KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Season 1 Top 10 | #2 Understanding Executive Function. A Conversation with Seth Perler.
We're continuing summer break with #2 of our Top 10 Season 1 episodes.
Can a child's self-esteem and academic performance be profoundly impacted by the labels they receive? This is one of the many crucial questions we explore in our re-release of a cherished episode with Seth Perler, a passionate advocate for children with ADHD and executive function challenges. Kaity and Adriane dive into the significant effects of inhibited dopamine function on children's behavior and development. They discuss learning differences, emphasizing the importance of advocating for each child's unique strengths and addressing the systemic roadblocks that can hinder their progress.
You'll leave this episode with actionable strategies to assist children grappling with executive function hurdles. Whether establishing a curated study environment or breaking down organizational skills into color-coded victories, we look beyond the typical toolbox, encouraging positive reinforcement and the delicate art of advocacy without hovering.
In this episode, we share our journeys from struggling students to empowered educators and advocates for kids with executive function challenges. Hear how negative labels shaped our self-esteem and academic performance, and how a chance job working with children kindled our passion for teaching. We also critique the disconnect between educational administrators and the real-world challenges faced by teachers and students, underscoring the need to nurture each child's strengths and interests to help them thrive.
We also provide practical strategies for managing executive function challenges, such as using planners and organizing personal spaces, and we delve into the relationship between executive function and sensory issues, particularly in twice-exceptional (2E) children.
This episode is packed with actionable insights and heartfelt stories, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to make a difference in a child's life.
ABOUT THE GUEST:
Seth wears many hats in the Executive Function, Neurodiversity, ADHD, 2e, and Education worlds: activist, coach, speaker, educator, vlogger, and guy who cares about seeing outside-the-box kids succeed. Seth also runs TEFOS, The Executive Function Online Summit.
At the heart of
Got a story to share or question you want us to answer? Send us a message!
About the podcast:
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
Got a burning question?
We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
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Welcome to the Kindle podcast. We have another re-release for you, and I have Katie here with me. And so, katie, what is this re-release? We're number two. This is our second favorite of season one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope you guys have all been enjoying these re-releases this summer and that your summer is going so wonderfully well. We're gearing up. Next week will be our last re-release and then it'll be time to start school and everything will start going again. We're excited for season two, but this week we are re-releasing episode 31 understanding executive function, with Seth Perler. Adrienne, what were your favorite moments or ideas from this podcast?
Speaker 1:Honestly, getting to meet Seth, because it's kind of like what Bill sticks through. I've been a huge fan. I've been following Seth and his work and he has transformed the way I interact with my child with ADHD. So just recently I read a book called the Boy Crisis. I would love to have the author on for season two and he has a whole section I've been telling everyone about this a whole section on ADHD and he calls it inhibited dopamine function and so, reflecting on what I read in that book, to what we talked about with Seth, I'm like, oh my gosh. And then he really dives into the causes of it. I'm like there's almost no way to live in America and not have a child with some kind of inhibited dopamine function, because there's just so many different causes for it. You know we're not going to dive into all of that because, however, I just really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I appreciate Seth's heart. I really do. You can tell that man cares, he cares about humans and so, yes, he has a great YouTube channel and he has, you know, his executive function lab has been up and running. We had talked to him about releasing that. So he had some learning over comfort and dare greatly there, and so it's just really cool to see the work he does in the world, and it's because he cares so much. What about you? What were some key moments that you really liked about this episode with Seth?
Speaker 2:I just love how real Seth is and how he explains things in a very practical way. You never feel like I don't know what you're talking about. He's just very real and candid and you can tell that he spends a lot of time with middle schoolers and high schoolers. And he's just very real and candid and you can tell he spends a lot of time with middle schoolers and high schoolers and he's just really, really fun and interesting. So I really enjoyed this and I hope you guys all enjoy this re-release of episode 31, understanding Executive Function with Seth Perler.
Speaker 3:We have a metric called F, which means fail, and that means that the kid failed. Is that story true? No, that is not true. We have that the kid failed. Is that story true? No, that is not true. We have failed the kid.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Kindled podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling, the motivation, curiosity and mental well-being of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 1:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Kindle podcast. Hi, adrienne, how's it going today? It's going well. How are you today? I am doing great Nothing to report here at the Broadbent House. How about you? What's going on with you guys?
Speaker 1:I feel like we're just kind of in a good rhythm. I really like steady rhythms. It's great. But I was thinking about today we're going to be talking about executive function and planning skills and organizational skills. And you know, some of my kids are really organized and then others not so much, and so I know I'm probably going to be taking some notes today.
Speaker 1:But my one, he's my youngest, and so he wanted to go on Canva, which, if you don't know, canva is an online design program, right? Yeah, it's a design program, yep, and we use it at Prenda. And so he wanted to go on Canva. So he made this flyer for all of his friends and he took it to school. He's really excited. And then he's making something else he learned how to print. He didn't need my help. I'm on a different computer. I go over to the printer and I look at it and it is an invitation for his birthday party. I didn't know anything about this. At a local indoor like skate park. He had the time on there his birthday. Uh, two days after his birthday he must've looked at a calendar. I was like, wow, this takes a lot of planning and organization. Now we just have to call the place to see if it's available and how much it is and do the actual planning. But I love that he just assumptively closed the fact that he's going to have his birthday party at this indoor skate park.
Speaker 2:Way to take the bull by the horns there. That's great. I love that, and it does remind me of our guest Today. We're going to talk to Seth Perler and I'm going to tell you a little bit about him. Right now. Seth wears a lot of hats in the executive function, neurodiversity, adhd, 2e and education worlds Activist, coach, speaker, educator, vlogger and guy who cares about seeing outside the box kids succeed. Seth also runs TEFOS, the executive function online summit. At the heart of it, seth helps struggling learners navigate a baffling system so they can launch a successful future. And it all has to do with executive function. His weekly vlog at sethperlercom gives Gabe changing answers in a sea of misguided educational fluff. So let's get to our conversation with Seth Perler.
