The ADHD Effect with ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach Debbie White – College Bound Mentor Podcast #43

Welcome to the College Bound Mentor podcast! Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all.

This is Episode #43 and you’ll hear us talk about supporting students with ADHD and Executive Functioning challenges with Debbie White, Founder of Life Stormer. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #43: The ADHD Effect with ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach Debbie White

How do you help your student transition to college if they have ADHD or struggle with Executive Functioning? In this episode, we welcome on Debbie White, an ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach who’s the Founder of Life Stormer. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll hear in this episode:

• The difference between ADHD & Executive Functioning
• How to know if your student needs more support
• What happens when a student with ADHD or Executive Functioning concerns ends up at the wrong college
• How to prepare your student for college without compromising their independence
• And how to leverage ADHD or Executive Functioning skills as a gift and superpower

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• The ADHD Effect with ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach Debbie White
  • [00:19] Welcome to the College Bound Mentor
  • [00:49] Debbie’s background and why she shifted from corporate leadership to coaching
  • [02:31] ADHD vs. executive function: neurodivergence vs. the brain’s “management system”
  • [03:53] Why executive dysfunction is often misread as laziness, not a skills gap
  • [04:24] Executive function skills can be taught, but behavior change takes consistency
  • [05:22] Why habit-building can feel harder for neurodivergent brains
  • [08:06] What to watch for: inconsistency, overwhelm, and needing repeated adult support
  • [09:02] Why challenges spike at transition points when expectations increase
  • [10:57] How ADHD can present differently in girls and be harder to identify
  • [16:23] Causes of executive dysfunction
  • [18:35] The “wrong school” problem and how poor fit can amplify struggles
  • [20:44] Transition advice: remove scaffolding gradually and shift from manager to coach
  • [22:35] Tools that help: calendar/planner use and offloading working memory
  • [23:33] Preparing for college schedules with “anchors” and routine
  • [25:18] College accommodations and why disability services access matters
  • [28:03] Example of a student thriving after reducing over-support and finding the right fit
  • [37:52] “Eat the Frog” and other prioritization tools for planning the day
  • [39:46] Accountability strategies: body doubling and the Pomodoro Technique
  • [42:37] Social media tradeoffs: dopamine, distraction, and healthier boundaries with timers
  • [46:22] Myths and truths: intelligence isn’t executive function, it’s not a character flaw, and it can persist
  • [47:44] Wrap-up and where to find more episodes and resources
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:04
Removing the scaffolding little by little is the best thing that a parent can do.

00:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie. And on today’s episode, we are excited to chat with Debbie White. Debbie White is an ADHD Executive Function career and executive coach who pivoted to coaching after 25 years in a successful corporate career. Her journey to coaching was born out of years of parenting a son with ADHD and learning about her diagnosis alongside his.

00:49
It’s this lived experience that’s fueled a deep empathy for the challenges and strengths of ADHD. Debbie supports clients as young as 14 years old to adulthood and partners with them to set goals to enable them to live lives that are more focused, manageable, and fulfilling. Her approach is grounded in self-awareness, no judgment, and actionable support. Debbie and I met at one of my author events actually at the JCCC, I think it was last month.

01:16
And we started chatting and we were just sort of talking about what we did. And when I found out what she was working with a lot of the ADHD executive functioning population, I thought that would make a great guest on our podcast. So thank you for agreeing to be on it. And so welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

01:35
Well, you we have a lot of students that we work with that have ADHD. Some people have executive functioning challenges. Some people have ADHD and don’t have executive functioning challenges. And we’ve also seen that ADHD is something that impacts people differently. know, some people, it can be a real superpower where they can hyper-focus. And then sometimes we find that it’s really challenging for kids to focus. And sometimes a lot of times getting their ideas out from their heads onto paper.

02:03
So we find that also be a challenge. And a lot of people don’t know they have ADHD, particularly among girls. Like Steph didn’t know she, I mean, she went to college and then that’s when she realized that she had ADHD. So can you talk a little bit about breaking down the difference between ADHD, executive functioning, and how they often show up together? ADHD basically is a neurodivergence. And that is, um the brain is,

02:31
processes differently than um a neurotypical brain. Executive function is the brain’s management system. Some people think of it as an air traffic controller or an orchestra conductor. Executive function are really the skills that allow us to plan, to focus, to problem solve, to remember to do things, to manage our time, control our impulses.

02:58
um or adjust and be flexible when things don’t go according to plan. So you can imagine an airport without an air traffic controller. Unfortunately, I think we’ve seen that. I think we can imagine that, So without these strong executive function skills, even really intelligent people can struggle with day-to-day um skills and life and work and school.

