take a mental break from this for a minute, rather than continue to get more and more frustrated and overwhelmed by what's in front of you. And you know, she definitely has picked that up and has taken it and it's just, it's great to see. I mean, like you said, it's a great life skill. I think probably I could do that at work and that might help me, too.Hannah Choi 08:39We can all we can all learn from Skyla. Yeah. Every every time I think about her, your I should say your like yours and hers, journey through this through coaching and just through and not even just coaching but just through the process of adopting them and having them you guys become a family and, and you know, watching both girls really change and blossom and grow and is the idea of just trust, like trust, just like trusting the process trusting that people that you have welcomed into your life as a support system. And, and I just think that this is like her your story is such a great example of of that. Because in even my own experience as her coach, I had to keep telling myself like, trust that trust that what you are, the messages that you are giving to her. They're getting through. And it just it was it was hard sometimes to trust that. Yeah, it was really hard. And it took a really long time. Like I've been trying to get her to breathe, to use breathing as an emotional regulation tool for four years. And she used it in when she took her test. And she said it you know and and she said that was the Is your side system ever taken? And I'm like, I know, there's a lot of factors involved there. And I know that breathing is one of them. And, and so trusting that process like, Have you felt that? through it? Yeah.Kim 10:13I mean, you know, I feel like I was in such dire straits when she initially started that I felt like I had no choice. You know, clearly as time has gone on, and I've seen her, you know, make positive, you know, move in a positive direction. It's, it's been, okay, like, you know, we hung in here, she's hung in here, she's starting to take what Hannah's telling her and apply it, and it's, it's just creating much more positive outcome for her and, you know, for for us for everyone. So, yeah, no, I mean, it's, trust is not my strong suit.Hannah Choi 11:02It's hard. It's hard to do.Kim 11:04Yeah. But, you know, I think that, you know, I, you and I had talked about the plan and what you were gonna focus on with her, and they were all the right things that she needed, as she's gone through the process. So it just made it easy to trust it. And then, you know, seeing it work, but it took a lot of time. I mean, I give you a lot of credit. I mean, this is a kid that, you know, did not come from traditional circumstances. And, you know, it just made everything far more challenging. And but she's, I mean, really just an amazing, in an amazing place right now. I mean, she is, you know, putting in extra effort, rather than the bare minimum. She is, you know, going above and beyond. She comes home, she does her homework before she does anything else. I don't have to ask, I don't even have to worry whether or not she's getting her work done. Because I know she is. And she is so much more confident now. Than where she was. I mean, it's, it's really, I mean, it's so incredible to see. And her grades have have come to a good place. And this year is 8th grade. It's really challenging.Hannah Choi 12:30And her school does not make school easy, though. Yeah, confidence is, I would say the one thing that has been the biggest change I've noticed in her and I remember when she was in fourth grade her saying to me, there's no point in getting excited about anything because it probably won't work out. And that just broke my heart. And now I see her excited about stuff even though she's so school is so boring. You know, of course, every kid every kid says yeah, it is. It's boring. Like work is boring for us. Right? Exactly. Yeah, I mean, not all the time. Yeah. But now I just like I remember she didn't ever want to handwrite anything but she also never wanted to type anything. And because she felt like she was too slow of a of a typer but she also felt like her handwriting was so poor. And so so that was there was always so much friction with anything that whenever she had to produce anything, and now she's like, bopping the keys with like, no problem. And her handwriting is gorgeous. And her notes are beautiful13:45They are! they're all color coded and highlighted and I mean she's got little little sticky notes in her books with notes in them it's unbelievable. Yeah.Hannah Choi 14:00She is such a good student it's incredible and she just uses all the all the tools and she's so organized you I don't know if you remember but when when she first I'm sure you do when she first started coaching she was very resistant to folders and oh yeah, no, it was more into like the shove method just like shove it into the backpack14:20Balls of paper in the backpack? Yeah, not no organization whatsoever. It was. Yeah, somewhat horrifying. Could you be that disorganized? Yeah. But now she has like an accordion folder with like everything neatly placed inside. It's it's a total 180 It reallyHannah Choi 14:44 I remember just talking about organization was really stressful for her. She would have really big emotions around changing her organizational style. And now she likes to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, off. So great. Well I love it. So, were there times where you? And I don't know, you can be honest with me, because I know how difficult it is as a parent to trust the people that we, you know, that we bring into our children's lives. But were there times where you where you questioned that? Did I make the right decision with coaching? Kim 15:19Yeah, I mean, yeah, of course, there's always like, a doubt, like, you know, I think we all want to hit the easy button and like, have things just magically change. And they didn't magically change it. It took a long time. And, you know, I, you know, I think we all want to see progress happen faster. But the, she's a child, children are children, and, you know, they're, they're not working at our pace they're working at at theirs, and it's very different. So, yeah, of course, you know, everyone wants things to happen faster, especially when you know, you're a parent. And, you know, it's not just Skyla I have her sister too, and trying to balance both of them and trying to get them up to speed and get them in a better place. So that they can be successful. You know, there were times where I was like, ah, is this working? Is it not? I don't know. But, you know, I think just hanging in there. And then, you know, continuing to see over time that progress. I mean, it really has, it does take time. It does, it's there's no immediate silver bullet to solve these things. You do have to hang in there. And, you know, but four years, and we've seen incredible progress fromHannah Choi 16:51Tremendous, I know. Yeah, you know, yeah. And I think that her story, at least for me, as a coach has been such a great example of looking for these, like, beautiful, small moments, where I see a shift, and I see oh, like she reacted in this tiny little bit different way. And it's like, okay, I'm making some progress. And it is, so it was so minuscule. Like, so tiny. But I saw that, and, and so those tiny little things became, in my, like, in my mind, and my heart became these, like, huge wins. And I, like, I know, typing in my portal notes or emailing you or texting you and being like, yes. Right. Like this thing happened. And it seems like such a small thing, but it's, I've been waiting two years for this or whatever.Kim 17:48Right? Yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's, it's those small, iterative steps and wins and, you know, changes in her mindset, or just being open to like trying a tool you suggest or, you know, thinking about something a different way, or, you know, it, it takes it takes time to get kids comfortable with that stuff. And, you know, I mean, clearly, you built a great rapport with her from early on. And I think, you know, building that trust with her, allowed a lot to happen, of course, right. Because that's, that's the first step in any process in any human interaction is, is building trust between the coach and the child.Hannah Choi 18:39Yeah, yeah, that yeah, that was my I mean, I could tell the, the second I met her, I thought, okay, like, this is, this is not going to be easy, but I was, I was just, I just fell in love with her that first day and I, I just was so excited to, to have the chance to, to, you know, to work with her and, yeah, it. I mean, I, I know, I've told you this 100 times, and I'll continue to tell you it but it's just such a gift for me. I'm so grateful for it. I am just so overwhelmed sometimes by how lucky I feel that I've had her in my life. And I know that I will, like even if our coaching our coach client relationship ends, I know that will stay close because I just I think that I just can't imagine not having her in my lifeKim 19:32is an amazing girl. And she's a really special child. I mean, she really is in so many ways. And you know, just kind of thoughtful and caring. I honestly she's, she's a gift to you and me.Hannah Choi 19:53Right, right. Yeah. So What would it present day Kim, tell tell Kim from 2015 or 2016, like when you first started, you know, thinking about adoption andKim 20:11yeah. You know, I think that it's, you know, I, I went into it, honestly, you know, adopting two children as a single parent, which is a challenge. And then also working quite a number of hours per week. So it, it's been a, it was a really hard adjustment for me early on, I have to admit, like really hard from, you know, spending 40 plus years of your life as a, essentially a single person, and then all of a sudden, there's two little beings in your home all the time.Hannah Choi 20:54And they've come from challenging situation. Kim 20:58That's right. Yeah. And, you know, it was, I mean, I would never change the circumstances for the world. Never. It was such an amazing, you know, I don't even know what the term to use for it, but just that we found each other, and that we came together as a family, and that they are both, you know, really doing well, and going to, you know, a great private school next year, I would say, do do it, go ahead and adopt those girls and try to make a positive influence on their lives and help them any way you can. So, I think that, yeah, I think that, you know, had I know, now how successful this would have been for, you know, or this has been for Skyla. It would have been so easy going into it, because I would have been like, okay, all right, it's gonna be a few years, I know exactly when this is all going to shake out and be better. But yeah, it was stressful. There's been stressful on the way but it's, it's happening. I mean, like, things are improving, and they're really, really thriving. So it's wonderful to see.Hannah Choi 22:28really is, it's, it's, I love your story I love I love everything. I don't, I don't want to think about what would have happened if you hadn't found them. And it's, and also for yourself to like, what a beautiful thing that you've gotten for yourself to?Kim 22:43Absolutely, ya know, by far I'm the I'm the person that's getting the most, I thinkHannah Choi 22:51and what are you looking forward to, for you and for them?Kim 22:55Ah, she's, I mean, well, so Skyla starts high school in the fall, I mean, like, I can't even like where did time go crazy, is crazy. And I'm excited for her to be, you know, in a school, it is going to be more challenging than where she has been. And, but I think, you know, she's up for the challenge now. And I think that she's going to do she's gonna do really well. And I think she's going to be surrounded by people that are motivated, and, you know, are going to push her maybe a bit more than where she is now. And I think that will be good for you know, not too much. Right? So but, but definitely a healthy push towards more academic kind of excelling more of an academic from an academic perspective. And, you know, the school also has a lot of sports, and art and theater. And so I really want to see her participate in a lot of those things as well because she loves her painting and she loves, you know, acting, she still threatens that she's gonna go for an audition and become an actress, we'll see.Hannah Choi 24:14I could just I could totally see it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.Kim 24:18So you know, I think that the school is going to offer a lot for her in terms of lots of different things academics, but also socially as well as other courses that I think will be will be great and then my goodness, I can't even think like, she'll be driving at some point. And then off to college. So it's, it's exciting. I think she has a really solid future in front of her and I'm really happy for the help that you've given us. Certainly through this process. I could not have done it. Honestly with without you would have been, Ah, you have so much patience? And I have almost none, so...Hannah Choi 25:07Well, you're doing something right, because it can't just be me. Yeah. Well, do you have any questions for me?Kim 25:19Right, let's see, what can I ask you? I know it was it was definitely walked into something that was unusual in terms of the circumstances, just given her background. Was it? Was it the hardest child you've ever had to work with?Hannah Choi 25:39No way. Although I don't know why me she definitely was very, it was very challenging. But she just kept coming back. Right. Like, like, even when we would have a frustrating session, and she would leave in tears. Or, like, if we had tech problems. It's, you know, and it didn't end well. When we met again, it was like, it never happened. And she was just back. You know, just back to her chip herself. I remember we would have corn