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Grades Don't Tell the Whole Story: The Missing Link Is Executive Function.
When a student brings home a disappointing report card, the first question is often, "Why aren't they trying harder?"
But what if effort isn't the problem?
Many students who are bright, curious, and capable struggle in school—not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack the executive function skills needed to consistently demonstrate what they know.
What Is Executive Function?
Executive function refers to the brain's self-management system. These mental skills help us plan, organize, manage time, pay attention, regulate emotions, remember instructions, and complete tasks.
Think of executive function as the "air traffic control system" of the brain. It coordinates everything that needs to happen for successful learning.
Strong executive function skills help students:
Start assignments without endless reminders
Keep track of homework and deadlines
Stay focused despite distractions
Break large projects into manageable steps
Manage frustration when work becomes challenging
Check their work before turning it in
Prioritize competing responsibilities
These are skills—not personality traits—and they develop over time.
Why Grades Can Be Misleading
Grades are often viewed as a measure of intelligence or knowledge. In reality, they reflect much more than academic ability.
A student may fully understand the material but earn poor grades because they:
Forget to turn in completed assignments
Mismanage their time
Lose important papers
Rush through tests without checking their work
Become overwhelmed by multi-step projects
Procrastinate until deadlines are missed
In these cases, the issue isn't understanding the content—it's managing the process.
The Executive Function Gap
Imagine two students who both understand algebra equally well.
Student A writes assignments in a planner, studies consistently, organizes notes, and completes homework on time.
Student B forgets assignments, starts studying the night before a test, misplaces notes, and leaves homework unfinished.
Although both students possess similar academic ability, Student A is likely to earn significantly higher grades.
The difference isn't intelligence. It's executive function.
Why "Try Harder" Doesn't Work
Students with executive function challenges often hear:
"You just need to apply yourself."
"You're so smart if you'd only try."
"Be more responsible."
While these comments are well-intentioned, they rarely solve the problem.
Executive function difficulties are not about laziness. They reflect challenges with skills that are still developing. Telling a student to "be organized" is much like telling someone to "be taller." Without strategies, support, and practice, change is difficult.
Executive Function Can Be Taught
The encouraging news is that executive function skills improve with instruction and repetition.
Parents and educators can help students learn to:
Use planners and digital calendars effectively
Break assignments into smaller tasks
Create predictable routines
Use visual reminders and checklists
Estimate how long tasks will take
Reflect on what strategies worked and what didn't
Over time, these supports become habits.
Looking Beyond the Report Card
Grades provide useful information, but they don't tell the whole story.
When a student's grades don't match their potential, it may be worth asking different questions:
Does my child know how to organize their work?
Can they manage their time independently?
Do they have strategies for planning ahead?
Are executive function challenges getting in the way of showing what they know?
These questions often lead to more productive solutions than simply focusing on the letter grade.
Final Thoughts
Success in school isn't determined by intelligence alone. Executive function plays a critical role in helping students translate knowledge into performance.
When we recognize that grades are influenced by planning, organization, time management, and self-regulation—not just academic ability—we can better support students where they need it most.
Instead of asking, "Why aren't they trying harder?" we can ask, "What skills do they need to be successful?"
That shift in perspective can change not only grades, but a student's confidence, independence, and long-term success.
Let’s chat.
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Report card season is here.
If you child has brought home a disappointing report card, it is often easy to ask, “Why didn’t you try harder?’
But what if lack of effort isn’t the problem? What if they attended the review sessions, spent hours each night working on their own or with a tutor, and those efforts did not yield the expected results?
Many students- of any age- who are curious, bright and capable, still struggle in school- not because they lack intelligence but because they lack the executive function skills needed to consistently demonstrate what they know.
Executive function skills help us plan, organize, manage time, pay attention, regulate emotions, remember instructions, and complete tasks.
These skills typically develop over time, and there are strategies and supports that can be taught and used until one’s own executive function skills fully develop naturally, or to compensate for skills that don’t develop in the typical sense and timeframe for various reasons.
So, while we are all taking a pause this summer, maybe we can look ahead to the next school year so we can shift the “Why aren’t they trying harder?” question to “What skills do they need to be successful?”. Let’s shift the perspective and build confidence and independence so our students will enjoy long-term success.