Speaker 1:Welcome, seth Perler. We are so excited to talk to you today. I have been following you for quite some time and literally so many things that you say and that you have taught parents, you've taught me and it has really changed my life. So thank you for being here today.
Speaker 3:Thanks, adrienne, for saying that, and thank you, adrienne and Katie, for doing what you do. I want to really acknowledge just how much goes on behind the scenes for everybody listening, and thank you for all the heart and time and effort and energy and love you put into what you do.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So let's just jump right into it and tell us about your background, how you came to the work that you're doing in education, and what is your big why.
Speaker 3:I'll start with my why. My why is related to my background, is that I was that kid. I was this kid who struggled. My mom just sent me a bunch of photos and things recently and report cards and all that stuff and just seeing this from really from first grade on kindergarten was fine.
Speaker 3:But first grade, first grade I start getting comments like does not pay attention, needs to work harder, needs to try harder, isn't putting forth effort, doesn't know how to focus, easily distracted, all these sorts of things, these executive function things. But the message you know really that I took away from it was I'm lazy, I'm a failure, I can't do anything right and that sort of thing. And that's again starts and started for me in first grade and by the time I was in middle school is pretty just doing the bare minimum. And then by high school I was really doing the very bare minimum unless, as you two can probably guess, I had a teacher that I loved and content that I loved or a project that I loved. But if it wasn't high interest or there was no relationship with the teacher, I almost failed out of high school, went to college because I thought I was supposed to failed out of college, went to another college, almost failed out but then dropped out because I figured out that you could drop out before failing out, and then tried to figure out what the heck was going on with life and I eventually started working with kids completely by accident, just got a job. I did not care what job I had, I just got a job from the newspaper, started working with kids, fell in love with it.
Speaker 3:Six months later I was driving in Indianapolis one day on a road called Spring Mill Road, around this bend I had long, long hair at the time this little stick shift. I'm driving and I'm smiling ear to ear and I'm like you know what? I'm going to serve kids for the rest of my life and I didn't know that you could do other things than teach. But I was like I'm going to become a teacher and I went back to school, did not fail out, went to Indiana University and ended up being asked to speak at my graduation, which is crazy that going from that person who felt like such a failure is asked by the school of education to speak to represent my class. It just was a real honor for me, but it really was, because I was doing something I loved and I started figuring out executive function stuff and I really came from the heart and I think all these students that learn to come from the heart and where we guide them as adults in their lives to attune with what's in their heart and their strengths and their interests and their talents and what matters to them.
Speaker 3:But anyhow, I became a teacher and taught for 12 years and, as a lot of teachers do, you know, at least in the United States became very disillusioned and I want to make very clear that I love teachers and appreciate teachers and we need you teachers.
Speaker 3:We need you. But for me I felt like I was being limited in terms of doing my life's work, that I couldn't do my best work there, that I that the job got in the way of the job. So I really really really like complicated, struggling kids, like that is my jam, like that's what makes me happy and I like helping them figure out that they're just crazy awesome and that they've got it. So I left teaching and started doing what I'm doing now and I wear a lot of different hats now in the executive function world, primarily in ADHD, neurodiversity and 2E and all of these sort of big interests I have, but really all under the umbrella of these awesome kids who have executive function challenges and struggles, who are neurodivergent, very interesting outside the box thinkers, and that they're struggling and they need to learn executive function skills so that they can really do whatever they want to with their life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think a lot of humans have said that sentence before. You might be the first person to say that sentence.
Speaker 1:And I love what drove you was. You said everything comes from the heart, and in your work I can feel that you can tell there's such a passion there, and isn't that incredible. Once that we're able to tap into what matters to us and that purpose, then that's when the motivation comes to do Cause. If you said you like you went to school and you dropped out and then you left and you know it's like, then all of a sudden you found what ignited this passion within you to work with kids, which is pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm very, very fortunate that I fell into it, because I feel like I was born for this and this is I'm living on purpose.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. So I have two follow-ups that came to mind. One I kind of want to poke out, like what was the core of your disillusionment with teaching? Like you said, the job was getting in the way of the job. Like, tell me more about that.
Speaker 3:And then my second follow-up that we can get to after that is, what was the effect of being labeled as a child For me? What was at the core of the job? Getting in the way of the job? There are a few things. One thing and I want to say this delicately, but then again I don't I don't mean to like call out administrators, but the pattern of administrators being disconnected from reality and human beings was astounding to me, and the turnover in administrations. And then an administrator comes into a school and then the whole school culture changes and then it's.
Speaker 3:I had that experience and that was something that was that I looked up to these people and I saw them as leaders, as very competent people, as confident in all these things, and and I and you start off a school year and you really feel like so supported and all this stuff. And then for me I felt like there was so many hoops to jump through to show that you're playing the game for data purposes, and some teachers are really good at shutting the door and to their classroom. This is a if you're a parent and you haven't heard the saying. But there there's a saying. You know, just shut your door and do what the kids need to do. I don't know if that's the saying, but there's a sentiment right, just shut your classroom door and do what you need to do to do. I don't know if that's the saying, but there's a sentiment. Right, just shut your classroom door and do what you need to do. And some teachers are very good at doing that, separating out. You know. Okay, this is what is expected. This is what things have to look like on paper. This is how to prep for tests. They can kind of balance that and still and I am not good at playing the game like that the way things are set up we need people who can play that game. We need people who can play that. Kids need people who can play that game.
Speaker 3:I was not good at it. I'm the type of person where that stuff keeps me up at night. So I think that the pressures from the districts or the administration or the board or what have you to do whatever they perceive as valuable, that they measure. There's a saying that not everything that's measured matters and not everything that matters is measurable. But those pressures drove me nuts.