parties. Like she would come on to a session if she hadn't eaten yet. It was just like a little dicey. And so I'd be like, alright, what can I get her to eat? And so, so we started this thing. And we still do it today, actually, where if, if like, she's eating something, I will ask her for some. And she gives it to me, like by putting it up to the camera. And we do it without even like, there's no laughter. Yeah, it is as if she is giving me the thing. And we have done this in sessions over the past four years, just the other day, she was eating Maltesers. And I was I love those. And I was like, Oh, can I can I have one? And she very seriously said, Sure, and picked it up and put it up to the camera, and I took it and ate it. And we've been doing that since I think since the first corn party where we both ate corn. I was like, I'm gonna just like get her to eat anything. Yeah, so I like ran upstairs and grabbed myself a bowl of frozen corn, just like eating frozen corn. Well, yeah. And I just, I don't know, I just felt like I said, I just fell for her right away. And I was just so happy to do whatever it took to, to get her to, you know, to do buy in to buy into it and to trust me. Yeah. And that I that I wasn't leaving. I'm not gonna leave. You can give me the hardest day and I'm not going to leave. I'm going to come back next week. Whether you want me to or not? Yes. And so maybe that maybe that is something that strengthened our relationship is that she recognized like that I wasn't gonna give up.Kim 28:03Yeah, most definitely. I mean, I, you know, clearly she came from, you know, a background where people did give up, you know, she got moved to different homes. You know, and I, it's funny, as we've talked, you know, she's admitted, like, I, you know, when you came and said you were going to adopt us. She's like, I didn't think like, this was going to be it for me. Like, I really didn't think this, that I was going to stay in one place. I thought I was gonna go somewhere else. And what a horrible I mean, what a horrible way to think but yes, she's stuck with me now. So28:51Yeah. And do you remember when the adoption was final? And we both notice, we noticed a really big difference.Kim 28:58That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.Hannah Choi 29:03Oh, yeah. Remember, like one session to the next. It was there was a big change with the adoption in between. That's right. Yeah. And she still has challenging days, right. Like there was we had a session a few months ago, where she just complained about school the entire time. And then the next session, she was like, Oh, look, I got I got 100 on this and I got 100 on that, and I'm gonna do this project. And so we just all have bad days, some days. Just really great at communicating how bad of a day it was.Kim 29:32That's right. Yes. No, she's she's very vocal on her bad days. Yeah.Hannah Choi 29:37Which is actually really good. Like talking through your stuff is important. Better than holding it in.Kim 29:43Absolutely. Yeah. What's What's the longest you've worked with a client?Hannah Choi 29:53Skyla Kim 29:54is it really? Wow. Wow. Yeah. You Okay.Hannah Choi 30:01Yeah, that's, that's wonderful. Yeah. And I'm so excited to go to her graduation, her eighth grade. She showed me a picture of the dress she's wearing. So oh, do I have to dress up? 30:15She's, she's got quite a dress for this. Yeah.Hannah Choi 30:22Cool. Well, I, you answered all my questions. Do you have anything else? Anything else you want to say? Or?30:30Like, how much time does it take to make meaningful change with with kids? Like, is it? I mean, it's been for years for us. But like, I can't imagine you can do it in six months, or a year or even two year, it has to be an extended period of time. Right.Hannah Choi 30:53My sister is also a coach for beyond booksmart. And she has a client she's been working with for six years. He's a senior in high school now. Yeah, it just, it takes a really long time. And I think part of it is just because change is hard. You know, even adults, like most of my clients are adult clients. And, and a lot of them come in thinking like, oh, I'll just do this for six, you know, six months. And you know, here, you know, a year and a half, two years later, they're still still getting a lot of benefit from it. But I think because your executive function skills are not finished developing, that part of your brain is not finished developing until you're in your mid 20s. So there's a lot of learning to be done. And kids who already have challenges in that area, it just makes it even harder. Yeah, yeah, it just takes a really long time. It really does. Especially when, you know, there's other stuff going on, you know, like, like, like, for example, like, schuyler's background, you know, and or just personality. Right. You know, there's, there's so much that ties into it, and then throw in a pandemic,Kim 31:59right. Oh, my God.Hannah Choi 32:01Right. That messed everything up!Kim 32:04Yeah, exactly. It's like two years of this. SoHannah Choi 32:10yeah, it's been really hard for most everybody. Almost everyone. Yeah,Kim 32:16yeah. Especially the kids. I mean, fortunately, I mean, she was able to be in school, the majority of the time, but yeah, it's still still hard. Or tough two years.Hannah Choi 32:32Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think that. I think that. I think that, yes, it's taken a long time for Skyla to make a lot of make change. But, but I don't think it's, that's like not, it's not unusual. And it's not It doesn't surprise me, what is the best thing about it is that you have been able to allow her to take her time to do it in in the time that that she needed. And that, you know that you know that she was you that you were in a situation that allowed her to, you know, to just take her time and be herself and find that for herself. And, and I really feel like because it was because we had the patients with her. And because we allowed her to learn that in her own way at her own speed. We met her where she was always right to me, we know that about her, you cannot force anything on her. You know, we just continually had to meet her where she was. But through that process, she's learned so much about herself, and she's learned what will work and we've learned what will work and what won't work. And so now, like, that's all really solid for her now. So like all of these things that she's learned about herself and strategies and tools and what's going to work and what's not going to work and what you've learned about her now. It's so solid in her it's so it's like become part of her because it was allowed to develop naturally. And it was allowed to develop in its own time. And so I think it'll, that that will, like serve her so well over the course of her life. Because it's she's learning them now in this, like formative years, you know, and that she wasn't forced to be anyone but herself. And and as hard as it was. We trusted her and we trusted the process that eventually she would figure it out. Yeah. Kim 34:33Yeah, it's been great. I mean, what a story. I Yeah. I was looking at our notes from like, the earlier sessions. And and sort of like after a year after two years after three years and just the different focus areas and the progress and you know, the good days the bad days, but Overall, she's she's just come so far.Hannah Choi 35:03I know, it's amazing. That's our story for today. Before I go, I wanted to share that just last week I took Skyla, her sister and my daughter out to lunch, I found myself just mesmerized by the beauty and the intelligence and sense of humor of these three girls. I'm so excited for their futures. And I don't know if I'll ever know how to put into words how lucky I feel to have met Skyla and been given the chance to become someone she trusts. So thank you, Kim, for trusting me. And thank you all for joining me today and taking time out of your day to listen. I really hope that you found something meaningful or inspiring in today's episode. I know for me, it was a really moving and special experience and I feel very fortunate to have been able to share it all with you. Be sure to check out the show notes for this episode on our website and subscribe to this podcast at beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We send out an email after every episode with links to resources and tools we mentioned. Thanks for listening

Changing habits is at the core of all personal transformations. However, as we all know, it can be really difficult to stay consistent and disciplined when trying to build new habits. Why is it so hard and how can you actually follow through on new habit goals?Habit tracking is the practice of choosing habits that you’d like to add to or remove from your life and keeping track of whether you do them or not. Listen to this week’s episode to learn about how tracking habits can help you. You’ll hear some ideas for how to build habit tracking into your life and will hopefully find inspiration to track some habits of your own!Bullet Journalswww.bulletjournal.com The original, by Ryder CarrollRiver Fox BuJo on Pinterest This is my daughter’s bullet journal Pinterest account.Little Coffee Fox Bullet Journal - Getting fancy with your bullet journalLittle Coffee Fox Minimalist Bullet Journal - Keeping it simpleHabit Tracking Articles for Further ReadingThe Ultimate Habit Tracker Guide: Why and How to Track Your Habits by James ClearHabit Tracker Ideas List - A very long list of things you can trackWhy You Should Be Tracking Your Habits and How To Do It from lifehacker.comHow long does it take to form a habit? The explanation of the data of the habit formation study I mention in the episodeHabit Tracking AppsThese were all recommended to me by people who like using them. I have only used Habit Loop myself (which I love). Habit List - for iPhonesStreaks - for iPhonesHabit Loop - for AndroidHabitica - for AndroidBooksAtomic Habits by James ClearHabit Stacking by SJ ScottReadings on Habit Building Strategies18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick - A good list from Life HackHow to Build New Habits that Stick from Developing Good Habits website by SJ ScottHow to Build a New Habit: This is Your Strategy Guide - from James Clear’s websiteAnd, last but not least, here’s my Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie Recipe!Contact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHi everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. Today I'm diving into the topic of habit tracking. In my episode about managing our emotions around failure, I talked a little bit about thinking like a scientist. Well, habit tracking is an excellent way to put this idea into action. By the way, this episode is packed full of habit tracking ideas and suggestions, so you might want to pause me and grab a pen and paper to write down anything that inspires you. I'll wait. Okay, so what is habit tracking? You may have heard of it already. But just in case you haven't yet, habit tracking is a practice of choosing the habits that you'd like to add to or remove from your life and then keeping track of whether you do them or not. In today's episode, I'll share five ways that habit tracking can be beneficial, and then I'll explain five different methods of tracking your habits. Before I get started, I want to mention that habit tracking is just one way to support yourself while you're trying to build or break habits. In a future episode, I'll cover some more ideas for making habit building a little easier. If you're too excited to wait for that episode, check out the show notes for this episode. I've listed some useful resources in there for you. Okay, so let's talk about habit tracking and why we might want to do it. So you can use habit tracking to see your progress. Collecting data over a period of time, even a week can be helpful. But hopefully you can do it for longer. And then over time, you might start to see change happening. And this can be super helpful. And along with seeing progress, you might also notice trends in your data, you can then adjust how you approach that habit. For example, a few years ago, I wanted to reduce my sugar intake because of some health stuff I was dealing with. So I used a habit tracker. I noticed that I always seem to eat sweets on Saturdays, no matter how hard I tried not to I just always ended up eating them on Saturdays. So instead of beating myself up about it, I just said, "Okay, let's just eat a little sugar on Saturdays and see about eliminating it on the other days". And this really made a huge difference for me. I stopped feeling bad about eating sweets on Saturdays. And interestingly, looking forward to eating sweets on that day actually helped me eat less during the week. I think an overlooked but really important part of habit tracking is figuring out what habits aren't actually all that important to you in whatever season of life you're in. And I often talk with my clients about the power of the shoulds you know, the things that we feel like we should do. So sometimes, we might decide to track a habit that is something that we feel like we should do. I recently read an article about how great green smoothies are for you, right? You know what, they are tons of leafy greens and some kind of citrus or a banana all blended up. And I thought all right, okay, I should add a green smoothie to my morning routine. Yeah, I just couldn't make it stick. It's cool, whatever. So I don't start my day with a green smoothie. I do start it with a chocolate banana peanut butter one though. So anyway, if we repeatedly do not do the new habit, perhaps it's not the right time to introduce it into our lives. Again, this idea of failure being informative comes up. Failing to do these habits gives us a lot of info. So ask yourself, why aren't you doing them? Are they truly important to you? Okay, next up motivation. Habit trackers can be highly motivating for