03:23
not because they don’t know what to do, but they don’t know how to manage doing it. So really it’s like executive function are those skills, whereas ADHD is that neurodivergence and how the brain processes differently and can impact executive function and social emotional wellbeing. Right. And it’s so interesting because I hear, we hear often, and I’m sure you guys do with clients, it’s like, like they just don’t,

03:53
like we either people think they’re lazy or people think that they’re not trying. And so often it’s not necessarily that they’re not trying. It’s just that they don’t have the executive function skills to do it. And the intentions are always there, but they’re just not able to execute on them. Totally. I’ve taken a couple of neurobiology classes about ADHD and one of the favorite, my favorite things that my professor said that really crystallized it for me is ADHD isn’t a condition of knowing, it’s a condition of doing.

04:24
And so it is not that people don’t have the ability. It’s sort of like you might be a good chef and you could come up with a recipe on your own without even using a cookbook. But I don’t have that creativity and I may not know where to start because I don’t have that skill. And is it something that they can learn? Is it something that you’re able to impart and have people learn? Is it a learn skill? Absolutely. So executive function skills.

04:54
can absolutely be taught with two caveats. One, a willingness to be able to accept that there’s something that’s not serving you and you want it to be fixed. And two, it takes a lot of behavior change. So neurotypicals, when you are starting a routine, so I am also, I consider myself to be neuro, I identify as being neurodivergent with ADHD. So neurotypicals,

05:22
especially this time of year, new year, new you, with people setting their intentions for the year and setting new year’s resolutions, we’ve all read that building um a new habit takes 30 days, right? Everyone’s read that before. That’s actually not true. That is true for people who are neurotypical. For people who are neurodivergent, even though it becomes like, all right, I’m getting this, I’m going to the gym.

05:51
The habit does not become automatic. It still becomes a choice that I make every single day if I’m going to do something or not. So it is like pushing water up a hill, but it can be done by building new neural pathways and creating that behavior change that’s going to stick. I think that could be done two ways. One, doing a little bit at a time.

06:16
because we’re not broken, we don’t need to be fixed, we just have habits that don’t serve us. Two, the way you build new neural pathways is by uh having an open mind, by harnessing your creativity, by learning new things, it allows the mind to be more flexible to create those new pathways. It can be done for a lifetime.

06:45
It just becomes harder as we get older, but I am living proof as somebody who switched careers at 52 that it can be done and it can be done successfully. Yeah, I love too that you’re so open about your own journey and what you’ve learned through. I know you’ll get to it, I’m sure, this podcast and like what you have learned and how you’ve become so successful with what you learned from your experience with your son.

07:09
We had a lunch last week and I shared it with a seven-year-old daughter and she has ADHD and I’ve been very open about it. I see it as a gift and I think it will continue to be a gift for how she sees the world. But understandably so, sometimes you hear neurodivergent or you hear disability and that’s scary and it’s worrisome. And I think sometimes when we see our kids struggling, we are scared.

07:37
of the negativity that can be associated with that. So, you know, how do you know if your child needs help? Because it’s a scary thing to admit that. And what are some clear signs that this is not just a seven-year-old, a 14-year-old, an adult, a college student floundering, that there needs to be some support or some interventions put in place? All resonates. All land on me.

08:06
totally get it, you know, particularly having a younger child with you having a younger child. um Hearing these labels can be upsetting, but that’s all they are. Really. The first thing I’ll say is it’s a label. You know, you don’t know what size my shirt is. You don’t know what brand it is, but it gives me information so that I know that I can put the right size shirt on. um It doesn’t have to be anything. So that’s the first thing is like.

08:34
I think of as a label and I encourage people to think about it as just data. But it is upsetting, particularly when your child is young. In terms of looking at signs, I don’t think that there’s any one particular sign, but there are definitely clues. I think the biggest clue can be inconsistency. So when you see that your child knows what the expectations are, but they don’t consistently know how to follow through,

09:02
or do without adult support, or they’re overwhelmed. That is one key clue, I think, that you could look at at any age. Executive challenges really become more obvious when there are transition points, so when the expectations are getting higher. So whether it’s early childhood, keeping track of things, keeping their room clean, like for me, I lost a shoe on the way to school.