Strong executive function skills help students:
Keep track of homework and deadlines and start assignments without constant prodding
Stay focused even in environments with distractions
Break large projects into manageable steps
Manage frustration when work becomes challenging
Check their work before turning it in, and actually turn it
Prioritize competing responsibilities
These are skills that typically develop over time. Everyone develops at their own pace. That doesn’t mean that the student needs to flounder. There are a number of supports that can be used by teachers, parents and the student that, with proper instruction and consistency,
Let’s chat.
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School’s Out- Time to Slack (with a side of structure).
Summer’s here. We all felt it last week. It was too hot to do anything outside if you didn’t have access to water. And as parents we often hear the same thing from our children on the days we stay indoors from the heat, or from the cold, – “I’m soooo bored”.
Boredom can be a good thing. In some children it can bring out creativity, problem solving and grow our tolerance for frustration.
Staying indoors can also bring on “boredom blues” for some children and “boredom blues” can show itself in some unpleasant ways- anxiety from not knowing what comes next, and poor sleep habits that bring mood changes and behaviors. The lack of the structure/schedule that school provides can make our children feel adrift, as if there is no guide for their day.
How do we overcome the “boredom blues” and the challenges that come with it?
Set your own loose schedule, and depending on the age of your children, post the “schedule” in the house using pictures or lists, or talk about the plans for the day regularly, including the night before. It doesn’t need to be, and shouldn’t be, an hour by hour schedule. Just knowing that there is a plan can be helpful for many of our kids. Give them a say in activities, as much as possible. Let them know when there is a change, what the change looks like and why the plans had to change. This builds flexibility Give them time to process the changes too.
Maybe mornings are for slow, quiet play- set out the Legos or PlayDough, coloring books and crayons, puzzles and books.
After lunch could be movement time- ride bikes, go to the park, swing on the swings, dig in the dirt, and then come back in and clean up while listening to music or audiobooks. Make movement a daily goal.
After dinner could be light chores as a family and a walk in the night air before bed, while talking about what they see or hear as you walk together. On those days that walks aren’t an option, maybe pick a nice movie and pile on the couch together.
A good mix of movement, light structure, and “down time” will help our kids recharge, and grow this summer.
If you need help creating a visual/picture schedule for your child, reach out.
Let’s chat.
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Tick-Tock- Where did the time go?
Time blindness is a term used to describe the difficulty in perception of the passage of time and in predicting how long it will take to complete a task. Time blindness can show itself in various ways: chronic lateness, hyperfocus, and also procrastination. It’s common in individuals with ADHD, Autism, Traumatic Brain Injury, Depression and OCD.
Time blindness can be a source of conflict in many households. Videogames that continue to be played for hours while the player reports “it will just take a few minutes to get to a save spot”. A class project put off until the last minute by the student who thinks it will only take a short time to complete, while in reality it ends up being hours of work, and is usually turned in late. The career professional that is chronically late for meetings, which leads to a performance review. Time blindness will impact relationships, academics, and career success.
How to manage time blindness? Here are a few tips.
Externalize time by using visual timers in a direct line of sight. Ones that show the shrinking of time (think hour glass or count-down timer) can provide a sense of urgency that can lead to better focus. Timers with audio alarms help bring focus back as well. For example-A timer with an alarm set just outside of the shower helps for those who lose track of time and end up being late. Keep time accessible by having wall clocks in your physical spaces, and wear a wrist watch when you are out. Time is something you should be able to easily see, and not need to guess at.
Intentionally track the time it takes you to complete various tasks. You will see a pattern and will be able to take that data and apply it to similar tasks. You will learn how long that seven page paper really takes, and be able to apply that to future tasks.
Build in a buffer. A good suggestion is to estimate what you think you need for time to complete a task, and then multiply it by 1.5 for a more realistic expectation. Give yourself time between activities for transitions, or for those times that your estimate is off – this will allow you to not be overscheduled.
Routines. If you establish a routine for everyday activities, your body will get into a rhythm, and the things that once required conscious effort to remember and complete will become an automatic habit for your body and brain. Take the time to invest in developing time management skills, and you will see reduced anxiety and a greater sense of calm in your daily life.
Looking for more ways to help yourself or your loved one?
Let’s chat.
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In Celebration of Focus Time.
Your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that drives working memory, attention and cognitive flexibility. It is one of the last regions of your brain to fully develop. It is growing and developing until your mid-twenties.
