Introduction

The sign above seems almost funny, but to the family living with a chronically disorganized AD(H)D child, it is a daily struggle that is often both debilitating and frustrating.

When we speak of such a child, we are not talking about the boy that likes to have his toys scattered across the floor where he can see them, or the teen that prefers to kick dirty clothes under the bed because of her ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy, or the adult that can never find his keys, or his wallet, or his phone…

Instead, we are talking about something much more damaging: the child that cannot organize his/her possessions or academic ideas and who, as a result, finds that he/she has no control over life in school or at home.

Such a child lives a confidence-shattering experience that daily involves other children calling him ‘stupid’, and adults that view her as simply ‘lazy.’

Imagine living a life that is filled, each and every day, with people pointing fingers at you, reminding you of your failures to pick up your socks, or to bring in your homework, and then it happening, over and over again.

Think about how you would feel having to listen to adults say, ‘But I’ve told you a million times…’

For the chronically disorganized child, his/her life is often miserable.

They deserve better, and we can make it much better for them!

As we begin to look at why your child is who she is, it is vitally important that you understand one core point:

If your child could, she would!

Please put that sentence on your fridge!

No child wants to be the butt of daily negative attention; however your child does not know how to help himself.

Your child is merely bumping up against a giant boulder every day, and the pain is great.

Instead, we need to teach your child how to get around the boulder that is called chronic disorganization or, to use its fancy name, Executive Dysfunction.

If you are reading this and generally agree that the above is a reasonable description of your child, you and your child are likely caught in a long-term negative educational cycle.

You must take action to reclaim your child before the cycle of despair becomes too destructive.

What happens in school to these children?

The information below refers to high school students, but if not there already, your child may become one of these statistics in the blink of an eye,

How will you prepare? The IEP or 504 provided to your child may be a lifeline. Or it may just become another failed bureaucratic experiment.

The statistics below are most concerning, but rarely spoken about by schools, and they offer an indication as to why parents need to understand that the creation of the IEP or 504 represents both the end of the first leg in your journey, and the start of another, for the journey for the AD(H)D student never ends.

Prevalence and Characteristics of School Services for High School

Students: Desiree W. Murray 2014, National Library of Medicine

Please note that these statistics are pre-Covid; post-Covid, these statistics are likely much higher!

Just over 50% of AD(H)D students are receiving school services through an IEP or 504 Plan; for too many students, the lack of parent or teacher advocacy sees them miss out.

Very few students with AD(H)D receive any additional help, without first having an IEP or 504 Plan

Almost all provided services are academic in nature; few proffered services foster the AD(H)D’s student’s vital areas of social-emotional growth, behavioral support, or learning strategy.

30% of struggling AD(H)D students repeat a grade

56% of students with this profile receive tutoring-much of it representing wasted time and money, and kids hate it!

Fewer than 25% of school interventions for executive dysfunction are evidence-based.

Students receiving services showed greater behavioral needs than those not receiving services.

AD(H)D students generally have lower grade point averages

More of these struggling executive functioning students are placed in lower level classes

The rate of absenteeism among AD(H)D students is eight times higher than the norm

Older students receive fewer services than those aged 9-12 years

A majority of IEPs are poorly executed by teachers.

Children with AD(H)D have the core challenge of executive dysfunction that is an umbrella name for a number of issues contained within: initiation, emotional dysregulation, weak organization, impulsivity, a lack of attention, and focus.

With no formal diagnosis and support, many find themselves languishing in classes that do not reflect their abilities.

So, what can a parent do to reclaim their child?

Click below to receive your FREE ebook AD(H)D-Executive Deficit Disorder- How to Support Your Chronically Disorganized Child.

If you find the information contained within to be a little overwhelming, do not hesitate to contact me at brendan@iepparentingvirginia.org.

I wish you all luck!

Brendan

AD(H)D-Executive Deficit Disorder-

How to Support Your Chronically Disorganized Child

Foreword:

Parenting The Child With Executive Dysfunction Issues

Parenting of a child with EF issues is not for the faint of heart.

It requires tremendous energy, patience, and commitment to a long term plan for your child’s success. You have to learn to hang in and hang on.

As parents in it for the long haul with your EF child, you need to create a self-care plan aimed at supporting yourselves.

In order to give off yourselves as completely as you will wish, you will need to take care of yourselves, and of each other.

Parents should not be afraid to ask for help. Your family and friends are not mind readers. They understand that your child requires extra support, but unless you tell them exactly what they may do to help, they can’t do anything for you.