09:30
So tell me how many people without executive function deficits have lost a shoe on early school? I would say probably zero. Then there’s during uh early elementary school, there’s more assignments, there’s more expectations. And then again, particularly in adolescence, when there’s more of an expectation of independence um and those self-management demands increase. So one little caveat there is that

09:58
It’s not always so cut and dry, like not every kid loses a shoe on the way to school because the mind is really adaptable and we’re able to compensate and develop ways to cope. So those coping things can be like whether you’re working really hard to mask or deflecting attention away from the weaknesses um or your kid is copying their peers, you know, task or social oriented behaviors.

10:27
One other way is when there’s a lot of scaffolding from the parent, it might not be so apparent. So I would say just keep an eye on the child as we are all doing already. But if they’re really disorganized or they’re really struggling, that might be one clue. So that’s probably what the executive functioning skills. But I feel like with ADHD, particularly among girls is what I’ve seen, is that it’s the inattentive kind.

10:57
and they’re really smart, they can mask it for a really long time. And it’s hard to identify. Like one of my kids said, oh, I think that happened. I was like, no, you don’t. Like I work with kids that have ADHD all the time. And like you turn in your assignments, you’re very motivated, you get everything done, you have good grades. And it was still something that she, until she went to college is when she realized that it was more the inattentive type of ADHD.

11:26
And she always did incredibly well. There was never any of the executive function skills that were at hand. So I think that’s also something to just keep in mind that it manifests itself differently in different types of students. That is a good point because you can see a duck swimming along the water and it looks so graceful and beautiful, but they’re like flapping like crazy and they’re exhausted. um So that’s amazing self-awareness of your daughter to recognize that.

11:55
And it is a spectrum. Like you can have ADHD without having executive function challenges and you can, but it’s not as likely that you have executive function challenges without having ADHD. I’ve seen from clients, especially boys being diagnosed in high school because similar to what Lisa was saying, just because they were smart.

12:20
They could manage it in elementary middle school and then when they got to high school for different for five different periods different teachers just a lot more to manage and organize they just sort of fall apart. I’ve definitely seen that a bunch and then just with my own clients what i would say is what i see is the parents look at ninth grade where they haven’t done as well as they were in middle school and they’re like oh it’s just a hard transition.

12:46
And then it’s like in the middle of 10th grade, they’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we have a problem and they get them diagnosed. So I’ve, I’ve had that a bunch, especially with boys. In my experience, I feel like it’s more.

12:59
It’s harder to uh notice in girls because of the point that you made, Lisa, like with your daughter, because depending on maturity levels, and that’s another thing, ADHD, people tend to be 30 % younger than their chronological age in terms of maturity. So there can be a lag. So, you know, with girls who sometimes are, you know, tend to be very conscientious where some boys are and some boys aren’t,

13:28
as they mature.

13:32
with girls finding that lag between what their potential, like that disconnect might be smaller in a girl than in a boy, because they are more conscientious. Can I say that? I think so. I’m a parent of boys. I don’t know anyone who would argue with that, by the way. I’m a small sample size. had no idea.

13:58
And even in college, I didn’t know that I had it. was more like my mom picking up patterns or teachers along the way saying some things to me. But I understand, Abby, what you’re saying about the precipice, like being so significant from eighth grade to ninth grade and then like, let’s wait and see. But I think girls have a harder time because they are working so hard and they are reaching their potential, but they are flapping like a duck. Yeah, they’re working really hard.

14:27
and they don’t realize how it shouldn’t have to be quite as hard as other people. And so they don’t really know why that is. In fact, my husband, had just closing everything, but after then we realized, oh, you have it. He’s had it his whole life. He’s a professor of medicine. He’s highly accomplished person. But he would always say, in college, in med school, was like he had to work so hard to learn the material. And he’d hyper-focus, and he’d learn it, and he would do really well.

14:55
it was so much harder for him and he never, he just thought that was just what it was. And it really was like the last, I would say year or two, like, oh, you want me to eat she, that’s what it is. That makes so much sense now. I totally see it. Cause he’s always telling the story in this circuitous way, but he gets hyper focused on things and he’s super successful. So it’s almost his secret sauce in a way as well. He’s like a dog with a bone. mean, if he’s on something, he is not going to let go until he accomplishes it. And I admire that so much about him, whereas I’d be like, all right,

15:26
that’s I’m giving up on that. And he’s like, no, I’m going to keep at this. And he’s super creative and has all these wonderful ideas. But you just see the way the brain works when he’s telling a story. I’m like, OK, get to the point. Where are we going with this? And that’s not his like, he’s not being circuitous because he wants to be. That’s how his baby is. Yeah, that’s how he sees it. Yeah. And I think I said to you guys, my husband’s a TV news producer and he has a journalism background.

