Executive Functioning Coaches Prove to be Immensely Helpful

Parents regularly tell us, “My child is so bright but just cannot seem to get their work done. They can sit for hours at the computer and not finish any of their homework.” They try their best to help their child stay focused and give them pointers on how to structure their study time. The give them love and assurance, hoping to build their self esteem and provide them with the opportunity to grow and develop into happy, productive young adults. Yet, as so often happens, the child just cannot follow-through on their assignments and becomes distracted by social media and their cell phones. Parents come to us frustrated, asking us to help them get their child back on track and moving in a positive direction.

We recommend that we provide the child with an Executive Functioning Coach. Executive Functioning Coaches help students organize their assignments, prioritize which assignments need to be completed first, sustain their attention long enough to get all of their work done, and monitor their behavior so they can accomplish their goals and get good grades. Moreover, our coaches can tutor the kids in certain subjects if there are deficits in their understanding and need to catch up. These coaches are not therapists, but rather they act as academic managers or coaches that help the students stay abreast of their work and help learn the necessary skills to become autonomous learners.

The goals of all of this work is to teach the student how to manage their workload independently. We are hoping to cultivate new skills and habits that will enable them to regulate their own behavior and become self reliant. Our objective is not to keep the student coming back to our classes indefinitely. The bottom line is we want them to learn how to do these things for themselves so that our services become unnecessary.