Speaker 3:I wanted to serve. I am there to help kids. I have 24 hours in the day, 16 waking hours, way too many of them spent with school stuff anyway as far as somebody's mental health and how much they get paid and stuff like that. And then there's all these other who it just was. It was absolutely exhausting and I have a lot of energy even to this day, but back then I mean I just I could go and burn the candle at both ends and just work nights, work weekends. It took me years before I came to a point where I'm like I got to take one day every weekend off, like I need to have a day where I do not work. I don't know if people know how much teachers work, but they work through their lunches, they work through their work periods, they get there early, they stay late, they take stuff home and they work on weekends.
Speaker 3:Not every teacher, but I would say probably the majority of teachers. So I just really was like I I've got work to do here and so I don't know, katie, if that answers your question, but I think a lot of the hoops to jump through, I would say we're sort of at the root of Roots to jump through in terms of measuring things that didn't necessarily matter, how much energy was put into things that didn't matter much and how much things that mattered were not attended to because of the the school culture systems paradigms we have.
Speaker 2:I just find that so ironic because I don't think all of those people are sitting in a room thinking how can we make the teacher's job harder, how can we get in the way of learning Right, like they're all thinking how can we serve kids better too, but, like what you said, like they're disconnected, and I think that maybe that's the root of it is just like the people in the room serving the kids aren't the people in the room making the decisions.
Speaker 3:And I would love to hear from administrators on this. Every time I make a video or ask things, but I never get feedback from them. But I have a theory that the people who are hired to be administrators and whatever the people who hire them are looking for, that they're hiring people who are inherently data people. The district is hoping they'll make things look good. I mean, obviously the idea is that the data means that certain results are happening, but clearly, in terms of practical everyday life, we can all see that we are really missing the mark. We're really shortchanging kids. I mean again, thank goodness for the teachers because they were lifesavers and they somehow are able to help kids emotionally, socially, academically in so many ways that people don't notice and they're just lifesavers. So thank goodness for them because, despite all and 50% of teachers leave by year five that's a disgusting statistic. You think about that. That's that shows you how, what we prioritize, we clearly do not value education.
Speaker 2:Well, that makes me think. A minute ago, you said we need people who can play the game, but if only 50 percent of people, five years in, can maintain the game, it's the game that needs to change. We're doing the same thing to teachers that we're doing to kids. Right, you can't jump through these hoops. You're failing, it's your fault, not like, oh, this system must be. Let's take a look at what we're asking or what we're requiring of you, right? We're just kind of passing the buck. Is it the kid's fault? Is it teacher's fault? Like I hear parents get blamed a lot. Like it really takes the whole community to come together and solve this problem.
Speaker 3:Yep, parents get blamed, teachers get blamed, schools get blamed, whatever, and then, in a way, kids get blamed and I'll tell you how that looks. So I don't know if you guys have heard me talk about the grades. First of all, I think letter grades are archaic, outdated. First of all, I think letter grades are archaic, outdated.
Speaker 1:We do too. Katie could talk all about what we had to do because we did not want to do grades at Prenda.
Speaker 3:We have a metric called F, which means fail, and that means that the kid failed. Is that the story? Is that story true? No, that is not true. We have failed the kid. But that's the story in terms of the whole paradigm we have when we're not using most valuable metrics and really consciously and intentionally considering the purposes of assessment and how it impacts somebody and helps them and serves them.
Speaker 2:But we are, all the while doing this grades thing, also talking about growth mindset and trying to help encourage kids to fail, and it's like, well, we've put them in a system that punishes them for doing the thing that the poster on the wall says that they're supposed to do, so that creates a low trust environment that makes them really like hesitant to participate.
Speaker 3:Well, you had another question. I don't know.
Speaker 2:The effect of being labeled as a child.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So being labeled as a child, you know it's funny, because for me I was not labeled. I didn't know I had ADHD until I'd been teaching for years.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Interesting.
Speaker 1:But what about the labels of not being able to focus and distracted and lazy? And those labels?
Speaker 3:What I want to say about that is that those labels were either directly stated or implied, but my nervous system and my narrative in my mind made for me two big words lazy failure. I'm a lazy failure. Now there are other things that my brain said. I can't do anything right. This is stupid. Why do I have to do this? When am I ever going to use this, all those sorts of things? But my primary narrative that helped me not take risks and, katie, you mentioned the word safe when I felt unsafe the primary narrative that I used was a lazy failure. I'm just a lazy failure, that's just the way. It is Not a growth mindset, I'm just a lazy failure.
Speaker 3:So the labels, even if they were implied and I'm going to say this too for all you listeners the implications that I'm a lazy failure or that I'm just a motivated or I just need to try hard enough, or whatever the implications when they weren't stated could even have been through body language, meaning a teacher's snide, contemptuous breath. You know, having worked with kids over 20 years, like kids pick up on very subtle things and they pick up on it very intensely. I think we forget is that how intense life feels as a kid. So a kid feels shamed by a teacher just from very, very body language that maybe nobody else in the classroom would have even picked up on.
Speaker 2:When I have guides come to me and they're like I'm frustrated with this kid, he's not doing this, like I want him to do X, y or Z, and like what should I do? What should I say, and I'm like, no, no, no, no. How do you feel about him? Because you have to get your heart right towards that kid. You have to decide to like that kid. You have to decide to see a bright future for him and believe that he is next Like, once you see the child deeply and profoundly and positively, what to do will just your. Your intuition about what to do and how to treat that human will just flow from you, you. You will not need a script from me, um, but it's really hard to to pare that down and to get like. It's like a heart work.
Speaker 3:It's hard to deprogram ourselves from an unlearn. What is so? And I even think about, like you know, when I talk about the work that I do and I really like that you guys talk about the nervous system and like that you're, you're going back to that person saying how do you feel? Because and I'll do that with parents Like I'll be, like I just noticed your shoulders did this, or voice did this. I want them to notice what's going on internally for them, so that they can hear the narrative that they grew up with and how it is in their mind, so that they can question it and then change it and then respond differently to these kids.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we have to take a step even further before what we're believing about the kid, what are we believing about ourselves? Because so many of us believe that their behavior means something about us, you know, based on generational patterns and all those things. So I think it's really important to understand and to be in tune with how we feel in our bodies and then we can start really thinking about okay, what are our beliefs about these kids? So, okay, can we dive into executive function for our listeners who may not be familiar.