15:54
he talks in the inverted pyramid. It’s always like, tell me the headline. And I’m like, I have to give every little step along the way. And so I just won’t tell a long story in front of him anymore because. But it is. You kind of just before we we spoke about that, you kind of touched on this, but can someone struggle? And I think you answered this first part, but can someone struggle with executive functioning and not be neurodivergent or have a learning disability?

16:23
Let’s, for example, in today’s society, there are endless distractions, not just for students, for all of us. And the challenge to silence social media or silence the noise or silence whatever is going on in the world, um it’s so hard. So that challenge to do that and to not be distracted and to procrastinate.

16:49
Can that be mistaken for something else? Cause right, it’s hard to navigate in today’s society sometimes. It is, it absolutely is. You can have an executive function disorder and not be considered neurodivergent. Or you can have executive dysfunction without a learning disability. So they’re like, if you think of a Venn diagram, like they could be together, they don’t have to be together. There’s like a lot of…

17:19
overlap and mutual exclusive desk from there. But executive dysfunction can occur for a bunch of different reasons. One of them could be anxiety. So the working memory is reduced and the mental energy is spent on worry. So like what we met, we were talking about the fact, think of working memory as a sticky note for your brain. And so if your brain is busy worrying, or being anxious, it might not be able to organize you or process.

17:47
um Or if you’re depressed and have low energy or slow thinking or um difficulty planning and follow through, chronic stress or trauma, there’s a lot of different things. And I’m sure as moms, you guys can all identify with this one, sleep deprivation.

18:07
Sustained sleep deprivation over time really can impact all of these things. Your attention, your working memory, your emotional regulation. Like I can remember when my kids were little and they’d have a tantrum. Like it was all I could do to not lay on the floor and like dang my hands and feet. Cause I was so dysregulated from being exhausted. And then also like a developmental lag, like I was talking about before, some kids are just more immature than other kids and develop later.

18:35
Finally, an environmental mismatch. If you are at the wrong school and you have executive functioning deficit or ADHD and you’re a square peg in a round hole, that can cause like tremendous instability and variability. Well, I saw that with one of my own sons who was at the wrong school and how much stress.

19:00
You we switched him when he was going into eighth grade, but I see that with clients all the time. It’s hard to switch schools, but I think that people underestimate how big a stress on the whole system that can be. Yeah, and I worked with a lot of college students and a lot of high school students, and I always get permission from the parents before I give this message. And you guys know this probably better than anybody in the world.

19:25
I believe when the kids are looking at colleges, they have to look at the fit for themselves too. It’s not just about the college accepting you, but it also has to be about you accepting the college and what they’re willing to offer you. And it depends on the client. Some parents, not every parent thinks that way, but you want to set them up for success. mean, every parent wants to set their kids up for success.

19:51
But that is definitely one thing with executive function and with ADHD, you want to make sure it’s a good fit. You’re not in, if you’re emotionally dysregulated and you’re in a high boilerplate, you know, situation, that’s obviously not going to be the right fit for the kid. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely how we approach it. academic, social, cultural fit, the most important. I mean, they have to be set up for success and they don’t sort of leading into my next question. They don’t have the support system.

20:20
that they have in high school even to kind of get through that. as we were just talking about, we’re working with kids who are about to make their way to college. So do you have any advice for us on what tips can you give our parents and kids and clients to focus on before they leave for college to prepare themselves the best they can?

20:44
um And how might you talk about the difference between the kind of support they’ll have while they’re at home and in high school and what the college environment is going to look like for them? Yeah, that’s such a good question. Removing the scaffolding little by little is the best thing that a parent can do. And I think it’s very um generational. I’m a Gen X and I was raised

21:11
to be resourceful and to do things myself and to hustle. And I think that um a lot of parents today think that giving their kids the latitude is doing them a disservice and they want to help it and make it easier for them. But that’s actually the worst thing in my opinion that a parent can do. Because we want, you the saying, if you teach a man to fish,

21:40
If you give a man officially to me and if you teach a man officially for a lifetime. So I think that applies really well with executive functioning. So to just really. Support them and shift gradually away from doing for them to coaching. And the sooner these shifts happen, the better they’ll be prepared to go away. So when I say shifting from manager to coach in middle school.

22:09
You think about parents reminding their kids about doing their homework and they’re checking their grades and they’re helping them organize their materials. So in high school, um it helps if you’re asking reflective questions instead of giving the answers. Like, what’s your plan to get this project done? uh Hardest thing to do, but letting those natural consequences happen within safe limits and not micromanaging. So you can see.