Help from friends and family is important; the creation of a long-term Parent Master Plan (PMP) is essential. It is only with such a plan in place that you can guide your struggling EF child through the landmines -academic, social, and emotional- that the school experience creates.

Chapter 1

Help! My Child is Chronically Disorganized!

Signs of Executive-Functioning Deficit (EF)

Most struggling children display executive functioning deficits such as those listed below, with the name of each issue mentioned in parenthesis:

Difficulty in starting and completing tasks ( Initiation)

A lack in the ability to handle frustration ( Emotional or self-regulation)

Struggles to recall and follow multi-step directions ( Working memory )

Inability to stay on track, plan, organize, and self-monitor (Organization)

School performance affected by lost papers or assignments ( Organization)

School means forgotten homework, last minute work, and careless mistakes (Impulsivity; time blindness)

Does not know how to begin long-term assignments (Initiation, time management, organization)

Workspaces, desks and backpacks resemble black holes (Organization)

At home, mornings can be chaotic with misplaced clothing, sports equipment, and school materials are a routine occurrence. ( Organization)

Chores don’t get done unless nagging is constant (Memory, time management)

Emotional outbursts are common ( Emotional regulation)

Parents hold their breath every time their high school child gets behind the wheel of a car ( Parent anxiety and exhaustion!)

So, why is my child so desperately disorganized?

First, and most importantly, always remember that EF has nothing to do with intelligence!

There is a scientific answer, and there is the layman’s. For the latter, an image will suffice.

Imagine that you have a pair of wired earbuds in your pocket or purse. When you go to use them, you find that, every time without fail, they have somehow become tangled; sometimes seriously so.

That’s your chronically confused child’s brain when it comes to organizational issues. It is constantly tangled.

The scientific term is executive dysfunction: a daily inability to organize ideas and possessions in a manner that is, at the very least embarrassing, often humiliating, and that acts to impede personal and educational growth.

11% of children in the USA are diagnosed as having EF, usually within a medical diagnosis of AD(H)D.

While it is interesting to know and understand the origins of the challenge, it does not change life’s daily experience for the child.

The only way in which the child’s experience is ultimately changed is by providing him/her with the toolkit needed to make positive, permanent change.

Think of how old your child is, and multiply the years by 365 days. That is how long he/she has been living with this struggle, and its debilitating effects.

It takes time to unlearn the experience of a lifetime, but improvement is possible if the child and family, teachers, and others, are willing to make the commitment.

Note: Weaknesses in the area of executive functioning do not disappear; however, they can become better with age, and with access to a program of improvement that emphasizes tremendous structure, advocacy, and coaching.

Chapter 2

It’s All About the Brain!

“ I would not be just a nothin',

My head all full of stuffing,

My heart all full of pain.

I would dance and be merry,

Life would be a dingle derry,

If I only had a brain.”

So, why is LeBron James great at basketball, and you are not?

Why is your oldest child a wonderful artist, but your youngest can barely hold a pencil?

Why is it that your EF son’s bedroom is a total disaster, no matter what you try?

Why are you successful as an adult, and yet, your reputation is of one who is always late to everything?

And on it goes-all because our brains are wired differently. Everything we do-cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally- is the result of how our brains are wired.

There are eight identifiable and interrelated domains within the brain that impact each person’s life; some offer areas of strength; some are average, and some are areas of weakness.

This includes the Executive Functioning domain that when it is not working effectively impedes a child’s ability to practically function in the family, at school, in a career, a relationship, and inside the larger community.

You cannot begin to understand your EF child’s challenges, or start to create a plan for his/her growth, without a clear understanding of his or her neurodevelopment.

It is only with a profile in hand that you can begin to look at your child’s possibilities and challenges in a holistic manner, and to create a plan accordingly.

A neurodevelopmental profile is designed to help you understand how your child’s brain impacts everything, both in strengths and challenges.

The late Dr. Mel Levine of Duke University wrote numerous books on the subject of learning, and how it is impacted by strengths and weaknesses inside various domains to be found in the brain, including a domain focussed related to executive functioning.

He describes a co-morbid interaction between the eight domains, indicating that there can be a simultaneous presence of two or more learning conditions in play at the same time.

For this reason, a screening focused exclusively on just one learning domain will likely only tell a part of the child’s academic story.

Creating an inclusive profile is the work of professional psychologists, and your calling on one may be necessary down the road.