Speaker 1:Honestly, before I heard you talk about executive function, seth, a couple of years ago, I had never heard of it, I was not familiar with it whatsoever, and I had a child who diagnosed ADHD, gifted another child OCD, anxiety, pda, and I learned. A child who diagnosed ADHD gifted another child OCD anxiety, pda, and I learned about PDA also from that same podcast. And so some people may be listening and they've never heard the term executive function, or maybe they have, but they're not quite sure what it means. Can you please like, tell us what it is and then also what its significance is in the context of learning?
Speaker 3:Yeah, most people listening probably haven't heard of it. Most parents and teachers have never heard of it and when I was teaching, I never heard of it until the end of my teaching career. And when I when I heard about it and I was like what, what, what is this? And then I started learning about it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is the thing that ties all those complicated, struggling kiddos. That's my jam, this is the thing that they all have in common. This is an umbrella term for me that encompasses all of these kids, complicated kids that are struggling. So executive function means and it doesn't matter if there's a diagnosis or not like if they're struggling, it has to do with executive function almost all the time. There may be exceptions, but generally speaking, that. So what it means is it's how the front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, the frontal lobe if you put your hand on your forehead, it's that area, a third of the brain behind your forehead that part of the brain helps us to executive, execute executive function. How the brain functions to help us execute tasks. What kind of tasks? Homework, cleaning your room, organizing the books behind you. Adrienne or Katie, you both have different organizing ways of doing that, to get a driver's license, to do a job application, a college application, to play video games, anything that, any task that the brain has to do. Now let's look at a task like playing video games. You might think, well, how is that executive function? Well, that is a preferred activity for most kids, so it's going to look like you know. Oh well, that matters. Yeah, it does matter to them, and but they have used executive function with their video games to very efficiently be quote, productive to get to their video games. So what do they have to do to play the video game, believe it or not? They have to plan, they have to visualize themselves, they have to have self-talk in their brain. Okay, I want to go play video games after school. I and they, they might visualize. So I got to connect with so-and-so via text to get them on the game with me and, um, I need to make sure that this thing is charged and like they'll have all of these.
Speaker 3:When you really think about what's going on, very complicated things are going on. They have the gaming chair and they have the, the different software. They have the accounts linked up. They have their password. If they need to find their password for a video game. Do you think they're going to have any trouble finding that they need to find their password for their school portal and they can't find it? Well, so they do have executive function, but it's used so it's.
Speaker 3:It's how the brain does anything to help us execute some complex tasks. Now we can execute, like I said, things like homework or getting a job like these are. Getting a job is a very complex task because it requires doing applications, getting applications, getting the details on applications, getting it in on time, doing the interview, being on time, getting dressed for it all the it involves. Things involve a lot more than we typically think about, so the brain helps us do anything related to that. Now I talk about 13 executive functions. I won't mention them all, but I'll just throw out a few that pop into my mind.
Speaker 3:But in different experts conceptualize it differently. I use the 13 or so because those are the ones that are very relatable to parents and teachers and my audience in lay person's terms. So things like planning, organizing, time management, prioritizing, impulsivity, inhibition which is the opposite of impulsivity focus, unfocused attention, inattentive, organized, disorganized, motivated, unmotivated, like the brain helps us with any of those sorts of things. A lot of them are two sides of the same coin. For example, you might say you know, they, they, they are procrastinating. And and then you might, on the other hand, you might say, oh well, they aren't using task initiation. So you might use a more technical, clinical term like task initiation. It doesn't matter, we're speaking the same language.
Speaker 3:My kid just won't get started. Well, that's procrastination or that's not task initiation. But what's the skill? The skill the kid needs to learn is how do I initiate a task? How do I get started? How do I self-start? How do I get the train going, whatever it's, I don't care to split hairs on that, but how do I get, how do I get moving on this important thing that is not preferred. So to me, what are the skills to help us get started is what I would be teaching.
Speaker 3:And, katie, you asked about labels. My brain just popped it back in. The quick answer is that there are positives to labels and there are negatives to labels. There is value in labels if we use them correctly and intentionally. If somebody says I have ADHD, that does not tell the whole picture, but it can give a place to start from. It can help out a lot. It can help out a lot. It can help us know that there's not something wrong with me, there's an actual, my brain is developing differently, et cetera. But labels can be very negative. As we dove into Now, for all of you listening, there was my ADD brain grabbing a concept going back, but I think I stayed on task for your question pretty well.
Speaker 1:Yes, you did. And then I was wondering because you had said that when you have a kid, that's challenging in school, usually linked to executive function. Also, what I see is sensory challenges. Is there any connection between? This is just something I'm really curious about. I never thought about it until I was listening to you talk about challenges and how it's linked to executive function.
Speaker 3:Yes, I don't talk about that link a lot, but I do talk about sensory issues a lot, but they're absolutely related. So let's take the extremely two-week kid, a kid who's twice exceptional, who is gifted, legitimately gifted and talented in certain areas and really has different needs because of that. Okay, so this is not an elitist thing and that people can misunderstand that. And they also have learning disabilities and I'll talk about the. As far as labels are concerned, let's look at the label disability. That can be used negatively or positively, so we're looking at a disability meaning.
Speaker 3:This is not a stigmatizing, negative thing. This is a fact. If something is disabling you in life, it's interfering with your quality of life. We need to be honest about that and not worry about okay, this word sounds negative, which it does, but we need to be able to have a dialogue about what's going on to help this human being. So, if we're looking at a 2E kid, a very, let's say, gifted, with really severe learning challenges, these kiddos gifted kids tend to. One of the characteristics of gifted kids is that they can be highly sensitive, so they can be highly sensitive as far as their senses are concerned. Also, they can be highly sensitive as far as their emotions or their emotional regulation or how deeply they feel things.