22:35
What happens? Is it a maturity? Is it an ability? Do they need support? And it depends on each kid. um I think probably my biggest piece of advice would be having the kids use tools at reliably and consistency. So things like a planner or a digital calendar. So some kids work better with paper. Some people work better online. Most kids are online.

23:04
But I always tell my clients, you know what system works best? And they’re like, what? The one that works for you and the one that you stick to, rely on. Also not relying on that working memory. Like when we’re young, we can remember 15 things until you stop sleeping. And so, you know, why make it harder than it has to be? So why rely on that working memory?

23:33
Use that sticky note, use that external source. Think another one, time management. Just when kids are in high school, they have so much scheduled time. And in college, they’re not. So helping them imagine what a day might look like in college. And I always talk about putting anchors in your day. So make sure you’re getting up at a reasonable time, at least one day on the weekend. ah

24:02
you know, going to bed, like making sure that they’re establishing those routines. And then also really helping them with problem solving. You know, I didn’t turn to my homework, what should I do? Well, what do you think you should do? You know, how can you approach this? So helping them not realize that they should know how to do it, but it’s a tool that they have to build. The last one I would say is emotional regulation, which people don’t always.

24:30
considered to be an executive function, but it is a huge one. What do you do when you get overwhelmed? What are your deficits? And helping them work through those things. Because I think like we didn’t talk about this when we were growing up, but our kids are so well-versed in speaking about, you some kids, a lot of kids are well-versed in speaking about their feelings. So.

24:54
What are their tools and what are the tools that they can lean on when they’re overwhelmed or they’re stressed or they’re anxious or depressed or whatever the things are. Debbie, those are great ideas for how a parent can help transition to college. But I think it’s also important to note just what do you do to get accommodations in college? Because that’s also a really big thing that we get a lot of questions from. So what we typically tell students is that and families is that

25:18
First of all, you have to have a WASC-IV, which is an adult assessment. It’s a neuropsych exam to demonstrate that you have a need for accommodations and that’s something that you’ve been able to use in high school to be more successful in your academics. So, and that has to happen once a student is 16. So that’s something that is important to note if you’re thinking about getting accommodations, you want to make sure that your last neuropsych exam has been a WASC-IV and when you’re 16.

25:46
And then when looking at colleges, we recommend that you often visit the Office of Disabilities because that will give you an idea of how comfortable you are as a student going in there, getting help, meeting with various advisors to help you. Many instances, they can help you manage your schedule, manage your assignments, help you break things down, really work on those executive functioning skills.

26:13
So the way to think about it is there’s three levels of services that are offered at colleges. There are services, which is just that they offer services and you have to request them. There are coordinated services, which is sort of like the middle range. And then there’s support programs. And those are programs that have special offices dedicated to helping students with learning differences, students with executive function. There typically is a chart, an additional charge. Sometimes I get a school like Marist.

26:42
You have to actually be admitted into the program. But often it’s really a matter of helping students typically that first year manage the transition and go through learning executive function skills, how they can manage their time. It’s really more about the executive functioning skills rather than the academics. So that’s an important thing to just note. And the other thing that’s different between high school and colleges

27:07
is that in high schools you’ll have a 504 or you’ll have an IEP and a dependent educational plan. In colleges you don’t really have that. But it is good if you’ve had that support in high school to have it documented so that when you go to colleges you can request to get either extended time on tests, to get distraction free rooms, sometimes you can get note takers. There’s a lot of different things you can get if there’s a reading situation and you need help.

27:34
with reading there’s a Kurzweil which will read now that we don’t really have textbooks that much anymore, but can read things for you. It’s a lot easier now with all the adaptive tools. But those are some of the accommodations that you can get that the college itself will provide. It reminds me, Abby, of one of those twins that we worked with, remember? And at the time, we were working with two twins and one of them had ADHD, executive function problems, and he was in the wrong school for sure. He was in the wrong high school. It was good for his…

28:03
twin brother but not for him. And he had a ton of support. He was constantly having to go in and meet with the, you know, the student support person and he pretty much had everything regulated for him. He was a super creative kid, really artistic, and I saw that right away. And he actually wrote his essay about how he got rid of all of the support. And when he started taking back his own life and started making the choices for himself,

28:33
he just soared. I mean, he did incredibly well, and he ended up going to Syracuse and doing incredibly well there and was now working in a creative field. So he just wasn’t in the right place, but he knew what he needed to do. So just as you were talking about that, it reminded me of that essay and that student. uh Sorry, I got chills in my whole body, and I would love to interview him for my son. I’d ask him because he is, I keep up with him and

29:01
He is soaring. He’s four years post-college or three years, three and a half years post-college now, uh still soaring. Yeah. Once he got in the right place, he just soared. I love that. That’s amazing. And it’s so hopeful. I think it’s so tough for these kids when they’re going through it. But when they work so hard for it and they see that payoff, it’s beautiful.