some people. Personally, I only find them really useful for the data that they provide. In fact, this data is what motivates me to actually remember to track them in the first place. But my teenage daughter loves doing the thing. So she can fill out the box in her pretty hand-drawn habit tracker that she has in her bullet journal. If you're like Hannah, what's a bullet journal? Just hold on a sec, and I'll explain them in a bit. Okay, next up, sometimes we need to build in a new habit because of a health reason, a change in diet like maybe we need to cut out morning coffee. Or maybe we've started taking new meds or doing exercises for physical therapy, we might want to use a habit tracker to reinforce the addition of these new things into our lives. We may even be feeling a little stressed about these new required habits. So a tracker might help us to remember to do them, which in turn will ease some of that stress.Okay, so hopefully I've convinced you of all the great reasons to track some habits. And now we have to figure out the best way to do it. Keep in mind that everything I recommend today can be modified to, you know, fit your own needs. I always encourage my coaching clients to take the tools that I teach them, and then tweak them until they work for their situation. If you're not sure which one to use, just try the one that kind of resonates with the most with you, and then approach it like an experiment. They might not work well for you at first, and that's totally okay. Right? Just see what part of it is working for you and what part isn't, and then change it up to suit your needs. Alright, so tracking tools. First up is that bullet journal that I mentioned earlier, the idea of bullet journaling was created by a guy called Ryder Carroll. And a bullet journal is simply a planner that you create to fit your own needs. And this customizable aspect of it is actually what I really love about them. Mine, it's very simple. It's just a plain notebook, I've got a few things in it, mostly just my weekly calendar and a meal planning page. My daughter, on the other hand, has a bullet journal and it's truly a work of art. She has her weekly calendar and an exercise tracker, she's got book lists and gratitude practice and a habit tracker. So you can add easily add a habit tracker to your bullet journal just like she did. If I went more into detail with how to use a bullet journal and how to track habits within one, I'd keep you here all day. And that's not what any of us wants. So be sure to check out the show notes for more bullet journal resources. And if you don't use a bullet journal already, I highly recommend checking them out. I've had a few clients that have had a lot of success using them. Okay, next on my list is spreadsheets. My sister Julia is the queen of tracking things with a spreadsheet. I envy the data that she's collected over the years. Well, I say that I envy it. But I don't actually envy it so much that I'm actually going to start using spreadsheets. But if spreadsheets are your thing, you can build one that tracks your habits or anything you want to collect data on. All right, Fitbits and other smartwatches. Fitbits can track your steps and other habits like exercise or how much water you drink. And there are apps that you can add to your Apple or your Android watch. You can check out the show notes for some suggestions for apps. I personally don't wear a watch. But I know that for the people that do they really love them. There are a ton of apps out there for both iPhones and Android phones that can make habit tracking easier. Something that I really like about the apps is that they have built in Notifications, and you can modify them as needed. And I personally found the notification super helpful to get me to do the actual habit. And if you are a parent, you might be familiar with the strategy of sticker charts. You know, grownups can use them too. I actually use this sticker chart when I'm training for a half marathon. I got this idea from my other sister, Maria. So I print out the training plan I'm going to use and then I put a sticker in each box after I complete that day's training challenge. And usually just covering the chart with stickers is rewarding enough for me. But sometimes I'll build like a small prize or reward into it for a little extra motivation. Talking about sticker charts reminds me of when my kids were little. And I always felt like I needed a sticker chart to help me remember to use my kids sticker charts. Anybody relate to that feeling? So this actually brings up a good point. It's all well and good to have this idea of tracking habits, right? So let's track them. But how can you actually remember to track them, especially when you're first starting out. So to help yourself, you basically just have to really support yourself, you have to build a really strong scaffold. To do this, you could set reminders on your phone, you could use the notification feature in the habit tracking app, you could put sticky notes around that remind you to track the thing. For example, if you're tracking how much water you drink, you could put a note right on your water bottle. Or if you're tracking exercise, you could put a sign up in the area of your home where you exercise. Or you could stick it in, you know with your stuff that you put in your gym bag. There's a million ways to do it. So get creative and see what works for you. It might take a bit for the habit of tracking habits to stick. But with good support, hopefully you'll find success.And like I've said before, and I'll say again, and again change takes time. And learning how to look for small wins can really help keep you motivated through this challenge of making change. And habit tracking is a great way to look for these wins. In fact, if you're just starting out with habit tracking, I encourage you to pick only one or two habits at first. Diving in and optimistically picking a whole bunch might be exciting and promising and a little bit crazy. But it's likely that it'll end up feeling like there are just too many habits to track, and you're a lot less likely to be successful with those new habits. So just pick a couple that you think are realistic, you know, realistic to add to your life right now and give it a shot. And as we know, habits can take a very long time to form or break. I think I read a study that said it takes on average 66 days. So like I said earlier, having a record of your progress over time, can help support that habit as you're building or breaking it. If you're working with a coach, you can ask them to support you as you track your progress. Maybe have them checking with you at the beginning of each session or during the week. Are you using the habit tracker that you chose? And if not, why? Maybe have a conversation with your coach to figure that out. And no worries if you don't have a coach, try and listing a friend or another trusted person, share your new habit tracking, experiment with them and ask them to hold you accountable. Maybe you guys could even track something together. My family loves creating Fitbit contests with the other people in my extended family who were Fitbits as well. You could create family sticker charts for family goals. Or you could hold yourself accountable by creating text chat groups of like minded people who are also trying to reach goals. So that's it for today. Wow. Who knew there was so much to say about habit tracking, I'd actually taken a break from tracking my own habits. But in writing this episode, I found a renewed zest for tracking habits. So I'm back on the wagon. I'm so glad you're here and you took time out of your day to listen, I really hope that you found something useful in this episode. Before I go, I wanted to share some listener feedback about my episode on failure. In that episode, I mentioned the commitments or goals that executive function coaching clients make after each session. And Neal, one of our coaches suggested that instead of saying they were commitments or goals we coaches give to our clients. Perhaps I could have said they were commitments and goals made with our clients. I love that this small change in prepositions makes such a huge difference in meaning. Thank you, Neil, for making this suggestion. And I completely agree. If you've subscribed to the podcast, you'll be getting an email with some resources related to today's episode on habit tracking. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do so at our website, www dot beyond bookstart.com/podcast. And we send out an email after every episode with links to resources and tools that we mentioned. Thanks for listening

Building on the theme of failure from episode one, I sat down with Jodi for this week's episode - the mom of a young adult who had serious Executive Functioning challenges during his transition to college that impacted his grades, mental health, and overall quality of life. He has since made an inspiring transformation working with an EF coach over this past year and is now doing remarkably well. This episode explores what the tumultuous process looked like in all its glorious imperfection from Jodi's perspective.Jodi is very open about her son’s challenges with Executive Functions, the pandemic, and the transition to college, and how all of these factors made life exceedingly stressful for them both as Jodi wrestled with wanting to help but not knowing what to do.Listen to this episode to hear Jodi’s inspirational story about how she and her son are thriving after what felt like a huge failure. Hopefully, if you or your child are struggling with your own Executive Functions, this episode will give you some inspiration that with hard work, time, and the right support, massive transformations are possible.Some readings and resources related to topics & themes that came up in my interview with Jodi:Resources for Parents with Children Who Have ADHDChild Mind Institute - Complete Guide to ADHDParenting a Child with ADHDAmerican Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry - ADHD Resource CenterTransition from High School to College or WorkCollege Readiness Checklist - from BBS Tools LibraryTransition to College Checklist - from FAME Main12 Steps for Easing the Transition to Work - from understood.orgAsking for Help4 Tips to Effectively Ask for Help—and Get a YesTeaching Students How to Ask for HelpBeyond BookSmart ResourcesOverwhelmed by College? Here's How to Regain Control (blog)How to Help Overwhelmed College Students (webinar)College Executive Function CoachingContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi.In the last episode, I covered the idea of failure and how it isn't actually failure. Many of our listeners are either executive function coaching clients or their parents, we know that both clients and parents of clients can feel like they're failing, both before they reach out for coaching and then even during coaching. But as we know, this isn't actually failing, right? It's just part of the process of finding what works. I wanted to explore this more and look at it from the perspective of someone who knows this feeling well. So I sat down with Jodi, she's a mom of a young adult who is working on improving his executive function skills. He's working with an executive function coach. And Jodi also spent some of her time talking with families who are interested in coaching for their own kiddos. So I'll let her tell you more about herself and share her unique perspective on brains and parenting and just share her inspirational story about coming back from what felt like a huge failure. And just a short note, before we dive into my conversation with Jodi, this is our first interview for this brand new podcast. And as you'll hear in the first few minutes, we're still working out some of the audio kinks. But we're not seeing this as a failure. Nope, it's been an excellent opportunity to learn how we can make it the best it can be. And it's just a little bit of a bumpy ride along the way. All right on to the show. Hi, Jodi, thanks so much for joining me today. Could you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your family's journey to executive function coaching?Jodi 01:58Yeah. So I'm Jodi. I'm a mom of young while a freshman/sophomore son in college. And I have a junior daughter in college and my daughter actually has multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune disorder that attacks your brain or spinal cord. So she got diagnosed at 16. So she was just young in high school when she got that. She was really high high executive functioning. I'm I feel like the only thing I can say I'm a genius at is executive functioning. And maybe empathy. It but um, and she was the same, but now she has MS. So she's she's struggled with a lot of those challenges. She's not the person who's with Beyond BookSmart, interestingly enough. In my career I work as a nurse and actually in an insurance company, but I work with our brain spinal cord injuries. So I spent the last 10 or 11 years working with very closely with brain injuries from their original right acute out of the injury and through the rehab and, you know, throughout their life of the injury until they're, you know, outside of our claim and workman's comp. So I have a lot of knowledge about how brains work differently. And what happens when brains don't work the way they used to work. And I have a son who has was diagnosed with ADHD when he was very little and the biggest reason why he was diagnosed with it was because he had a lot of trouble managing his emotions, so he had a lot of emotional dysregulation. I used to always say like, you can't take them off the train tracks, you gotta let them know, we're gonna be switching tracks, give him a little time advance notice. And then obviously, the typical ADHD stuff where, you know, they're, they're distracted, they don't focus, they seem like they're not listening. Um, so, so my son who has the ADHD diagnosis is the