Speaker 1:Nervous system sensitivity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now, as far as the senses are concerned, if you're trying to execute, so let's say, sethi, here me. I'm sitting here and I'm in my office space where I do my work and we're talking, and I have a window over here and I hear something out there and I'm like, oh, what's that? And I'm trying to use my executive function to do this, to prioritize this being with you, but I get distracted. Okay, well, I do hear everything, I see everything. Everything visually is oh, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. You know sensory things. You can think of a million things on your own, but they can interfere with executive function or they can support it as well.
Speaker 2:But so my question is neurotypical kids, executive function development do the same strategies that you use for neuro atypical kids help with typical development? Do do typically wired kids also struggle with this.
Speaker 3:Yes and no, okay. So the way that I look at it is that neurotypical kids tend to pick up on the cues that teachers or parents or life is giving them in terms of how to execute more intuitively, more naturally. But I want to explain it this way Imagine a kid with pretty decent executive function, right, and they're in kindergarten and it's cleanup time and the teacher teaches them in the first couple of weeks of school. These are where the toys go, these are where the crayons go, and this kid is able to attend, pay attention, focus, concentrate any word you want to use to that teacher. When the teacher is teaching about those things, they notice where the crayons go and the teacher repeats it a few times throughout the weeks.
Speaker 3:But the kid with the executive function challenges they didn't pick up on the nuances of that, it didn't really sink in over and over their brain said okay, I heard enough of this. There are more interesting things than hearing about this a fourth time, whereas that kiddo is going oh, okay, I, I, oh, that's how you do it, oh, and they, they notice more and more about it. But imagine that for years first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade they've been developing these micro skills. Your teacher says in fourth grade hey, write this in your planner. The kids take out their planners, they write it in it. The kid with executive function challenges is like where is my planner?
Speaker 1:It looks like someone ate it in my backpack. That is my son.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then if they're shamed and they're like where's your planner from a teacher and and they feel I mean, then next time they're just anyhow. So, um, they're building these micro skills massively over time, whereas by the time these problems really show up, which is usually middle school after in America, at least most schools in America, most places in America fifth grade, which is about 11 or 12, that's when the handholding stops. Sixth grade usually is when middle school starts. So if you're from other countries, that's kind of how it works here. But around that age the quote handholding stops in sixth grade very abruptly. And then we see kids who are doing just fine, all A's and B's, and all of a sudden they're in sixth grade and they get their first report card and there's five F's and parents are like what the heck is going on here.
Speaker 3:Well, over years they haven't built up these really intricate skill sets that they need in order to succeed. So these kids, to answer your question, they, I believe, have it's the same things. So the way that I talk about it, I'm like I don't want you or your child to learn Seth's way of doing things. I will teach you Seth's way of doing things, but that's not what it's about. It's about what I call Franken study uh, based off of Frankenstein, but it's piecing things together for you. It's personalizing it, taylor, tailoring it, customizing it, differentiation, however you want to look at it. But if you're going to use a planner, I don't care what planner you use. I don't care if it's digital or analog, I don't, I don't really care.
Speaker 3:I do know what works for most of my kids. For example, using a monthly is typically better than a weekly. Um, for my students, for various reasons that I won't get into, but they, I don't care what they use. What they need is they need to understand the principles of planning. So if you had a kid who was kindergarten for second, third, fourth, they're like getting these micro principles. They can grab a planner in ninth grade, eighth grade, sixth grade, all kinds of planners and may use them effectively, because they know the principles, they know how to prioritize, they know how to estimate realistically how long something might take, they know how to pick which order they are going to do things, they know where they put their homework, and so on and so forth. I would argue that it's the same, but those kids have picked it up over time. And then what happens in sixth, seventh, eighth grade or whatever is that? People look at this kid and they say, well, they just won't use their planner, they're just not trying, they just don't care, they just refuse to use it.
Speaker 1:They're just being stubborn, they're just being belligerent, they're just all these labels that we talked about at the very beginning and not noticing that for years, micro skills haven't built up?
Speaker 3:Why? Why is this? I want to ask that question. Because we don't teach it directly, so there's something called direct instruction in the teacher world Directly. So there's something called direct instruction in the teacher world, so sometimes you have to directly teach something. This is how you do this. Well, these kids pick up on it very easily. The kids with strong executive function, but the't have good systems. Maybe nobody's ever really taught them. These are kids. Occasionally I'll get a couple of these kids. These are kids I work with for a very short period of time, because I teach them a few things, figure out what's going on, and they take it and run with it, because they have a somewhat decent foundation, but nobody's sort of broken it down for them, and then we can break it down and they're like oh, okay, cool, and then they're good.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love how you give very practical tools and you talk about. You love working with these kids that are they're truly suffering in some of these environments and then you get them and you have these tools that you can offer them and you work with the parents. So could you walk through some of strategies and techniques that you find particularly effective in helping learners improve their executive function skills?
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I do want to reiterate what you just said with the word suffering, Like I want to really mention that the suffering is real. So for anybody listening who has grown up with the paradigm of they just need to try harder, work harder, pull themselves up by the bootstraps, motivate themselves, all these sorts of things that that misunderstanding can be really harmful. And this is not to shame you listening. This is to say, hey, I want to offer a different perception of this and say that they need to be treated with compassion and empathy and gentleness and they need to be treated as someone who has skills to learn. The suffering is very real, very serious, very deep and can be very lasting. So it's. I just want people to understand that it's. It's just so, not a joke, it's so real. This is somebody who's quality of life and mental health. Having said that, how do I help families and kids in practical ways? Is that what you said, Adrienne?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are some practical strategies and tools that you give to kids and parents?