29:30
It seems like it’s a matter, I like a lot of what you said about, what everyone said about stigma because I have two brothers and two sons. I know nothing about girls, literally, even though I have some female clients. I’m a boy, mom, a boy person, but this road can be really rough for them because they, think boys are very uncomfortable when they don’t have control. I think that’s just a natural thing.

29:55
uh, you know, speaking not as an expert, but just anecdotally across all the, all the people that I dealt with. And when, and I would, I would say that, um, applied to the young man that Lisa’s talking about too. He saw himself once he couldn’t control everything because he got overwhelmed in high school. He thought he was, he was in the wrong high school, by the way, also something else that you said Debbie, but aside from that, he probably could have navigated his way through if he’d figured out this, that he was a creative. He had no idea by the way.

30:23
That he was a creative I mean he had absolutely no idea he thought he was supposed to be doing like math and science whatever so if he had somehow realized that he might have been able to navigate that high school but he was in the wrong place but um you know he just felt like a failure it’s so hard to get it out of that and so sort of talking about this openly but also talking about hopeful stories. Where.

30:46
people become hyper successful, I think is just really helpful to kids who are starting to go through this. Cause I feel like those boys who realize this is their issue when they get to high school, they’d rather sabotage themselves. Sometimes they avoid it. Yeah. They avoid doing the work cause they’re afraid that they’re not going to be successful. So it’s easier for them to do that. Yeah, I think so. So anyway, I think this is all super helpful to kind of get out in the open with specific examples of kids who’ve really thrived even more than they would have, you know, like

31:14
Lisa was saying with her husband, know, if they hadn’t, it’s a gift. You know? Yeah. Well, I think it’s interesting because I’ve had a number of kids write about having ADHD in positive way, not in the, know, sometimes it’s the, know, I didn’t know I had it and this is why I didn’t do well. And then I figured it out. But a lot of times it’s like, this has been my superpower. Like this is how I’m super creative. This is how I can really focus in and hyper-focus on a certain area. And in fact, I remember reading a book

31:40
blog post from one of my clients, he graduated a bit ago, probably in 2019, I want to say graduated from college, he went to Yale. So was a super talented young man, musician, and he ended up working in social media. And he just was able to harness all of his creative juices and all of his superpowers of hyper-focus. And he said, like, I love to go from task to task to task to task, and this is what I do at work.

32:09
So it’s once you get out of the school where you’re so narrow-minded in terms of what you have to do and you could really unleash it, then it does become a superpower. So just interesting. I love that. And I do think with work, everybody can be a success story. Yeah. I agree. I would go back to Mad Men. mean, when you watch Mad Men, right? It’s like now you have people, now you have whatever. You have AI companions that will dictate what you’re saying. But in the old days,

32:38
you had somebody, all of these people that probably had ADHD, had secretaries or assistants, and they would just spitball all of the stuff. And then that assistant would take that information and type it up and make sense of it. And, you know, not having that anymore. If you look at Mad Men, I’m sure all those people had ADHD. Totally. No, totally. And I think with regard to this stigma comment, everybody in today’s day and age has something.

33:07
It’s always my approach to be very open because you never know what someone else is going through. And it’s like, it’s just a thing. It’s like, you have diabetes, you treat it, have ADHD, you treat it, have anxiety, depression, whatever it is. So I think it’s very common. And Lisa, I love your point about, Abby, like, maybe using your strengths to harness your power.

33:36
Like for me, switching from a corporate executive and I did really well in my career, but I have impulsivity. So for me to work at a company like American Express and be very much a, you know, a corporate person was not the right fit for me, even though I was really successful at my job. So like I’m a perfect example of, you know, talk about wanting to go from thing to thing, you know, one hour is business development. Another hour it’s coaching, another hour it’s doing a podcast. So.

34:05
I think in today’s day and age with there being so many opportunities, it’s just about being resourceful to find what works for your client. Agreed. And being lucky enough to have somebody’s support, whether it’s a teacher or a parent or someone to give you the confidence to chase what you know is right, might know what is right for you. But I think it’s hard to just, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s huge is to have someone

34:32
in your corner at least one and then what that turns into for you is huge. Yeah. Going back to the kids who are going to college, what would you say to parents about what the best way to support their kids who have executive functioning issues? How can they best support them from afar without compromising their independence? Yeah. And that’s a great question.