However, for our purposes, we offer a FREE screening that is specifically designed to explain your child’s profile to you in a simple, commonsense fashion, and to provide you with a direction going forward.

In Chapter 3 below, you will find an example of the questions we ask in our screening regarding each domain.

Do not hesitate to contact me at Brendan@iepparentingvirginia.org for your FREE copy. On returning it completed, I will reach out to you with its scoring and an easy-to understand report for you to use with school and medical profession.

Chapter 3

Does My Child Have Executive Dysfunction?

Executive Dysfunction: an inability to organize self, possessions, or ideas

This screening below for Executive Functioning skills is a sample of our larger screening instrument designed to help parents better understand their child’s neurodevelopmental development.

If your “yes” answers outnumber your “no” answers, it likely indicates the possible presence of AD(H)D characteristics which are, at their core, executive dysfunction issues.

Remember: only a medical professional may diagnose your child as having AD(H)D; however; it requires only powers of observation, common sense, and time around the child for a person to understand the child’s challenges with executive functioning

However, because EF is an umbrella term for a multitude of challenges, a parent’s next step needs to involve the services of an experienced advocate and coach to provide the essential support in negotiating support from the school.

Chapter 4 Executive Dysfunction: The Elementary School Child

Elementary school is a critical time for the development of EF skills.

Your child may begin to show difficulties in both academics and behavior that negatively impact their experience in the classroom.

Your child may show difficulties with initiation and completion of work in class; may have difficulty moving from one task to another easily; become frustrated easily, especially when trying to follow directions, and may find it difficult with focus, as needed by the teacher. The self-control he/she needs, but lacks, in order to work with others or to sit attentively at a desk may be missing.

This is often when small behavioral issues begin to arise. Your child is now viewed by the teacher as inattentive, not following rules, missing concepts, poorly organized with a very messy desk, and as using time for fooling around; not for a focus on work.

Parents and teachers then begin a program of reprimands, bribes, and threats that have no (outward) impact on the child. Meanwhile, as time moves on, the gap between the child’s performance and experience, and that of his/her peers. just gets wider and deeper.

Soon, your child is labeled by the school, and he/she begins to self-label as ‘stupid.

By 3rd grade, too many children with executive issues have come to view school as a negative experience.

Chapter 5

Executive Dysfunction: The Middle School Child

Parents will find that middle school can be hell for many kids with EF issues.

Children with weak executive functioning issues often find it hard to navigate the swift currents of middle school, and as a result, many will continue to fall further behind: academically, socially, and emotionally.

Many now begin to miss work deadlines, lose assignments, and drop balls as executive function deficits become more apparent. Chronic absenteeism is not uncommon, sometimes leading to long-term school refusal.

The academic issue is simple to understand: in elementary school, one homeroom teacher directs most of the day, and it is easier to structure the EF child’s experience in the self-contained classroom.

In middle school, your EF child must deal with multiple teachers each day, each teaching in a different style, and each with individual expectations.

The elementary teacher, working in the environment of a cozy, secure classroom knows your child’s profile, and can adjust, as needed. It becomes much harder in middle school to ensure that all the adults your EF child encounters will take the time to understand his/her challenges, and how best to address them.

Socially, middle school is all about jockeying for position within the tribe, and the EF child who is viewed by peers as immature, disorganized, ‘stupid’, and so on, will have a harder time navigating and keeping his/her head above water. The daily social minefields that lie just under the surface of the water are everywhere.

Chapter 6

Executive Dysfunction: The High School Child

By high school, students are expected to be largely independent in their learning.

Now, the lack of EF skills can seriously interrupt your child’s educational experience, just when they are most needed to meet ever-accelerated expectations.

As a result, this is also often a time when previously successful or slightly marginal students with undiagnosed EF issues begin feeling overwhelmed and incompetent.

Although the student’s academic ability has not changed, his/her inability to complete homework, take notes, manage projects, hand in assignments on time, and to organize time and materials to meet competing demands of multiple teachers, work, and extracurricular involvements, can begin affecting his/her academic progress.

For these high school students, their difficulties become more evident, due to the mismatch between their EF skills and the curriculum demands.

Another factor that affects student success at the secondary level is emotional self-regulation. Adolescent developmental changes, combined with new awareness of the family/school environment, can trigger emotional responses which, in turn, may affect the EF child’s ability to learn.