Speaker 3:I look at it in terms of the first thing we need is a foundation of some of the basics and I have several basics that I go over and then we need to implement the foundation, meaning put into practice the things that we've been learning. And then we get to a maintenance stage where and this is kind of like when I said some kids I can work with for a short time, help them out and they've got it and they run with it, meaning they really understand planning and they're planning all the time. It's not perfect, but they've got it. I don't ever have to have that conversation with them again. They know enough to be in maintenance and sort of improving it. As they go through complexity in life, through if they go to college or graduate school or have a job or career or whatever, they are able to increase the complexity. So I look at it in terms of first we give them foundation, then we practice that's the implementation and then we maintain. So foundations, implementation maintain is how I look at it. They work with me in foundations and implementation maintain they don't need me or anybody with this stuff anymore. That's how I look at it. So now in the foundations and this is where I'll tell you some of the practical. So I wanted to set up the structure so people listening could understand that, and then I'll go through just.
Speaker 3:Let's just look in terms of we will look at, let's say, an eighth grader who has executive function challenges and they need to in practical purposes. They need a foundation for how to use a planner, an agenda, calendar, whatever you want to call it. They need to know how to plan, manage time, structure time in a way that is one word reliable. They need a reliable method of planning. So then I would give practical ideas for how can we reliably do that, what are the parts of planning, etc. Then we have things like organization.
Speaker 3:Well, when you're in eighth grade, what do you need to organize? Well, you got your bedroom, your clothes, you got your backpack, your folders, your locker, your desk. So there are things that people need to organize. Well, I'm going to really deal with the desk this is what I call a sacred study space the backpack, the folders, and so, as far as practical is concerned, maybe an example there is with an eighth grader. I am not a fan of binders, for 90 or 95% of my kids, in fact. I just had this conversation yesterday with one of the kids. They had a binder. Literally, this looks like it won't surprise Adrienne.
Speaker 1:I love binders, but my son I was going to show you really quick we tried to do one of these for him because I was thinking okay, it's not a binder, maybe this will work. And this didn't work either. So I am taking notes because I'm like okay, how can I help him organize?
Speaker 3:Accordions are better than binders for these kids. I have a video called Binders Think, but binders are this kid. Yesterday, I swear, had about 500 pages in the binder.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. And they were actually inside, though, like in the.
Speaker 3:They were not in the right place. And they were actually inside, though, Like in the. They were not in the right place. Now, the mom who was supporting him with this had put a lot of them in the right place and stuff, but it was not. And when I use the word reliable for the planner, I would say reliable with this too. Can the kid reliably find what they need to find when they need to find it? No, no, no. And even if they could, it's too tedious for this kid. They don't want to open it to a special place, unclick it, take it out, reclick it, put it back in, especially if they're a middle schooler with a teeny, tiny desk. So, anyhow, that's something that I talk about Now.
Speaker 3:A highly organized person who loves binders, and there's no shame in that. You should use them if they work for you. You should use them if they work for you, For these kids, though, in. The mistake that we make is that, hey, I'm really organized, this works, this works, it's so easy. This is how you use a binder, Therefore, it should work for you. Well, that's a great thought, but when it comes into practical and taking in the nuances of what's going on, that's not happening because the skill set needed to manage a binder is very high. The skill set needed to manage a few color coded folders with the minimum amount of papers in them at any given time is way easier to begin learning the foundational skill set of how to manage papers, how to get rid of the ones that you don't need, how to know where the ones that need to be turned in are, like they, the. You're going to scaffold like you would with anything you know. If I was teaching you guitar, uh, uh, an instrument, a sport, anything you're going to take someone from where they're at and move them forward. But here we don't really understand that they haven't built up skills for so many micro skills for so many years that the binder is way too complex for them to use it effectively.
Speaker 3:Now I've had kids who will put stuff in the binder to get everybody off their back. But that is not using it effectively. And if people are really on their back about it, they'll make it look prettier, but it's still not effectively doing what it's supposed to do and you have to dig to figure out if that's happening. But kids are smart, I mean they're going to figure out if. If this is stressful and you're really pressuring them to do this, they'll make it look good enough to get you off their back. But is have they effectively learned the skill to use that for what it's meant to be used? No, not usually with these kits. So I start them.
Speaker 3:So there's an example. You know a little bit with planning, a little bit with organization and there's a lot more. I mean, that's what all my work's about, but that's at least a start of. You know, we got. We got our foundations, implementation and maintenance, and then within the foundations, you got planners and lockers and binders and desks and the different main things that they need to know. Fortunately there's a finite number of things and once we get that, the, the the hockey stick graph is very important here.
Speaker 3:The hockey stick graph, if you're not familiar with that, is the chart that's used in all sorts of domains in life where something starts off very low, very little growth, can't tell and then at some point it starts to hook, you know, and then you, and then it really gets momentum and it can really take off. So that's what happens here is these kids. It seems like nothing's happening, but maybe about four to six weeks in, parents start going hey, my kid just did this on their own. My kid just had this success. They, they put their, they finished it, they put their name on it, they put it back in the backpack. They got to school, they took it out of their backpack and got it to the teacher on their own, Like they'll have whatever little wins. But those things you know start adding up and then and then so you start seeing changes. Really, in my experience, about four to six weeks, but it can take months to years for them to get to that maintenance phase where parents are like, okay, my kids got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really important that we stay positive. Something I got from you also, seth, was three positives to every one negative, or you can even do more positives to however many negatives, but that was something I adopted from you because I didn't realize how negative I was even being, because I'm very organized, I love binders and my child. I was thinking, oh well, this works. Exactly what you said. I had those same exact thoughts. I was treating him that way and not realizing I was doing it in a very negative way, and so I think it's really important that we talk to our kids in positive ways and really focus on their strengths as they are learning, so that we can help aid that growth and then helping them get it and celebrate with them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody wants to be seen, every human being. We want to feel seen, want to feel heard, understood, known, supported. Like you've got my back and we are trying to help them, but we're like, hey, I cleaned up my room.