35:01
because these pitfalls happen when there’s so much independence. You they’re going from like we were saying before, being over scheduled to having all the time in the world. So helping their kids stick to a routine, not getting their days and nights mixed up, committing to the gym a certain number of times a week. I think helping them slot in their calendar what they need to do. So then what they want to do becomes the dessert.

35:30
and not the shiny object. I think also just keeping an open dialogue with their child about how they’re doing, what’s going well, what can be improved, and helping the kid. Like you can be there as a sounding board, but letting them drive the solutions to help foster that independence themselves. think one other thing is uh encouraging the child to check into the resources that the college provides.

35:57
most colleges do have an office of disability support or like academic success centers that the kids could access. And when I was doing my research for this, I was shocked to find very few kids actually use these resources. Yeah, they’re all available. I mean, I think when I first started doing this, actually, Stephanie’s mom used to work with me and she was the LD support to work with students who had

36:25
needed learning support. So we had all this information on it and now it’s really blossomed. mean every college does have support and they do have accommodations for students but it’s really a matter of accessing those. So what do you do? So as a parent you’re going to provide advice or you’re going to and even if you do it in a very mentor-y way rather than a directive way but then you know they get off to college right and then everything can fall apart.

36:54
So what do you see as some of the biggest challenges? Because we see kids who come to us who hit the screen when they got to college and then they need to regroup and try to transfer. What are some of the pitfalls that you see for kids when they go off to college? And how do you think we can either anticipate or help manage them? I think it’s really just learning how to be their own life manager. Proper nutrition, adequate sleep.

37:23
enough hydration, being proactive, staying on top of things. So really just like fostering that before they go and then continuing it as they go. At our lunch, I wanna bring up something that I really liked. We were asking you, or you mentioned that sometimes they don’t, and you’ve said this too, that they don’t know the supports that are available to them. But one specific support that you brought up, the frog example,

37:52
which we really loved. So can you describe that, not just the frog example, but what are some other effective tools that you give students to help them? So the Eat the Frog is a prioritization tool. So it’s based on a quote from Mark Twain, which is, if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest frog of all. So

38:19
Basically, the frog is your aid priority. So if you imagine breaking up a sheet into four sections, you have your aid priority, your frog, that’s your must do. And then you have a should do, a nice to do, and a not necessary. Another one is the Eisenhower matrix. And in addition to being executive function coach, I’m also an executive and career coach. I work with C-suite executives who are like, I don’t know how to break down my day if I’m not scheduled meeting to meeting.

38:49
And these very, very successful people. So the Eisenhower matrix is a two by two grid that’s broken up. The anchor points are importance and urgency. And the four points in the grid are due schedule, delegate, and delete. And so like, before I go to bed, I look at my day the next day and I plan, okay, prep for webinar. That was my frog this morning.

39:18
or whatever the thing is, if I don’t do today, my day is going to fail. And so then it becomes very objective. These are my plans, and this is what I have to do today. And I wouldn’t say put a million things on there, but what are the things that I’m actually going to get done? So a prioritization tool, I think, is really important. Other tools. So one area you asked before about

39:46
where I see pitfalls when people go to college, accountability. know, kids are so, I think like because of COVID and because of life, there’s less accountability on kids today than there was historically in my observation. And so one good tool is body doubling. So that’s where you work with a friend, like you might go to the library for an hour together and you can sit side by side at a carol, do they still have carols at libraries?

40:14
I do. In the drags, I think in the basement, right? So you sit side by side, you don’t have to be working on the same thing. But it is like we are going to go to the library and we are going to work for two hours. And what you can do to keep yourself like to keep that energy sustained is something called the Pomodoro technique. And that’s work for 25 minutes, you take a five minute break and you do that four times and then you take a 20 minute break.

40:43
So the benefit of that is that you’re able to build stamina. You can be focused in short bursts and you use timers and hold yourself accountable to follow through and restart after each break. That’s the tricky part. But ah there are all these other little things. mean, there are websites that you can sign up for, like Focusmate, where you can body double with somebody. And I’ve done it before with clients and I was very frankly like,

41:12
annoyed that I had to take the time to do it. But then I actually ended up being really, um it works, like it works really well. And, you know, I just went on mute and I turned off my camera and I set the timer for 25 minutes, I will take me back, I asked my client how it gone. And now I do it occasionally with clients, or I do with friends who come over and will body double except no talking. And we focus.