one who is in. We're just about I think a year somewhere around our year anniversary here with I think we're just maybe a month shy of that with Beyond BookSmart in through his life when he was little, it was always a challenge. I did bring him to a neuropsychologist who when he was maybe in second grade, and she said, "Wow, he needs some help". You know, it was it was pretty it was pretty significant not you know, very significant and so we did a lot with that we tried to avoid medications we weren't able to avoid medications and you know, he he grew up you got to better better hand handle with his with his emotions and regulating emotions and, but still all of the typical challenges that we see with our ADHD kids and learning and today's learning environment, which is so different than my learning environment I got to play when we were in lower grades, you know, they don't get to play anymore. No. Oh, so um, so he did he, you know, we did alright in our school system were very remote. We're kind of out in the woods in Western Massachusetts and we have a regional school and great teachers and great education. His teachers were really committed to him and understanding his differences and helping us with that. So the school system was really great. But when he hit high school, he was done with meds. He didn't like the way they made him feel. So all of a sudden, we're in a situation where the meds were helping him and he never learned any tools. So we did a lot of tripping through high school as far as like, falling behind getting ahead, falling behind getting ahead. He had a 504 plan, where you know, and I would constantly have team meetings, I would collect the team meetings right, and sit down and say, why can't we all work together? I can't, I can't bring it home if I don't know what it is that I'm trying to you know, do it at home. And so we got through it, but he ended up being a on top of all this he in in, you know, as we see a lot, very smart intellectual kid and... COVID. Senior year. So he wouldn't know what's happening all sudden, everybody's home, he lost prom, he lost senior trip, he lost graduation, he lost senior track, you know, just, and he lost his friends, which he's always had a hard time with friends. And he finally got this really great group that just really melded probably his junior year. And then he lost that group of friends. So we went into video gaming, because that's where everybody was, right? We couldn't see anybody. So we went into video gaming, he had zero structure. Time of day came and went, No, no, nobody had structured school. Nobody knew what to do. There wasn't planned like it is now. They're a little bit better at that remote teaching. So we kind of lost him. So we already had those struggles, and then I kind of lost him. So hoping that college would be better, he dove right into college into robotic engineering college. Remote robotic engineering. Yeah, no. Well, and they didn't really know. Hannah Choi 07:30Yeah, they were figuring it out, too. Jodi 07:33Yeah. Yeah, they really had a good grasp already, you know, on that kind of situation. But obviously switching to everybody being remote. He was very isolated. So he went to his dorm. And he didn't, he had a roommate who was never there. And so he sat in his room alone all day and all night and had classes that he never attended, because they were on his computer. And, you know, so that's sort of when he failed every single class. Or they do quarters there. So weHannah Choi 08:05That's fast. Those quarters are fast. My grad school, I went to UC Santa Barbara in California and its quarters there. It was, it was Yeah, but is it nine weeks or something goes by fast?Jodi 08:16It's um, it's they I think it's seven, seven and a half week much. Yeah. reclass is seven and a half week. Yes. Four days a week. Yeah,Hannah Choi 08:25I know. You basically start and then all of a sudden it's midterms. Yes.Jodi 08:29Yeah. Yeah. And you know, by midterms, he still hasn't done any of his homework because it's only two weeks in right and so it all catch up. Don't worry about it. It's all good and not so much not so much. Yeah. So he is and he wouldn't take help and our relationship started to get I'm really close with my kids. Both of them and our relationship was really getting hurt because I was having to you know, I was having to be the I can't I can't regulate his college and manage him at college and be mom without him just eating me you know so it was it was really really tough and in high school I was looking for executive functioning coaches in the area right and ever thought to that remote one option Hannah Choi 09:17right, that was before COVID Before we thought that way Yeah, we didn't thinkJodi 09:21that way at all everything is better in person better in person and although it is better in person remote gives us some really fantastic opportunity.Hannah Choi 09:28 Look at you and I, we're having this conversation. Jodi 09:30Yeah, I know! We're having conversation. We aren't that far away but we still aren't next door. So so you know earlier there was really no executive functioning coaches out here the school didn't know anybody and you know, he got he went to like executive functioning specialty therapists but it's very different. You know, your coach.Hannah Choi 09:51It's not the same thing. Yeah.Jodi 09:53So so the school actually said Beyond BookSmart is not anything on our list. We can't tell you how it goes. But what I do know is we have kids doing. So that's the only one I've heard of, if you want to give them a call and give it a try. So that's how we got cool. That's a little history on me. 10:11Yeah, I'm so glad for for him and for you and your relationship that they knew about that they knew about executive function coaching? Because it's not it's, I mean, first of all, that people even know what executive functions are. That's, that's really common. When, when people like, if it ever comes up, like, Oh, what do you do for work? And then I tell them, they nine times out of 10, I think that I work with executives. And so they're like, Jodi 10:39Oh, I would have never thought that.Hannah Choi 10:42And so and so then I'm like, well, some coaches work with executives, because some executives need executive function coaching. But the majority of our clients don't are not executives. So yeah, so that's wonderful that they that they, that they knew about it, and were able to connect to Jodi 11:01Well, his his school is really, the school is full of a whole bunch of kids on the spectrum. I mean, in I guess you maybe you probably see that a lot of engineering schools. Yeah. But they, they have a whole department that works with these kids for this reason. And so I thought that were going to be okay, because of them. But then realized, I think maybe we would have been if it wasn't for COVID. But there was it COVID just changed, right, everybody, everybody, you know, they just, it just blew up. Yeah, anything that was difficult was soHannah Choi 11:37that's the story that I personally have heard from so many people. And I know a lot of my colleagues have heard and just other people that I've talked to, I was just talking to a friend of mine recently. And she was just saying, like, she felt like she had everything together. And then when COVID hit, she realized she actually didn't, it's so much of our success is built is supported by the structures that we have, right? And so when those structures are there, and they're solid, and they're working and and we can kind of like relax, and so then then it's like, okay, then I don't have to worry about all that other stuff. So now I can, I can, you know, I can, like the parts, the parts that are challenging for me are not as challenging because I'd have to worry about all those other things. And so then when you do have to worry about them, and you're you've never managed them like that before. So like, you don't know what to do. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the story that I'm hearing. And I think that a lot of us coaches are hearing from pretty much everyone.Jodi 12:37I'm even seeing it. I mean, like I say, and I know what executive functioning is, right? Because I work with brain injuries. So yeah, what happens when everybody falls on their head, they hit their frontal lobe and boom, that's, you know, sort of, that's where it goes. But, um, so yeah, so they, they, they knew of it. I mean, that's, I spoke to them with those terms. And they were like, Yeah, you know, this place we hear, you know, it's in Boston, whatever. And so and so here we are. But now it's just and even some of the parents that I talked to now, because between the his school, I'm on the parent Facebook site on his school, so between his school and then doing a little bit of liason, so I guess, liaison work type thing here, you know, just talking to other parents to let them know what my experience is. It's just there are a lot of questions still about... Well, it's, you know, remote and, you know, we're already doing so much on a computer. Do you feel like the remote can be successful? I feel like somebody needs to sit next to my kid. And I'm like, these, these these kids have been staring at screens for three years.Hannah Choi 13:47It's nothing new for them. No,Jodi 13:50they actually don't know how to sit down next to a person.Hannah Choi 13:52Haha, yeah! "What do you doing so close to me?"Jodi 13:56Yeah, which is actually kind of interesting even saying that because COVID You know, I think we find kids on the spectrum are not necessarily kids with ADHD but my son is definitely has his his levels of socially awkwardness. I mean, there are there he has a hard time reading social cues, but he's himself is very social once it becomes integrated, very chatty and social. But he was really hard to engage in, initially with as parents, we're reaching out on Facebook together saying, "my kids are struggling, my kids suffering, my kids not passing, my kids depressed", you know, and trying to get our kids together, which was like, herding ants. You know, like, I mean, when you know, there's fruit all over the place. There's like it possible, you know, and they're like, oh, yeah, sure. Okay. Well, yeah, my I'll reach out later, later, like later later. And then finally, somehow, I'm pretty aggressive. So you know, I definitely helicoptered that one. And you know, there were a handful of us parents who did and we sort of forced them to get together a little bit, a few of them. And what did they talk about? Are their moms! Great! We worked so hard to get them together. But now, now I'm you know, there's still that conversation is still going on. This is happening with COVID or without COVID. And so I'm always speaking up and saying, Look, you know, send me a private message and I'll let you know what's going on for me. So I've spoken to a lot of parents at the school and actually, some of them directed here, but also just some saying, "Look, I'll have my kid reach out to you". And I'll tell you, in I can say it's, it has a it's a direct effect from the coaching that he's been receiving. As much as we're doing this coaching for a lot of executive functioning skills, he is getting so much more confident in himself and aware of like, who he is, and that he's different in different is okay, okay. So he's reaching out to these kids. He's like, "Oh, yeah, no problem, Mom". And then I'm like, hey, you know, gently, did you ever reach out to the kid? He's like, "Oh, yeah, we reached out, we spoke, we talked, we're on Discord together. And I've met him for dinner." And I'm like,Hannah Choi 16:19When I, when I think about working with my clients, my dream for them. And I'm sure like all other coaches feel this way, or anyone that works with someone in this kind of capacity is that is that when you're done working with them, they then take what they've learned, and bring it out into the world and share it and help other people. And what a great example of that!Jodi 16:40Well, let me tell you another one, which is this is really like jumping ahead in in sort of missing the point here. Well, I guess not missing a point, right. We're here to talk. But jumping out of the executive functioning, which I'm sure that people who are listening want to hear, right. But taking a pause on that, since it's kind of going in this direction. He one of the parents, I was speaking to who was trying to get a feel for you know, talking to me about you know, what's it like to be to have a kid in this and, you know, a lot of parents are, you know, we have to sign up and for so many months, and you're worried about that, right? You know, we can deal with it. And, you know, my biggest thing is, it takes six, nine, twelve months to create a behavior. So you got to commit for six months. It's not going to work at three. It's probably not going to work at six. we're gonna say, you know, if you're here, it's because somebody's hit bottom. But with all that being said, the dad was like, would your son mind talking to my son, because, you know, I can't convince him that this is the thing. I'm willing to take the jump, but he needs to take the jump. And I'm like, Yeah, sure. never talked to my son about it. Yeah sure! He'll be home this weekend. So, you know, I go into his room. And I'm like, and he goes, Mom, what? He's like, what? And so I asked him if he would talk to him. He's like, Yeah, sure you have his phone number is a discord. So I give him his phone number. As I'm talking to him. Now, you're a coach, you've got to know and anybody listening who has a parent, or maybe is even in it themselves? Perseveration. Like, wait till later, is there a common denominator? And he's like, sure picks up his phone to (makes dialing sound) "What should I say?" I say something. And he's like, ah, that doesn't really sound like me since this thing. So then he shows it to me. He's like, What do you think about this? I'm like, just hit send. Hit