Simply put, all the emotional stresses that developed in the earlier ages as the EF child attempted to find a path forward are now magnified, academically and socially.

Meanwhile, other cracks may be developing; parents just don’t see them.

Chapter 7

So, What Vital EF Skills Does My Child Need to Develop, K-12?

Gradual proficiency and flexibility in thinking,

The ability to plan

Developing skills in self-monitoring and self-control

A strong working memory

Time management and strong organization skills.

What is Flexible Thinking?

This is thinking that allows the child to problem solve or to adjust in order to overcome challenges. This skill also applies to a child’s ability to ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’ and to understand a different way of viewing things.

What is Planning?

This is a child’s ability to think ahead, to create a plan of action, and to prioritize the various parts of the plan. Planning skills allow a child to break down steps effectively and to decide which are the most important, such as giving or following directions.

What is Self-Monitoring?

Self-monitoring involves a child’s skill in self-evaluation while performing a specific task. It allows a child to reflect on progress and to make the necessary adjustments, such as checking work to discover an error.

What is Self-Control?

The skill of self-control is vital in keeping a child from inappropriate physical or emotional outbursts. Impulse control keeps a child from reacting or acting without thinking, and helps a child to avoid overreaction or shutting down when a problem arises.

What is Working Memory?

Working memory is a term used to measure a child’s ability to retain and store learned information and then later put it to use. This skill is crucial to a child’s success in the classroom, as it is responsible for short-term memory and execution. Think of his memory as a file cabinet where files are removed and returned to the organized brain; this skill quickly becomes automatic; for the EF child, files are misplaced and lost.

What is Time Management?

Time management is the child’s skill in organizing his day, week, and month, and the tasks to be achieved, in both the short-term and the long -term. It is really important in school, where the ability to jump from one task to another task is expected to start showing itself in kindergarten.

What is Organization? Solid organization skills allow a person to efficiently arrange materials or ideas in an orderly fashion. Organization is vital to a child’s growth. Efficient organization is displayed when a child can put his math sheet in his math folder, can write a story with a beginning, middle, and end, or can remember to bring needed homework into school for grading.

These competencies are essential to a child’s growth and learning ability, and though development begins in early childhood for most, building these skills may only fully develop for some to in adulthood.

Children with EF issues will show holes in one or more of these areas.

Building all these skills is very difficult for the EF child, but they will be enhanced by the creation of a Parent Mastery Plan (PMP) to guide the child’s growth as a student and as a person.

Chapter 8:

The Parent Master Plan (PMP)

Without a long term, reasonable and flexible plan for your EF child’s development, as both a person and a scholar, he or she is in danger of a path to adulthood that contains many more obstacles than is necessary.

Parents rarely ask the important questions of schools, and too often, they simply cross their fingers, and work on the basis of, “ No news is good news.”

Then, suddenly, they wake up to find that the cracks have become chasms that their child is no longer able to negotiate, and that they are now in danger of overwhelming him/her.

This is rarely a strategy for long-term success, but It does not have to be like this.

Parents can become intentional in planning for the success of their EF child.

Today, and going forward, parents need a personalized plan for their EF child, but few know how to create an effective, individualized one.

However, for the parent of an EF child, a plan for their child’s future growth: physically, emotionally, socially, and academically is a no-brainer.

Moreover, so long as the plan is flexible, doable, does not cause the EF child undue stress, and keeps his/her needs at the forefront at all times, it is actually essential.

However, without the profile of the child and the creation of a plan based around it, soon all parents will be putting out the daily hurricane surrounding your child, and not building a child that can sustain any storm.

Why is the PMP Essential For Parents?

Planning is vital; otherwise, you will spend the time simply putting out the daily fires, and without direction for future growth.

A plan allows you to focus on building your child’s other strengths, while working on the EF challenges. Over time, the focus on strengths will yield the most dividends.

It allows for your child's growth in three different, but interrelated areas- School, Family, and Community-to be addressed at the same time; although the focus will naturally shift week-to-week.

A plan allows you, as the parent, to be in greater control, no matter what the immediate issue.

The plan allows you to stay focussed, and to anticipate problems and opportunities.

By offering parents greater control, the plan allows you to become more relaxed and less stressed in dealing with your child on a daily basis.

Chapter 10

What is to be found in an effective Parent Master Plan?

A Vision Statement that paints a picture of your child’s future. In twelve months, my child will be able to regulate his emotions and will have the tools to allow him to take greater control of his educational and personal lives. In 24 months, he will have been built on this foundation to believe that he controls his own future.”