41:41
My daughter did that when she had to study for the MCATS. There was a site where you could just go on and it was just a random person. She doesn’t have ADHD, but she just wanted somebody to be accountable. So it didn’t feel so arduous to be studying for such a big test. That’s amazing. Was that a formal thing that was set up? It’s a formal thing. I don’t know. It was just a website. You just go on and there’s somebody sitting there on the screen and they’re just in the background and then you’re doing your work. They’re doing their work. You don’t really talk to them. It was just, you knew that.

42:09
Like you had company when you were trying to do something that was challenging. It also holds accountable to like actually sit there for two hours if you sign up for a slot. Right, so if someone’s there and you know that they’re there and that was kind of what it was, yeah. OK, that’s a genius use of technology, right? Sometimes, sometimes technology is the worst, but that is totally genius. Yeah. And speaking of technology, I feel like we have to talk about social media for a second.

42:37
um at least, although social media is sort of the bane of my existence. But anyway, so what do you see as the connections between executive functioning and social media? Like, do you see it as something that gets in the way of kids’ focus and students’ focus? Or are there ways that you see it as a positive thing in a student’s life? I think both. I think for someone with executive function deficits and ADHD, technology can be a big struggle.

43:07
because it takes attention away from the important to the interesting. can also like, I think that a lot of kids use it as a pacifier. If I’m bored or I’m stretched or I’m challenged, I’m uncomfortable, I’m going to take a break and put in my pacifier and go on social media and

43:31
like guilty, I do it too. It’s hard because there’s also that novelty and people with ADHD are always seeking dopamine. And so that’s like to go scroll, it’s a big draw. So for someone with executive functioning skills, it can be like being on a diet and going to an all you can eat buffet, which can be a challenge, but there are some benefits that come from it.

44:00
and that is cognitive flexibility. executive function, one executive function challenge amongst some people is uh inflexibility and uh the perspective that their way is the right way. So by watching videos and seeing somebody who has a different opinion, you might learn to be more flexible or uh change your perspective or

44:28
Another benefit is like if you’re using it to learn and, you know, learn some hacks about what did your favorite influencer do when they had executive function check or not feel so alone. So there are some good things to exercise regulation and to really, you know, set a timer to prevent yourself from doom scrolling. So it’s both, but I do think it weighs heavier on being more of a distraction than a benefit.

44:59
Sounds like timers are a big thing for people with executive functions. Setting the timers so that you know exactly what you need to do, when you need to do it, and it doesn’t seem… Now we actually tell students, just all of our students, so we get into the crunch time of getting all of their essays to set a timer or just to spend 30 minutes, commit to 30 minutes a day, every day, to work on their essays and just undistracted. I don’t know how many people listen, but I do think those that do, they get a lot more done because then it’s not this like, oh, I have to write.

45:27
I need three hours to write all these essays. Just like spend a little bit of time each day and you’ll chip away at it. And I think that’s a really. And it’s like, and for neurotypicals when they get in that habit, it sticks. It really helps build stamina. It helps them focus. I like that one a lot. Like I tell my clients if they’re trying to organize themselves to set a timer for like 25 minutes, do one room. And then if you’re still excited to do more,

45:56
set a timer for another 20 minutes. Sometimes it’s just getting started. I I know when I, I I my book, was a while, it was like 10 years ago, maybe longer than, but I just, said, okay, I’m going to spend, I think it was an hour a day. And then it just like forced me to just sit down and do it. And then I did it. It was like, it wasn’t that hard. was just getting started was always the hardest part of it. 100%.

46:22
So what are some, we always like to end or start with myths and truths. So what are some myths and truths about ADHD, EF, or executive functioning? I think my favorite one is that strong intelligence doesn’t mean strong executive function and low intelligence doesn’t mean weak executive function. Intelligence doesn’t predict EF performance. I can both struggle with the organization while

46:51
people with the lower IQ might have amazing executive function skills. So I think that that’s a big one. Another one you hit on before that executive function, the myth is executive dysfunction is laziness or character flaw. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. It stems from differences in brain development of function um and it affects our ability to manage tasks. It’s not a lack of effort. Last one.

47:21
that it’s a childhood issue, it’s only a childhood issue, ah unfortunately. It can persist into adulthood, but like we said, with work and building those neural pathways, you can turn it into a spring. Absolutely, yeah. All right, well, thank you. Thank you, Debbie, for being here and thank you, CBMers for tuning in.

47:44
You gave us a lot to think about, a lot to process. So we really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us. um You could um catch more episodes of CBM, of College Bound Mentor, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. If you like what you hear, please give a review because that will help us get it out to more people. And to learn more, visit CollegeBoundMentor.com. Until next time, you got this!