Send. The kid responds right back 15 minutes later, they're on the phone. And, and, and I and I had to share this with his coach, because I think this is kind of exactly what you're saying. Like, you're hoping that not only are they going to benefit from this and find a better way to find themselves, their fit their way to fit and be successful in this crazy world they've been dumped into because we got to slowly progress right with, we didn't have executive functioning, we slowly learned the technology. They just woke up. We're born into the technology they didn't get to like, figure it out. So he says he's talking to this kid for at least 45 minutes and you know, pacing all over the house and stuttering through his words and trying to get his thoughts out and all that. And eventually he gets rolling. And he is the stuff he's saying. He's like, look, he's like, it's hard work. It's really it sucks. It sucks in the beginning. And I was at rock bottom. So I knew I had to do it because I there was nowhere else to go. And I didn't want to and I lied to my mom and I lied to my coach and and he's like, it's kind of hard to lie to him because they're on your computer and they're looking at what's going on. And he's like, You got to share your stuff. If you're not going to share your stuff. It's not even going to work like this is what he's saying. You know, and there's pauses the other kids like asking questions and uh huh. You know, and then he's like, you know, going on and on and on. Had to have been 45 minutes, I was talking to this kid, and I'm in the living room in tears. Yeah, I would want to cry the stuff the coach and I have been saying, you know, he's coming out of his mouth, he's like, You have to be really, I don't think he used the word transparent. But he basically said, you know, you have to be transparent. If you lie, you're only hurting yourself. Because guess what they're gonna find out, your parents are paying for it, they're gonna be mad, the coach is gonna tell your parents, you know, you've got to let them talk to your parents. And he's like, look, my coach talks to my mom. So now my mom doesn't bother me. So let your coach talk to your dad. Let your coach talk to your mom. Yeah. You know, he's like, let them all talk. And but he's, but it was the coolest piece about it was he was like, it sounds like you really should do it. He's like, it's gonna be really hard work. He goes, but you know, this, this is this is it's getting me through on passing. I'm learning. And what was one of the things he had said, I can't. He was talking about. You know, that? Oh, one of the other pieces he was saying. So the whole lying part. I mean, we literally just went back through that, right? He goes, it's gonna feel like you're not making any progress. Wow. Like, I feel like sometimes why am I wasting my time, I should just quit. I'm not making any progress. And then he's like, and then I think about where I was, and I pass this many classes, I failed some classes. I didn't lie, and I got really ahead, then I got excited. And then I fell behind. And he's like, like, and then the other thing he said, which I could not believe, is, "you have to be honest with yourself". I was like, is this kid eading from the book, you know, he's like, You have to be honest for yourself. And you have to ask for help. Right? In his coach has been like, and we both been like "Coby, until you have to ask for help." Guess what, you can't do it. Just acknowledge that this is your your he hates he won't use the word pattern anymore, because he has changed. And to him, he doesn't have the same patterns, even though looks that way to me. So but it's just like listening to him say all the things that his coach and I have been saying over and over and over again, coming out of his mouth. I want him to keep talking to his kids. Because the more he says it right, the more it becomes real for him. And he holds up the phone. And he was so pumped. He said, I think he's gonna sign up. I feel like he's gonna get help, like, I'm getting help. And it feels so good not to have all of that. He was also alone, because I don't get it. I have executive functioning. I've really good executive functioning. That makes no sense to me. You know, so Wow, that was that was a huge off the track.Hannah Choi 23:04Oh, I love it, though. It makes me think about like, if you were to, if you were to to check in with how you felt like when you heard that conversation, and think about back to when he first started and how you felt when he first started coaching. Like, at like, if you if if present day Jodi could tell past Jodi, like beginning of coaching Jodi, what would you tell yourself?Jodi 23:34I would say you're right to stick with it, you know, go the beaten path, because when we started, it was painful. He was depressed. And he has a therapist now. And he has his coach. And any a support group at school, like all these kids are now a support group to each other. And it was so painful because he started he ended up dropping out the fourth quarter, he had to withdraw from school. So he didn't get suspended for a year because he hadn't passed any classes. And so he was just he couldn't have been more bottom and he looked like, like, he looked like a cancer patient, the circles under his eyes, you know? And he said, he said "I need, I think I need help". And I said and so we did some research. We had a couple of things that we were looking at in this from you know, the school had not recommended you guys won't give me your name not solely recommended. And and so he was at rock bottom and he owned that he was at rock bottom before he just still kept thinking he was going to be able to do it. He was going to be able to catch up. He was going to be able to figure it out. And so we started we started a little bit he started a little bit of coaching really got to know his coach and they hit it off like good so well. Yeah. And we didn't need to go on to a second one or anything. It was a fantastically perfect match and still remains that way. But so he took a summer class so so the the last quarter he just went up, he worked like regular job worked and worked with the coach and we just did sort of life skills type stuff. They did, he did with them. And then we started a summer class. So summer classes were seven weeks. Okay. And it was community college, but it was still seven weeks and it was one class. One class seven weeks history. All writing okay. Oh, no, take that back. It wasn't history. It was psychology. All writing. I think it's his favorite classes ever taken. He hates writing any any doesn't like to look at himself. Right? It was incredible. You got an A in that class, right. So that was awesome. And then we roll into, but it was a great start. And then in the middle, he was crashing and burning. And then from that crash and burn trying to catch back up and getting an A, the teacher was so great with him, which is surprisingly, because the teacher really appeared to be really narcissistic. It was it the way he wrote the way he spoke the way his syllabus was written. It was very, it was like, I was like, this is interesting, but he loved my like the retrospect he just was like looking at himself and all of it. Yeah. So but the painful part was, as we went through those really, as we got that we did the second semester in the summer with two classes. I remember what they were. But he ended up getting a B and a C in those classes. And that that was that's where today's God, I wish I could go back and just like tap myself on the shoulder and give myself a hug and say, this is a right stick with it. Because I wasn't sleeping. He wasn't sleeping. He was it was it was painfully hard for him. His brain hurt, he couldn't sleep, he had headaches. I mean, it is a complete roto root of the way they function. You know, it's it's, it was it was so hard. It was so hard to watch. And I find that a lot of the parents that I'm talking to their kids are the earliest they don't think that their kids need that much help. But he needed that much help. And he's he was working through depression, but it was he has zero executive functioning. He doesn't understand time, how long will take you to get this done? Not even how long does it take you to go grocery store, which he's gone to 100,000 times now. He doesn't know how to organize himself. He doesn't know where to start. He doesn't know how to what comes first what comes second, none of it. So it was a lot to learn and implement and get graded on all the same time. Yeah, that is in he again. He just looked like a very, very ill person. And I knew I knew he had to stick with it. And but it was very painful. And so for any parents who do go into this in and see that, stick with it, support your kid, tell him they're doing a great job, he would consistently take one step forward, and two steps backwards. And one step forward. And one set, you know, it was like, it almost seemed like he was never getting any for traction. But then he did. Yeah. You know,Hannah Choi 28:32so what, like, for you, how did you? How did you handle that? Like how, like, what are strategies that you use for yourself? To when you like when you saw him take, you know, like one step forward and two steps back orJodi 28:50I didn't? I didn't always handle it. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean,Hannah Choi 28:55it's like, as a coach, it is. It's, it is so hard when you see that, but they're not our children. I mean, sometimes they feel like they're our children, but they're not. And I know like for myself when I see a client who's you know, struggling like that. It's really hard. And, and, and it requires so much patience. And it requires like so much looking for these tiny little wins and recognizing like, oh, wait, okay, so we're like not doing well in all these other areas. But this one little tiny nugget of gold has been found. So like, what, what what did you like for yourself to get through thatJodi 29:40you handed in one out of three homeworks in a week? That's better than zero and a three homeworks I mean, that's what we were celebrating. Yeah. And he got up and went to class, online live and didn't watch the recording once this week. I was like, This is what like yeah, Ah, it was it, it was so hard. But for in for me, I didn't do it graciously. So any parents out there who aren't I would, I would handle it horribly in in fall into my own patterns, which is, which, you know, we talked about before we started recording, I was watching this, listening to this other podcast one day and I was crying because I thought, oh my god, I'm the worst parent in the world, I have alienated my child, trying to make him like me. And treating them like he was just a bad kid who didn't want wasn't motivated or, you know, was lazy, they get these lazy labels, they don't have the skill. So. So I went back and forth just like he did, I took two steps forward, one step backwards and one step forward and half step backwards, you know, I would support him one day, and the next day, I would get frustrated and be like, how could you not have had it in your homework? And so that's where the coach came in.Hannah Choi 31:00Oh, and so how did how did that change it for you.Jodi 31:05So I still communicated with I communicate with a coach. And so once he established a relationship with my son, and he established a relationship with me, and I was very clear with him, you need to call me out, you need to call me out. And it doesn't matter if feelings get hurt, I'm not gonna go tattling to, you know, to anybody to say, your main we want a new coach said you need to call me out, I need you to point to me and say back off back off, not your role. And he did. And he actually had a very long phone call with me where I was in tears. And he was just very honest. And I appreciated it. And I think without really he knew he could do that. I would imagine that you guys can't do that with everybody. 31:54No, yeah, and my experience actually, my I mostly work with college and adults. And, and the parents of the kids that I have worked with, have in general not been involved. And so it, but what you said is so important how like your like your coach, the relationship between the coach, and the person being coached is so important. But the network, the support network of the person being coached, in a lot of situations is a big part of it. And so you have a trust and rapport with your coach with your child's coach, or, you know, or whoever. I mean, it could be your partner's coach, like if you're an adult, if you're, you know, if you're an adult and you have a partner, the partner might, you know, also need to be get some reassurance from the coach. So, right, it's right, it depending on the needs of the people in the support network of the person being coached. So that's wonderful that you are able to get that.Jodi 32:55Yeah, so he's been fantastic. I didn't really think about that. And I know some of the parents that I've talked to, they're just like, I don't really know what my son does, but I just found out that he's not passing any of his classes. And I thought to myself, Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, but then that parents like, Oh my God, how could you be so into your kids stuff? Like back off, you know? So,Hannah Choi 33:15And there's no right way to do it? And right, and what you said, like about listening to the podcast, and then crying and feeling like, you know, what am I doing? Like, how much of parenting is this guilt? Right? This like, guilt that we put on ourselves? No matter what, we're not doing it right. I mean, I don't know about you, but I that's something that I struggle with as a parent often. And yeah, and it's it's...Jodi 33:39You just hope in the end, you didn't screw them up too bad.Hannah Choi 33:45Meanwhile, here we all are here we all are going to therapy. Yeah, yeah. Jodi 33:53But the coach, I am, I am, again, super close with my kids. And in you know, you could label it helicopter parenting, I would say I am not the Nancy helicopter parent, but I am definitely in there trying to recognize where they need help and helping them acknowledge that they have deficits and that I'm here to give them resources. Like with my daughter, she needed resources with coaching and soccer and she didn't really need we needed medical resources when she got diagnosed, and my son has been, you know, social environments. What kind of sport can we get him into where he doesn't feel like he's getting bullied and I created a robotics program at the high school so that he could get into robotics and ran that, you know, so that's the kind of involvement I have. I try not to like overly, you know, manage your schedule, all that it's definitely what they want. And then I help them find the resources and move in that direction, but very emotionally involved with my kids and our coach is just incredible. He knows that he can just, say "this is your role, mom. You know, I talked to Coby today you've overstepped" You need to support them, you need to support them in this way. Yeah, this is the best way to support them. Not this stuff. Don't ask any of these questions ever, ever, ever, ever? Yeah, these are your questions that you can ask, this is your role in the supporting. And so I think that we've gotten there really gotten there, I, I'm very backed off, and I'm just my role is to watch his phone to make sure he goes to classes. Now that's my role.Hannah Choi 35:24There you go, that's great. Jodi 35:26His role is to have his fingers in his work, know what he's doing, you know, criticize, or whatever it is that you guys do when they don't do the right thing and help to redirect them and all that, but it's, it's, um, it's really, it's just, in the parents that I talked to, some of them are just like, well, we don't need that much. I'm like, then you don't doesn't matter. They're giving me what we need. They're gonna give you anyway. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I tell the parents, when I talk to them is like, Look, your contacts are there to hear your honest, whatever it might be. And if you're a helicopter parent, and you're doing too much your contacts are gonna say, this might be why this isn't working, it might actually be the coach, we might need to work with you a little bit, you know, or they, you might, it might not be a good match, and you don't like the communication and they'll change that. That's the great thing about you guys is you're like if there's something wrong, yeah, you'll make it work.Hannah Choi 36:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think something that you said earlier made me think about a conversation I was just having with one of my adult clients who were talking about trust, and how, how so much of going through executive function coaching is about trust and about trusting yourself, and about trusting your coach, and just trusting the process. And like you said, in the very beginning, and which is something that I feel like I say, like a broken record is it takes a really long time. And so trusting all of the parts of it yourself and your coach and, and the process and, and the tools that you try and everything, it's and that's such a huge part of it. And ah, I forgot what I was going to say - where I was going with that. But anyway, it's a big deal. Jodi 36:45I have one parent who at at my son's school, who I directed to you guys who has, I don't know where she's at right now. But she had gone to the matching coach matching process. And she called me and she goes, this is how it went for me. Is this, is this how it went for you? And I said, Well, no, but when you're in that meeting, did you say, Hey, I feel like you glazed over A, B and C? And that's really important to me? Well, no, I didn't know if I could37:39You gotta speak up!37:39Yeah, be honest, the kids have to be honest, the moms have to be honest. Like all of that. Let them know how you feel. This isn't personal. At all. Yeah, if you if you don't like your contact, let let somebody know that you need to change. And this is why or talk to your contact about why you feel you're not in touch. These people are all about matching and functioning and making it work and trust, right? There's no trust, even if they're they did nothing wrong. It's just not the right match or there isn't trust. So they need to find a new person that there will be trust with and it might not have anything to do with either. Yeah. So she's like, okay, all right. I'm gonna call it that. That's better than not calling back and just walking away from itHannah Choi 38:30You know, everything you're saying is just making me so glad that we're that we decided to do this podcast because it, it's it, it's showing me like how valuable hearing someone else's story is, and how that right there is such a huge part of asking for help, like what your son said, you know, like, I think I need some help. And in and reaching out and asking, like, can you tell me your story so that I can figure out like, where mine fits in, you know, and what my needs are and everything. So that's wonderful. Thanks for sharing all that. Jodi 39:04Yeah, of course. Hannah Choi 39:07I love I, I was thinking about something else that you said. And you were saying, you are really involved with your kids. And but I was thinking about how you have you, you really have had to be since the beginning with your son being diagnosed so early with ADHD. And then with your daughter becoming having such high, you know, intense medical needs. You can't you as a parent of a child with you know, those medically fragile, you you need to be involved. You know, you can't. You don't have the choice of, of being hands off. So, so it doesn't surprise me that you continue to be like that, because that's just how you have always parented and thank goodness you are because your son knew that he could go to you and say that Like, I need help, and that you recognized it that you saw it in him. And you realize, like, something's off here.Jodi 40:08Yeah, yeah. Well, that was worried before we even started, you know, so but yeah, like, you know, part of part of my career and in what I do, even on the side, you know, I've had a couple of friends, one whose son ended up fell down the stairs, in his 20s, you know, fell down the stairs or got a brain injury. And, you know, the system right now, especially with COVID, you know, and another friend who's, whose good friend was dying of cancer. So we have these two situations where they're in the hospital system, and nobody's giving them any information. And they think that that's okay. So it's, it's sort of the same thing, teaching them working with them as as a case manager type liaison to help get their answers and move things in the right direction, get the person with cancer discharged home, get the kid, you know, the right care, and, you know, communicate the home needs and rehab and things like that, and just educating the family. Do that with my kids, like we all. That's, that's how I roll. And that's how they roll. And everything is very, everything's very open in our family in regards to anything going on. There's there's no issue, you know, my kids will tell anybody who puts them on a podcast. So go ahead and put my son on a podcast, my mom needs to butt out. I'm just like, Look, guys, you can't go from having all these years of needing me and asking me for help, to all the sudden "Thanks a lot, we got this!" I'm like, Look, I need a transition.Hannah Choi 41:41Yeah, I need that too!Jodi 41:44I need to transition out as well. For myself, I actually have been working with a life coach, to balance myself with all the stuff going on with my kids don't my kids growing up not needing me that I'm getting all the resources, my daughter is taking over all of her own medical care. My son has a coach who's taking care of him and a therapist. So just finding that balance and finding me because me has just been helping these kids with all these needs. Yeah, who are you want to yours? Right? Yeah. And so I'm like, Well, what do I do if I'm not helping you if I'm not up in your business, and so when they're like, You got to get out of our business. So the coach is my life coach has been great. She's, she's got me to start reading again. She had me create a reading nook in my house and bedroom that's like my no phone, no TV, no, nothing. Mom's you know, and even my son will come in and he'll be like, Oh, you're already reading. Hannah Choi 42:41Wonderful, and how important that self care is. Right? And when we are caught up in all the busyness of, of the challenges of life. Yeah, it's it's that's like the first thing that we that I think a lot of people like, oh, and it's probably actually the last thing we should like. Right. But it's so hard. It's so hard to prioritize that. That's wonderful. I'm so happy for you. So great.Jodi 43:07Thanks. We're all a work in progress.Hannah Choi 43:09It's true. We really are. And, and I'm, I am very, I personally am very open talking about the things that I have challenges with. And I think that when you can be open like that, and recognize like, no one is perfect. And everyone needs help. In whatever form it is. It's it's so freeing. It's so freeing to just be like, Yeah, this is me.Jodi 43:35This is me. I'm not perfect. I need help, too. And we're all different. And that's okay.Hannah Choi 43:41We need to be different. Yeah, otherwise, be weird.Jodi 43:46Yeah, who don't want to be the same drone walking around?Hannah Choi 43:49Yeah. That's so great. Um, let me see. So what are you looking forward to like, for your son for yourself? For like, you know, I mean, obviously, you are thinking about yourself in the future, because you, you know, you got yourself a life coach, and you're reading again, and you know, and you're taking time for yourself, but what are you looking for forward, forward to?Jodi 44:17I, you know, I my, my big thing is just when, and I just started sort of looking at like, what am I you know, what does my life look like? And I think this happens with everybody who's who's empty nesting even. But for for my son and for my daughter, I mean, she is really moving in a place where she is she's really taking control of herself recognizing her deficits understanding that she can't move as fast as everybody else and she's really finding finding her place and she's gonna have challenges her whole life even if she didn't have MS. You know, so she's really going into she's really gotten herself sort of in that direction now, which is exciting. So I'm just looking forward to when my son Coby is, is doing that same thing. And he's moving in that direction. Yeah. And I think the first glimpse of it was was this past week listening to him talk to that other kid. I was like, Oh, my God, it's happening. Hannah Choi 45:15It's happening. It's really happening. It's happening.Jodi 45:17Yeah. And there's no particular like, check the box. Okay, it's been done. It's been done, I can move on. Yeah, but there they, I didn't think that it would ever be happening with him. He's just always just so I'm, is his father is a lot similar. And his father has to have a - We're divorced. But we've been divorced for a long time. So and and, he really has to have a wife and a secretary to be successful. Right? He needs the wife for the regular life stuff, and kids and everything else. And he needs the Secretary, because of the executive functioning, right? So the wife not. And so my thing is, I don't want my son to need a wife. And that's a big reason why we I would have to say, we've probably got divorced because for me, it felt like he was just lazy and wouldn't do anything. And I was doing everything right. Yeah, he needs that wife for that. And then he's the secretary. So I want my son to not need that. I want him to be able to give what he has to give to somebody without them feeling like they're, they're giving everything right, you know, and he's taking and so and I see him doing that.Hannah Choi 46:27I was just gonna say he's on his way to that. Jodi 46:30Already started that. Yeah. That's what I'm, that's what I want. And it's going there. So we're sticking we are sticking with it. I was just gonna say and he, I mean, he even has plans as much as I think one of the things that you guys always say is the point is not to stay on forever, right? The point is not to stay an executive coach with this person forever. It's to teach them the tools and let them go free. And that takes a while and parents will ask me how long does that take? Like? It's just like, my brain injuries. Everyone's different. But it's gonna take over a year. I really don't have a whole lot. Yeah, yeah. Like my son's always already like, okay, so when I've got this going, I still want to work with you on public speaking, I still want to work with you on better healthy lifestyles and activities. And so he's already planning. When I'm perfect. This is what we're gonna work on next.Hannah Choi 47:25So he's really thinking into the future for himself, too, which is so that's so beautiful. Yeah, I love that. How wonderful. Yeah, I have, like I mentioned before, when before we started recording, I'm my I'm coming up on four years with one of my clients, and she's in eighth grade. Now, I started working with her when she was in fourth grade. And with my, the session we had on Monday, it was just like the entire session was this gift of all of these things that that I have been working with her on over the years. And she just like, did all the things. Like she tried something new, and she was gonna ask your teacher for help. And she, she, like, breathe. She like we're working on breathing before, like during taking a test because she rushes through tests. And she told me, I breathed before every question. And she said, you know, that was the easiest science test I've ever taken. I'm like, Oh my gosh, yeah. And