A Personal Mission Plan as to why you are working with the child.“As the parent (s), I will commit to building a partnership with educational and/or medical professionals, and others, to ensure the personal and educational growth of my child.”

A Strategy for Future Growth-the roadmap that offers direction. “My Personal Master Plan will consist of a number of phases. In Phase 1, I will create a physical and neurodevelopmental profile of my child and use it as the basis for creating a full-blown plan. In Phase 2….”

The creation of Stretch Goals. These should be written as outcomes: “ My child will be able to…..”

The Timeline that explains the needed actions and completion date for each one. Hopefully, I will have a profile of my child complete in one month. At the same time, during June, I will also be working on…”

A Holistic profile of the child’s academic, social, physical and emotional strengths and EF challenges that will form the foundations of the Parent Master Plan.

Our Master Parent Plan (PMP) for Your Chronically Disorganized Child

Our Parent Master Plan (PMP) for parents is designed to walk you step-by-step, and in your own time, through the process you will need to follow to ensure that your struggling child receives the support that he/she needs.

Our support falls into three parts:

Providing coaching to the EF child on how to create learning processes and structures that, with constant practice, will lead to becoming a stronger student.

Presently, your EF child is living in a world that is scattered, chaotic, and disorganized.

Helping him to create those personal and academic structures that will lead to greater control over both his academic and personal lives.

EF students consistently fail in putting one foot in front of another, but with a plan he learns how to consistently act.

2. Ensuring that the EF child is given all the support and accommodations he/she is entitled to at school to allow him/her to demonstrate their true ability. We have your back throughout the IEP/504 process involving the school.

What a parent must understand is that the request to have your child found eligible for accommodations in school based on his/her executive functioning as a stand-alone challenge to learning will likely not be enough, and will likely fail.

This is because public schools and districts must apply and abide by a federal law called, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the law as it is written does not directly recognize executive functioning (or its cousin AD(H)D) as a disability.

Unfortunately, this allows many school districts that do not wish to incur the extra expense of teaching the EF child to hide behind the law.

In order to ensure that your EF child receives the help he/she needs in school, the parent must learn to navigate the process and educational system that holds the power, and you do so by becoming your child’s advocate and coach.

3. Supporting your child to build his or her personal assets: as a member in the family; as a part of a larger community in school, athletic teams, or social group, and as a citizen within the wider community.

However, few parents, with other family and work commitments, have either the time or energy to pursue the process, which is where we at IEP Parenting Virginia step in.

We partner with you to ensure that you have someone walking you step-by-step through the educational and legal maze, and to ensure that your child is well-served. Never speak with your child's school alone.

Where school support ends, we ensure that your child develops neglected EF skills such as initiation, planning, and emotional control, and we focus on those ‘soft’ skills such as empathy, inter and intra personal skills, citizenship and leadership.

Your EF child can make great progress over time, both as a student and in personal life, but it requires structure and practice! It means developing systems that will allow for independent functioning in school, the family, and in the community. There will be both failures and successes, but over time, the former will become fewer, to be eclipsed by gradual success.

Conclusion:

So, what is the message to parents of a child struggling with Executive Functioning?

The items below are not intended as accusations. As parents, we all make mistakes, all the time, so let he who is without sin cast the first stone!

They are each a reminder of the type of mistakes we can and do make, to help you avoid them going forward.

It is not effective for you to leave your EF’s child’s future to fate.

It is not effective for you to be passive with your child’s future.

It is not effective for you to hover intently over your EF child.

It is not effective for you to simply cross your fingers, or to light a candle.

It is not effective for you to believe you can buy your EF child’s future.

It is not effective for you to think you can force success on your EF child.

It is not effective for you to place blind trust in your school-trust, but verify.

It is not effective for you to always listen to friends and family-they are not walking in your shoes.

It is not effective for you to compare your EF child to others.

Instead, build that profile and plan that will allow you to address both EF challenges and opportunities for your child going forward.

A neurodevelopmental profile means more than trying to buy, bully, ignore, hover over, or force your child towards success.

As parents, you wish to do the right thing for their EF child, but you could fail unless you commit to creating a plan of success for your child. With a profile of your child, and with a plan in place based on that profile, and with a good understanding of yourselves as people and parents, you can begin to reimagine your child’s future in a positive manner.

I wish you the best as a family.

Brendan@iepparentingvirginia.org.