Speaker 3:Look at this, yeah, but why are the socks still there? Hey, I got an 89. Why didn't you get a 90? And we're trying to support them. But we have to really imagine what does that feel like for this human being? So the three to one rule is just you know how? How do we give three positives to everyone? Perceived negative. Perceived negative because we have to. And of course, I'm not saying that there's not a time and a place to have those discussions about quote negative things or things that that's very important, it's how we do it. But but they would need to be seen for their strengths and noticed and it reflected back to them and their interests and their talents and and the things that matter to them and their effort. A lot of these kids say nobody notices how hard I try or when I try. Have you heard that one?
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So they feel like nobody is essentially nobody's seeing me, hearing me, understanding me. Nobody notices how hard I try. So, with a three to one rule, I really like to focus on noticing their effort. Oh, my gosh, I just noticed you tried blah, blah, blah. Or you worked really hard on this, or, you know, they may have put their name on their paper and somebody, and they never did that, and somebody might be like, well, I'm not going to give them credit for something they should have been doing all the time.
Speaker 3:That is a horrible frame, that is a. I don't know where we learned that, and I'm sure I learned that in my life too. I don't have that in my life anymore, but I just. It drives me nuts that I have to explain that to adults sometimes. Um, why it's a horrible frame? But, uh, you know, people grew up with that sort of a frame, so they keep repeating it without questioning it their own narrative, and we need to question this stuff. But, um, to notice the effort, wow, you put your name on your paper. You never did make a big deal out of it. You never did that before. You did that on your own. You're awesome, that's so, that's so cool and those things go so far, so far you know, you can just see them smile.
Speaker 3:You can see them like, feel seen. You can see it If you are an adult who chooses to be aware of their body language and what's going on with them, you can see it. If you're someone who doesn't pay attention to that and hasn't practiced that, you're not going to notice it. We adults need to work our butts off to learn this stuff and practice ourselves. And you guys talked earlier. Sorry for interrupting. At the beginning you were talking about, like us, noticing our own nervous systems, our own feelings, our own body language, our own vocal tones, our own words. We are very all humans. We're very unconscious about most of what we do, so it's very hard work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I think because of the hierarchical nature of like the adult and child, adults have come to think that my role as the adult is to give feedback. Where we like, we just lean negative because we're looking at the child and their, their progress or their performance through the lens of like how can I improve this? Always Like, how can I get them to be better instead of how can I appreciate what's going well? Um, and when we focus on positivity, like, you get more of what you focus on, right? So when you just turn up the volume on what's going well, I just don't think we fully grasp, like, the power of that of telling kids what's going well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's all a practice and sometimes I do hear a lot of parents, or sometimes teachers, that really beat themselves up and they're like I've been doing it wrong or blah, blah, blah. That's not the point of my work or anybody's work. Those may be real feelings that you can acknowledge and process, but don't cling to that. You know you grew up in a world that conveyed those messages to you, okay, and now that you're conscious of it, you get to make different choices. So it's, but it is a practice and it's a. We are biased towards the negative and we're biased towards and it has biological purposes to help us survive. There's a reason for it and us doing that and telling them, finding what's wrong or what they need to improve upon, and all that. It comes from a place of love. So I have no doubt that it's, almost, unless there's somebody who's, you know, narcissistic and a narcissistic adult or something like that. This is coming from a place of love and trying to be helpful and what we think should be helpful.
Speaker 2:So I think a good gut check here for us is like are you more or less likely to be impacted by the influence of someone that you like or and that likes you or that you don't like and doesn't like you?
Speaker 2:Right, we kind of put up emotional walls around feedback from people who don't like us or who are very negative from us. But if we get feedback from someone who we respect and usually their place of safety and warmth for us, then it's like oh, they think I should maybe try this accordion thing instead of this binder thing. Like I'm now open to that person's influence, but if you're just like a constant, you could have done better machine to in a child's life, like they're going to close their hearts and minds off to your influence and in order to for you to be influential and impactful in their life, we we need to like go heal that and and to introduce you and like your. Your relationship with that child needs to be healed on like a nervous system level where you are no longer triggering that child's nervous system to be in fight or flight against you or in whatever message you might have. But it's, I mean that takes a lot of work.
Speaker 1:And to be an advocate. And so, seth this is another phrase I got from you is be the squeaky wheel. We are running out of time, but I wanted to talk really quick about that, cause I tell parents this all the time be the squeaky wheel, be that advocate for that child, because maybe they don't have someone in their life to stand up for them and to help. Like cause I think about too, like just the how much potential kids have and the way we treat them kind of what Katie was talking about can really impact that potential. So can you tell us what be the squeaky wheel means?
Speaker 3:It means to advocate for your kid and there's a lot of nuance to this, but I'm going to start with the term helicopter parent. So we were talking about labels before and helicopter parent is a term that rubs me the wrong way, but it again is a label that has usefulness in the right context. So the original intention of a helicopter parent was that this is somebody who's over parenting or rescuing or doing too much for them or enabling whatever term, and that is not healthy. So when we're doing that, we're not allowing our kids to have experiences they need to have to grow when we're rescuing them in a negative way. And then there's ways where you rescue your kid and you've got to do that, you've got to know when it's the right time to do that and you're not doing too much for them. But the term helicopter parent can be used as a shaming term and that's not useful.
Speaker 3:And when a parent advocates for their child and they get the cold shoulder from the school or a dismissive reply or something like that or they're straight out told they're a helicopter parent, which I don't think happens often, but I think the implication is is that sort of the undertone can be yeah, you're a helicopter parent back off. We know what we're doing. And parents there's different parenting styles and parenting personalities, obviously, but a lot of parents and typically statistically it's the moms who are having the communication in the, in these sorts of interactions, and they're hearing, hearing whatever the response is and they back off and they don't, and then they don't listen to their gut and and and they don't want conflict and they're not trying to put them down. They also don't want the teacher to take it out on their kid. That's another thing I hear a lot.