it's, I mean, yeah, it's taken a long time for us to get there. But it's just so wonderful seeing her taking these skills that she's learning. And she's already thinking about, well, how can I apply them in the future? And that he's doing that too. It's just48:40You've like, just turned a leaf. It's like you, and there's possible you'll roll back or whatever? Hannah Choi 48:46Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Jodi 48:47And how lucky she is to have had you for four years at that age. 48:51How lucky am I? Oh, my gosh. It's just she is lodged in my heart, man. She's just she's just such an amazing person. I'm actually going to be interviewing her mom in a couple of weeks. And it's just yeah, it's it's beautiful to see as a coach, and I imagine that your son's coach has has had a similar emotional experience watching him, you know, just to go through what he's gone through. And how long has I can't remember if you said this before, but how long have they been coaching together?Jodi 49:25I think we're just we're we're close to a year where I think we're just under a year because he it was after he made it through three quarters. Right. So finals are this week of the third quarter. So that took me a couple of weeks to find you guys so so we're coming very close to just a year just to your he's got a lot of work ahead of him. Yeah. So you know and is Coach isn't going anywhere. I'm not gonna let him go on and Yeah, yeah, they have such a respect. You know, like there's there's such a respect I'm just I, what we've seen in a year how hard, it's so hard for him still, but I just can't say this enough where he's come already, you know, you could look at him on a big global and be like, he hasn't really gotten anywhere. But that's just not true. He's off academic probation, he didn't get suspended. He, you know, like those, that's a big deal. Yeah.Hannah Choi 50:19And, you know, you mentioned in the beginning confidence and how, like, that comes up all the time, parents will say, you know, like, I just want my child to feel more confident. And I think I think feeling better about your own executive function skills makes you just just just naturally you feel more confident. Like I know, for myself, like I told you in the beginning, I have terrible memory. And and I used to not use a planner, or anything, I wouldn't, I would just like occasionally write have to do no to do lists and write stuff down. But I would just try to rely on my terrible memory. And yeah, it was like, not a great decision.51:00That would stress me out so much. I have to write everything down.Hannah Choi 51:03Yeah, now I'm like obsessively checking my planner. But when I went, I guess when I was in grad school, like when I was in college in high school and grad school, then I wrote I did I kept a planner during then. But then I think I just thought, like, Oh, I'm not in school anymore. So I don't have to have a planner anymore. But, but my confidence, just like went down the toilet. Because I just started thinking, Oh, well, I'm just like, not a good friend. And I'm not a good partner, because I'm forgetting these things. And then I realized, wait, I just need to write them down. And then I'm not gonna forget them anymore. And, and it, it gave me my confidence back. And so for kids who, especially for kids who have challenges in many executive function areas, you can you can imagine how that would erode your confidence pretty darn quick.Jodi 51:53You're a failure every minute of the day. Yeah, no matter what you do, every minute of the day, he was a failure. That's what I had me crying when I was listening to other podcasts. Yeah, he was basically a failure constantly. And then he started lying. Because, right. He's failing. And so it gets you off his back for totally. Yeah. Hannah Choi 52:10You know, it's a protective a protective action. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. And, and like he said, You can't lie. That's so wonderful. So he went from lying to saying, like, you can't lie. Yeah, that's great. Not doesn't mean he's still not going to. And this is a kid who used to never be able to lie. He had the worst face. Everybody could tell, you know, he got good at it as he got further into high school. And it was a skill. But yeah, I mean, not to say he's not going to do it. But I'm just like, Oh, my God, keep the kids coming for him to talk to because the more he says this out, yes, the more he'll stop before he does it. Because it's, you know, it's being repeated. And it's being shared. And it's, what if that kid calls him back later? Because he said, you have my number anyway. I Yeah. And if it's a year from now, give me a call if you need me. What's he gonna say? I don't lie to my coach the whole year. No, I Yeah. I lied to you, too. You know, just kidding. Yeah, I think, I think, like when I think about my client that I've been working with for four years, and I think about the messages that I've given to her over the years, and it's taken a really long time for those to sink in. And I think like, like how you said that you want that you hope that he, you know, continues to have those conversations with those kids, and continues to say that, because I think whether we tell ourselves the same message over and over again, or someone else tells it like someone that we trust, and that we that doesn't sound like nagging or whatever, that eventually it does sink in, and it does, you know, it you like, like she said to me, because I've always said to her, you know, where we're just, you know, if you can do these things, it will make your life easier, you know, things won't be so hard. And, and we've, you know, we've been saying that for I've been saying that for years to her. And she said to me on Monday night, while school is still boring, but it's so much easier. Oh, yeah.Jodi 54:15That is like, that is like the moment where you just celebrate.Hannah Choi 54:19Yeah, and you'd but I think just you have to hear it. You have to hear it from yourself. And you have to hear it from the people around you that you trust again and again. And I think that's kind of why coaching takes so long is because it just takes a long time for those message for you to like truly believe those messages. And then once you believe them, you have to put actions with them.Jodi 54:40Right? Right. Once you're like wait, it works. Now you have to make that intention happen over and over.54:46Yeah, and now he's got all this great evidence that he can do things. And so when he does slide back, which he will I mean, we all do you know, like even you and executive function Master, I'm sure there are times where you're like, Oh, I really screwed that up. You know? Oh, yeah, yeah, we're notJodi 55:07Because all the things you don't prioritize, like, whatever. And you know, afterwards you're like, I knew better. Yeah, I knew better. But in the moment, it felt easier.Hannah Choi 55:17Yeah, I'm so glad that's just such a wonderful story. Thank you so much for sharing today and for sharing with the other parents, I'm sure that you have, you know, made such a difference in, like, if you think about if you can change one parent or not change one parent, but give one parent the confidence to hook their kid up with a coach. And then, and then that kid then has the success that their son is experiencing? And then he then goes on and talks to someone else. Like, that's wonderful. Like, how many ripples that we create? 55:54So yeah, so many ripples. Yeah, yeah, in, in that whole point is just parents get definitely some of the ones I've been talking to. And you've obviously probably talked to them too, like, some of the timeline is really a focus for some of them. And I'm like,Hannah Choi 56:09Yeah, and it's hard. I mean, it's expensive. It's, you know, it's definitely not like a, but, you know, I just said to someone the other day, actually a friend of mine, who was who is interested in, in coaching, and, you know, we were talking about how it's, it's actually it's an investment, it is very expensive, but it's an investment that will not stop paying off when you're done it, you know, it will continue to pay off. I mean, I know myself just like, being a coach, like I have, I don't have great executive function skills, but I have I have been able to, you know, I know, like a ton of strategies, I know what works for me. And, and I continue to see, like, how challenging it is to keep them keep up with it. But how, in doing in doing it, and in improving my own executive function skills, how it has such a positive impact on all aspects of my life. And it's just so great.Jodi 57:10So yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I and him talking to the kids. I mean, I just can't, like, you're right. It's the Pay It Forward, just keeps going and keeps going. And if one parent joins and sticks with it, and does it, and the financial piece of it, is it I'm a single mom in, in, my son goes to a private engineering school. And we don't get any financial aid. Well, like I he gets loans. I happen to make just enough money, that we don't get to get any financial aid.57:45Yeah, so you're like, right in between? 57:47Yeah, exactly. So you know, it's, it's, it's a struggle to pay it. But the reality is, you know, my daughter's treatment is like, $300,000, twice a year. And it's covered by insurance, right? Yeah. But if it wasn't covered by insurance, I would be in debt up to my ears, because she can't be your brain can't be decompensating, she's 22 years old. So you know, I feel the same about my son, you know, some for a period of time, it was a huge struggle. And sometimes I get caught up and I, the coach, might his coach knows that the extra time is always approved. He never would have used extra time with my son and it's always on like, you need extra day you need to, it's always approved. So you know, for me, there is no dollar amount I could put on my child and you can't always say that, you know, you can only come up with so much money, right? Right. Yep. But it is expensive. But I if you can make ends meet and make it happen, it's worth it. In the end, lots of time, sometimes lots of pain, lots of patience and lots of money, but it will always keep paying it forward for your kid or for yourself, always.Hannah Choi 59:08So that's it for today. I'm so glad you're here and you took time out of your day to listen, I really hope that you found something useful and something that resonated with you and Jodi's story. If you've subscribed to the podcast, you'll be getting an email with some resources related to today's episode. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do so at our website, www dot beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We send out an email after every episode with links to the resources and tools I mentioned. Thanks for listening

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas EdisonSome of my favorite readings on the topics I covered in today’s episode on managing failure. Reframing Failure as a Success- Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, PhD- How Reframing Your Failures Will Actually Bring Success from LifeHackSelf-Talk- Third Person Self-Talk Is An Effective Way To Reduce Anxiety And Regulate Emotions- 4 Ways to Stop Beating Yourself Up, Once and For AllThinking Like a ScientistAtomic Habits by James ClearWhat Are You Measuring in Your Life?7 Habits That Can Help You Think Like a ScientistContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHi, everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins, you'll experience as you change your life through improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. And today we're asking the question, how can we manage our feelings when we think we failed. So as you heard in the intro, I'm going to talk about failure today. Failure is something I think we can all say we've experienced. And as you'll see, in today's episode, the main message I want you to take away from this is that when you try something new, and it doesn't work out the way you expected or wanted to, you're not failing, you have not failed. If you try something in your EF coaching journey, and it doesn't work for you, you haven't failed, your coach hasn't failed. If you try something that I suggest in this podcast, and it doesn't work for you, you haven't failed. And the same goes for me. Creating this podcast is a risk, right? I'm taking a chance that I will fail to make something that is useful for people. But if I say something that you don't like, or you try something and it doesn't work for you, I haven't failed. I've just found an opportunity to try to find something else that might work. Of course, this totally sounds Pollyanna ish, right? It's way easier said than done. If everything we tried worked, or we all felt totally fine with failure. I wouldn't be here talking about this today. EF coaches, therapists we they wouldn't have jobs. We'd all be on some tropical island drinking pina coladas and getting our feet massaged. Wait a second. Okay, nevermind. Sorry. That's just my dream. Okay, back to reality, talking about failure. Okay, so what's the definition of failure? If you look online, or in a dictionary, you'll find something along the lines of a lack of success, or the inability to meet an expectation. So this definition might be the same for everyone. But how failure feels is going to be different. And as EF coaches, we often find that many people, when they first start on their coaching journey, are already feeling stressed about failing. We noticed a strong connection between failure and executive function challenges. Maybe we've labeled ourselves or maybe our children have been labeled as disorganized, or forgetful or bad at planning. But the way that I see it, is that you or your child just hasn't found the strategy that works best yet. So if you're in coaching right now, or actually, if you're just a human being, you might already be feeling