Once you become an adult, and are working a job, or staying at home and raising a family, or any combination of those scenarios, it is easy to find yourself taking on more and more tasks. And trying to juggle those tasks all at the same time. How many of us have seen job postings that suggest that one of the desired traits for the ideal candidate is the “ability to handle multiple, competing, time-sensitive tasks with accuracy and attention”?
These “highly desired traits” are really a recipe for potential disappointment for both the boss and the candidate. Our brains are not designed to handle more than 3-5 chunked groups of information at a time. And every switch from one task to another comes with a cost. Your brain has to shift gears and put what you were working on into “storage” and open a new file. This can cause mental fatigue and attention drain while your brain shifts from the old task to the new one. Too many “open files” in our brain reduces the capacity to hold information, maintain attention and pivot to something else easily when a change pops up. The overall result is poor performance and errors. In school, teachers would call this “sloppy work due to rushing”.
How can we more effectively handle all of the tasks that life requires?
Let’s start by celebrating doing one thing at a time and doing it well. Let’s “single-task” instead of multi-task. Set your calendar to block off focus time where you will not answer emails or take phone calls. Use this time for just one project and then really knock it out. Have your voicemail and email give auto-replies to inquiries during focus time that lets clients know when you will be available and encourage them to reach back out to you at that preferred time.
Let’s set ourselves, and our environment, up for success. Close out the unneeded tabs on our computer, silence our phone (or put them out of sight, in another room, etc. if the pull is too strong), and clean off that desk before you take on a new task. Then when that task is done, do a desk re-set so you are not tempted to go back to what you had been working on after you start a new project. When an idea hits you for something that you are not working on currently, write it down on sticky note so your brain doesn’t need to hold on to it, and then go right back to the current project.
Need more strategies for how to handle “all of the things” more effectively?
Let’s chat.
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Procrastination.
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task” said American philosopher and psychologist William James in a letter to his friend Carl Stumpf in January, 1886.
(Oxford Essential Quotations (5 ed.), Edited by: Susan Ratcliffe, Publisher: Oxford University Press, Published online: 2017, Current Online Version: 2017, eISBN: 9780191843730)
I think most of us would be able to relate to what Mr. James was saying to his friend. The heaviness that weighs on the mind when we know we need to get a task done but just cannot find the motivation to take the first step to get started. That unfinished task, or task not yet began, nags at us. It takes up our brain space and causes stress.
It doesn’t even have to be a monumental task – maybe it is folding the mound of laundry that has been sitting on the counter for several days, or getting the checkbook out to pay bills, or picking up the phone to make that dentist appointment that is long overdue, or starting the essay that is due in a week. The task, for whatever the reason, is off-putting or unpleasant, so we put it off. And this is often misinterpreted by others- teachers, spouses, employers-as laziness, or lack of drive or motivation. But really, it is more complex than that.
Individuals with Executive Function (EF) challenges often struggle with procrastination, and feel guilt and shame when they are unable to achieve to the standards that they set for themselves or that others hope to see them achieve. Procrastination is often due to cognitive barriers, rather than unwillingness. Anxiety, perfectionism, time management issues, or not knowing how to break down a large assignment may contribute to procrastination.
Executive Function coaches can make a meaningful difference.
EF coaches are trained to assess an individual’s strengths and challenges, and determine with the client what triggers might contribute to procrastination. The EF coach will work with the client on building the skills needed for getting started, staying focused, and seeing the job through to then end, so that even daunting tasks become more manageable and confidence grows.
Let’s chat.
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Shhhh. Don’t say it too loud, but it is almost time to start thinking about going back to school.
Back-to-school season isn't just about buying backpacks and school supplies (and moving into dorms for our college students)—it's also the perfect time to build the skills that make the school year smoother.
If you or someone you know struggles with:
-Staying organized
-Managing time
-Starting or finishing assignments
-Keeping track of materials
-Planning ahead or remembering deadlines
...Executive Function (EF) coaching can make a meaningful difference.
The weeks before school starts are the ideal time to establish routines, practice strategies, and build confidence before assignments, tests, and busy schedules begin.
Instead of spending the first months of school playing catch-up, students can start the year with tools that help them stay organized, focused, and independent.
Executive Function skills aren't about intelligence—they're skills that can be taught, practiced, and strengthened.
Let's get ready to start this school year feeling prepared, confident, and ready to succeed.
Let’s chat.
Executive Function Coach of the Finger Lakes
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