Speaker 1:I was that parent, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's really hard to be the squeaky wheel, but when I'm coaching parents, I'm like be the squeaky wheel. Now I will give nuanced answers to parents about how to be the squeaky wheel or what to write or what to say and things that work and don't work, and because I've done this a thousand times and there there are ways to do that. But like uh, one quick example is uh, you do not want to write a four page monoparagraph email to a teacher who's got 30 kids, or if they're a middle or high school teacher, has a hundred or more kids, or if their middle or high school teacher has 100 or more kids. Like, so that's like you know there's a way.
Speaker 1:There's ways to be squeaky?
Speaker 3:Yes, because the objective of being the squeaky wheel is to get a result. You know and you got to think through. I need to say four pages worth of details and stuff. They need to know it. Well, it's not going to get read.
Speaker 1:Listening to you like came at such a pivotal time, Like my son. Just, the school just was not attuning to his needs, and what I noticed in learning about the nervous system is he was no longer able to even look at us in the eyes. And this very vibrant kid, just, all of a sudden, the lights just dimmed and I kept going to the school but then I felt like, okay, well, they're telling me that they know what they're doing, and but I'm seeing this kid who is so vibrant, full of life, no longer full of life. There's something going on here. It's because he wasn't allowed to move his body, Literally was not allowed to move his body.
Speaker 1:This type of school forces kids to fold their hands on their desk and their feet have to be flat on the floor and they have chants and things that they say because they're very traditional. And I didn't know. I mean, that works for some kids but it does not work for a 2E kid with ADHD. And so that's actually how we found Prenda was. I, a friend, you know, told me about this learning environment where he could be upside down on a couch and running around, and you know, and it was amazing to see that light come back on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I do want to say, and that that's gaslighting too. And that's what happens is when the parent feels like, oh, I shouldn't say anything, you know, and it's not that you have a bunch of evil teachers or staff or something, but subtle things can come across and it's gaslighting. It's saying, hey, you're crazy, you don't know what you're talking about. And then you can feel like, am I crazy? Like okay, I. But my, my encouragement. I do want to just wrap that up to say to those of you you know your kid best, you actually do know your kid best. Listen to your gut. Now can you get emotional and say too much, yes, watch out for that. Okay, yeah, but if your gut knows, I just want to encourage you trust your gut, you know your kid.
Speaker 3:You may not know how to articulate it or say everything in teacher speak or education speak, and all this, I don't care. Write that email, go into that school, have that conference, have that meeting, whatever, and just do your best, uh, to speak your heart, speak your truth, uh, and whatever, and just do your best to speak your heart, speak your truth and always assume positive intent, always assume that they are on your side and, yes, there are teachers that shouldn't be in the classroom. That is not the norm. I shouldn't say it's not the norm, it's minimal. But these kids definitely attract those or those teachers. These are the kids that those teachers have it in for. Does that make sense? But most teachers, you know we're all on the same team. Most teachers really know that and they want to do better.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming on our last question. We ask this to all our guests. Who is someone who's kindled your love of learning, curiosity, your motivation or your passion?
Speaker 3:who is someone who's kindled your love of learning, curiosity, your motivation or your passion. Yeah, I thought about this for a lot and I mean there's so many, so many that have really inspired me. I'm going to mention one that's I don't know if it's unusual, anyhow his name was George Betts. He was my professor. He's written a lot of books in the field of gifted education. I was very fortunate to study under him. He passed away a couple of years ago but he was somebody who really inspired me and taught me a lot of little things and taught me a lot about closing my mouth and letting the kids do the talking and the discovering and the responding and the problem solving, and that I don't have to answer everything for them or tell them have to do like I want them to have buy-in and ownership of their own experience, and I think he's been someone who's really inspired that.
Speaker 3:He wrote a book with some people called the autonomous learner model and this was. He was um in the first gifted high school in the United States or in Colorado or Vado West, I think it was and like they started gift. I don't even feel like that program may have closed semi-recently, but either way, he was like this person in the gifted community and gifted educated. Best practice for gifted is best practice for everybody. Best practice for special ed, they say, is best practice for everybody. It just means differentiation and individualizing, personalizing, customizing. It means seeing an individual and supporting that individual for their needs. But he would be the person that I would say has really inspired me.
Speaker 1:I love that. Seth, are you looking to open a micro school in Hawaii? No, I'm kidding. You would be such an incredible learning guide.
Speaker 3:I wish I had the bandwidth. I miss teaching so much. I still teach and work with my families, but I love the classroom. I love it and I miss it.
Speaker 1:How can listeners learn more about your work and can you tell them about your executive function starter guide and all the goodies that you have for everything executive function and for kids that are having? You know, experiencing challenging challenges, especially in the school systems?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can go to SethPerlercom S-E-T-H-P, as in Paul E-R-L-E-Rcom easiest way SethPerlercom ExecutiveFunctionSummitcom. I run a summit every year with a bunch of incredible, incredible experts and my YouTube channel. You can look up Seth in ADHD. Maybe I'll pop up. You can look up Seth in podcasts. I've been on a million podcasts. I love doing this and I am depending on when you're listening to this. This is the first time I'm announcing this. So YouTube I I've been working on a membership for years and I'll be launching that January 1st. Oh my God, now I said it out loud. That's scary. I love when I'm scared in business. Actually.
Speaker 2:It's just really obvious like your whole intent and like life force is put into helping people and that just comes across really clear. So thank you, Thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you, seth, for coming. That's it for today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Kindled podcast. If this episode was helpful to you, please like, subscribe and follow us on social at Prenda learn. If you have any questions you'd like for us to address on the podcast, all you have to do is email us at podcast at Prendacom. You can also join our Facebook group, the Kindled Collective, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the Sunday Spark. The.
Speaker 2:Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy for you to start and run an amazing micro school based on all the things that we talk about here on the Kindled Podcast. If you want more information about guiding a Prenda micro school, just go torendacom. Thanks for listening and remember to keep kindling.