sensitive to the idea of failing. And maybe that's why you decided to listen to me today about talk about failure. So I'm going to share some ideas for managing this so called failure, as we always say, in coaching, small steps lead to big changes. So please don't feel any pressure to like, dive right into any of these strategies. Maybe just try one, or even just part of one, or maybe just think about it, write it down somewhere, tell someone you're thinking about it. I'm really not asking for a big commitment at all, just hear me out and maybe give something a shot in whatever way like feels right to you right now. There are a ton of different ways to manage how we react to failure. And I really don't want to overwhelm you. That's not what I'm here for. So I've chosen three to cover today than those are reframing your failure as a success, self talk, and thinking like a scientist, these three strategies are kind of all interconnected. And trying one will often naturally just involve one or both of the others. So I'll do my best to explain each one. And like I just said, you can try them out and see what sticks. Okay, so first up reframing. So you may have heard the quote by Thomas Edison, he said, I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. So instead of seeing failure as a lack of success, like the dictionary says, try to see it as that you successfully found a way that doesn't work. So last week, I was working with an adult client of mine who has a strategy that he uses to manage his anxiety about the week to come. So on Sunday night, he takes some time to look over and plan for the upcoming week. He has a bullet journal. So he writes down his appointments and his classes and for the work for his job. And last week, he didn't do this. He got busy, and he just decided that he wasn't going to do it. And as his coach, I was glad that he hadn't done it. And so we did some reflection in our session. We meet Monday mornings, so it was good timing. But we did some reflection and saw how and he saw how effective that Sunday night planning actually is. So So technically, this was a failure, right? He did not meet his expectation of Sunday night planning, but not doing it was actually super informative for him. So if we can change our view to see these failures as actually highly valuable, it can be so beneficial. It's hard work. I'm not saying it's easy, it is hard work to do this. But if you can try it, you might end up actually end up like being more open to new ideas than you ever thought you would be. So get excited when it fails. I kind of think there's almost more value in discovering what doesn't work than what does. I believe that we learn more about ourselves. And we're really forced to think creatively, right? The strategies that we end up using after we failed are more solid, because they're built from your response to what didn't work, a strategy that you try and works on the first time, I don't think is as rock solid, because you haven't encountered any variables that will test it. So failing, while trying new strategies in the end, I think makes it more durable system that can survive long term. That being said, if you do find something that works for you, on your first try, that's awesome is so great. Just know that it might not always be there for you, it might not always work, just depending on what's going on in your life. And that's totally okay. I really like to think that these strategies that we know work for us but aren't currently working for us, are just patiently waiting. They're waiting for us when we're ready to go back to them. So keep that in mind. All right, so next up self talk. So you can combine the reframing strategy that I just covered with self talk, and self talk, is the thoughts or the speech that we direct towards ourselves. So, you know, I know you know what this is when you talk to yourself either out loud or in your head. So and it can be positive and motivational? Like, yes, I did this, I can do this. I'm great at this. Or it can end up being negative. Oh, why did I choose that? Oh, I'm so stupid. So there are some strategies for managing this one that surprised me as being actually super useful for myself. And I really hope you guys try this, because I was really surprised at how well it worked for me, is talking to myself and the third person. And they've done research on this. And they found that it's actually super effective, it helps put a little distance between what you're saying and yourself. And it kind of separates out some of the emotions that are tied up in that self talk. And so for myself, and my own experience, I find that like motivational self talk is way more effective when I refer to myself as a third person, when I'm motivating myself with self talk. So for example, I'm a runner, and I'm not a fast runner. And when I'm trying to get myself going, I used to say I can do this, I can keep going and I recently changed it to Hannah, you can do this, Hannah, you can keep going. And I realized it's kind of like someone's on the sidelines, like on the sidewalk watching the race. And they're calling that out to me. And it just feels more motivating than me just telling myself that. So give it a shot, see what you think. I also find that it can help cut down on negative self talk. So like if I say to myself, ah, you know, why did I make that stupid decision or whatever. If I had said to me, if I say to myself, Hannah, why did you make that stupid decision, I realized I would never see that to another human being, you know, I would never use that word towards them. And I wouldn't ever talk like that with with someone else. So referring to myself in the third person has really cut back on negative self talk. So naming how you feel in your self talk can also be really helpful. So, you know, saying, I'm feeling very angry right now. Or Hannah, I think you're feeling very angry right now. So give it a shot, email me or send me a message and tell me what you think. All right, next up, thinking like a scientist. This is one of my favorite strategies, and I really love working on this with my clients. So approaching something new by thinking like a scientist and approaching the new thing like an experiment. It lowers the stakes, it can be kind of fun. We know experiments often fail. All the things that have been invented in the world didn't magically work the first time. So these failures led the scientists to figure out what might work next time, it gives it gave them really useful information. So if we think like this, when we're trying new things, it can help us develop really great strong strategies. Another coach that I work with has this strategy that she uses with her clients when they're setting their weekly commitments. So if you're not familiar with executive function coaching with Beyond BookSmart, we have weekly commitments that we give our clients. So these are like a goal that they're working on for the week. Instead of calling it a weekly commitment, she calls it a weekly experiment, which like I said before, lowers the stakes, makes it feel less, makes it feel just less serious. So trying something new is really important, right? So we have to get brave to try the new thing. But I believe the most important thing, the most valuable thing that we can do after we try the new thing is to reflect on it after you try. So when scientists run experiments, they don't just run the experiment, and then run it again. They ask questions. Why ask why get curious? Why did this happen? How did it feel? Did you notice anything? What worked about it? Most importantly, what didn't work about it. So those are the three that I'm covering today, as you'll hear me say, over and over again, in pretty much every episode, that change is super hard, it takes a long time. And it's going to be filled with many of these so called failures. So to manage this, it can help to accept that it takes time, it can help to reframe these failures as a positive thing. And also reach out for help, whether it's from your executive function Coach, your friend, their mom on the playground, after school, your running buddy, whoever you know, will be there for you can be really helpful. If you do have a coach, that is a great person to support you through these new changes, of course, these new strategies that you're trying, it's really nice to have someone acknowledge your effort, you have someone going through the journey with you, it's also having that outside observer and that person is holding space for you, in this judgment free zone, have a coaching session, you know, they're not going to get upset with you. If you try something and it doesn't work, they're going to be excited for you. So take advantage of your coach, take advantage of the person in your life that you have that can support you, you know, as you learn and grow and find what works for you and discover what doesn't work for you. And then through that, find out what does. I really hope that you found something useful in today's episode, I am now going to listen back on it and probably find a bunch of things I wish I had explained more clearly. Or I'll remember another idea that I should have included, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. And if I do, I'm going to talk about it in third person. And I'm gonna write down those ideas that I forgot and I'll be sure to include them in a future episode. So that's it for today. I'm so glad you're here and that you took time out of your day to listen. Be sure to check out the show notes for each episode on our website and subscribe to the podcast at beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We send out an email after every episode with links to resources and tools that we mentioned. Thanks for listening

TranscriptHello, and welcome everybody to the very first episode of Focus Forward, executive function podcast. My name is Hannah Choi, and I am so glad to be your host as we embark on this journey of executive function improvement together. Before we dive into what this podcast is all about, I thought you might want to know a little bit about who the heck you're listening to. I am an executive function coach for Beyond BookSmart. And I have been coaching people since 2017. I live in Connecticut with my family. And if I'm not coaching, you'll probably either find me at my sewing machine or doing something fun outside. If you're listening to this, you might already know the term executive function. But just in case you're not familiar with it, or you want a little refresher, I'll explain it briefly. Our executive functions are these mental skills that we use to get through each day, with greater or less success depending on where our strengths and challenges lie. For example, I'm awesome at time management and prioritizing, but my memory is horrible. Guys, it's really bad. My husband, on the other hand, has no idea what time it is ever, or how long anything will take. But he is way more organized than anyone else I know. Luckily, we make a really good pair. Executive function is a bit of a mouthful, so we usually call it EF for short. So when you hear me refer to it as EF, you'll know what I mean. So about the podcasts, some episodes will be a quick bite, a small introduction to a topic related to executive functions. I'll offer some suggestions for strategies, maybe something you can try in your own life if you're feeling up to it. Other episodes will be more of a deep dive into habits and behaviors and the nature of transformative thinking. I'll interview some parents whose children have gone through or are currently working with an executive function coach, I'll chat with college and adult clients who have a coach still or who have graduated from EF coaching. And I'll check in with them and see how they're doing. I'll ask some executive function experts to talk about their own experiences and share what works for them. Some of you may be working with an executive function coach yourself. And some of you may be the parent or guardian of a young person in coaching. Or maybe you just stumbled across this podcast and you're wondering what the heck executive functions are. Whatever situation you're in, listen to these episodes to pick up tips, strategies and more support for you or your child's executive function skill development journey. Something I've been working on myself is getting better at asking for help, and being open to new ideas. So as hard as it has been for me to seek help, I do have to say that my life is richer for it. So kudos to you for listening, for being open to new ideas and asking for help in whatever form that is for you. If you get anything out of these podcasts, I hope that it's that you remember that change is really, really hard. And it can take a really, really long time. Being gentle with yourself, and your child can be a really helpful place to start. We're all just doing our best right? Having a coach for some support is an effective way to make change in your life. But you can do this even if you're working on improving your executive function skills without a coach. Consider what your priorities and your goals are. Find strategies that resonate with you and work on them consistently and thoughtfully. Personally, I am super excited to be hosting this podcast. Just because I'm an EF coach does not mean I have stellar executive functions. I have to work daily to support my own EF challenges. So I am super excited to see what I'm going to learn on this podcast journey. And this is a podcast for everybody. Whether you're part of the Beyond book smart family or not, I am just so glad you're here and you're taking time out of your day to listen, thank you. Be sure to check out the show notes for each episode on our website, and subscribe at beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We'll send out an email after every episode with links to resources and tools that we mentioned. Thanks for listening everybody. Bye