Sarah Kesty on Stealth Manifestations of Executive Function Challenges

Debbie:
Hey, Sarah, welcome to the podcast.

Sarah Kesty:
Thank you, Debbie. It’s wonderful to be here.

Debbie:
A mutual friend, Seth Perler, I know really respects your work in the executive function space. And I thought you need to come on the show so we can get into it with you. So as a way of introducing you to listeners, would you give us a little bit about your, I guess, personal why in this space and the work that you do in the world?

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah, that’s my favorite thing to talk about, so thank you. ⁓ You know, I taught for nearly 20 years and it was always the reflection of like when kids would blossom or when they’d have that moment or when they’d kind of turn the corner and have like internalized skills. And I was always kind of taking one Zoom out of like why. Because if I can kind of extract that and make it a template and give it to other kids. That’s amazing. That’s my job as an educator. And you know what? It was always executive function. It was always self-regulation, which I kind of incorporate within the executive function, because it’s self-management. You’re using your prefrontal cortex. So same thing, but or planning or prioritizing or organizing just something that gave them the tools to student and then to adult and then to, you know, be whatever post-education life they have, it all came back to executive function. And so as I dug in and sort of experimented with strategies and language and ⁓ eventually coaching, it just became very clear that that was really the secret sauce for living well and especially living well when you had a neurodivergent brain. So that’s why I’m beating this drum and, you know, trying to make it easy and accessible for everybody. Cause it, if you Google it Debbie, my gosh, it’s, it can get very medical and clinical and overwhelming. So I kind of want to be that, that Sherpa along the journey, that bridge between research and action.

Debbie:
Yeah, that’s great. And I also imagine, you know, that things have changed a lot since you got into this space. I still remember the first time I heard of this term executive function. My kiddo who’s now 21 was six, seven. And I was just fascinated by this whole idea, but it was like a whole new language almost. So I’m just wondering just for some perspective and in the space, the neurodivergent space in the executive function conversation, what have you seen kind of change in the time since you first started doing this work in terms of awareness and understanding?

Sarah Kesty:
That’s a great question. think, I mean, I’m not going to say like, everybody gets it now. I very much wish that was true, but it’s still, you know, a lot goes under the radar unnoticed. But I would say what’s changed is a lot of the initial executive function research came out of the autism world and that was wonderful. And then we started realizing, ⁓ this applies to everyone and this applies in different ways. And so, I think that’s been a positive change. Another thing that came out of the pandemic was that we saw that bifurcation of how some students did well and some students did not. And the difference was the executive function skill set that they had because if they could self-manage, if they did have the skills to kind of replicate the prompts and the environmental cues that they had in a school building, but at home on their own. If that was internalized, they did okay navigating digital education. If not, they really struggled. And I think that was an unfortunate, but kind of good opportunity to start saying, is executive function. And guess what? It’s all skills. And skills can be taught and grown. And that’s such a positive message.

Debbie:
Yeah. And so it’s interesting. I didn’t realize that it really kind of stemmed from the autistic community or that it was really seen as being something associated with autism. think of it very much hand in hand with ADHD. but I guess, executive functioning is part of everybody’s life. Right. And so everyone my hunch is and tell me where I’m wrong would be somewhere, you know, with all these different skill sets would have, you know, some that they’re better at than others. Is that kind of what it looks like? Like everyone has these kind of more zigzagged profiles.

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah, like if you see those, I forget what they’re called, but those kind of circle self-evaluations and you can kind of put yourself on each component of the assessment and then sort of make like a spider web diagram, everyone’s would look different for executive function. And, you know, before we started recording, you mentioned an episode on my podcast about playing on hard mode and that sort of not celebrates, but recognizes that executive function is not static for any one of us. And there are things that are pretty fluid experiences throughout our day that impact our executive function. for example, I didn’t sleep well last night because we had a lot of wind and there was a lot of, um, palm fronds hitting the roof and it was really startling. And so I can expect that especially after the high stimulation of this, like in this situation, my body’s producing enough cortisol and adrenaline to sort of override the exhaustion. But I can expect maybe after this, when I’m starting to make lunch, I’m going to get some foggy thinking. I might forget things. I might lose words because I’m trying to kind of search or might be more emotional. I might have struggles with regulation because I didn’t sleep well and my brain didn’t have the chance to kind of go through the glymphatic system, clean myself up. So that’s one of the factors that just kind of impacts executive function. So no, none of us are ever static. None of us ever have like a matching profile and just lifey stuff will impact how we do.

Debbie:
I love that you use the word lifey, by the way.  That is a word that I love to use. actually started a sub stack recently called It’s Lifey. So I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone else say it. So just had to call that out. That’s where my brain goes at the end of the day here in the Netherlands. My brain’s like pinging all over the place. Let’s talk about executive functions in terms of maybe some of I don’t know how many there are, 12, 15, 10, but are there some that tend to be kind of the most impactful neurodivergent kids in particular that really tend to be highlighted if they’re struggling in school or at home or in life?

Sarah Kesty:
That’s a great question. And you know what’s so tricky is it’s a really contentious space to define executive function. People are like, no, I’m right. You’re right. This is right. you know what? don’t have a dog in that fight because if it’s observable and it’s under the umbrella of facilitating our lives right now or in the future, okay, it’s executive function. I haven’t necessarily committed myself to like, this is the concrete list of 15 executive function skills because they’re kind of seeds and then what they blossom into is what we can observe. So I would say in terms of kind of thematically the skills that students might struggle with, especially neurodivergent students would be self-regulation. and this, this doesn’t mean that we’re blown out of class or crying or you know, being turkeys in class, it might be internal sort of meltdown masking really hard till we get home. Related to that would be attention regulation too. So attention management. How do I facilitate a space where I can up regulate so I can kind of get energized to do something? How do I facilitate a space and kind of the situation in my brain where I can deep focus? Those are skills that aren’t necessarily taught, but are expected. And then in the academic realm, I would say in particular, the ability to concretize your to-do list and schedule it, and maybe even set some reminders. So that work management bucket of executive function, and then studying. You know, it’s so wild, Debbie, when I train schools or… groups of adults and I say, all right, real talk. How many of you were taught how to study? A room of a hundred people get maybe three hands. Is that wild? it’s a requisite skill, but somehow it’s just supposed to come from outer space. You know?

Debbie:
Yeah, so interesting. I was having this conversation with my husband last night about my kiddo who’s at university and we’re really kind of noticing those lagging skills in this time is not really knowing how to do those things. Like not having been explicitly taught how to study for something, how to manage and juggle more, multiple classes and studying for multiple things at one time. And it’s a really steep learning curve. My kiddo gave me the best birthday gift a few weeks ago when over a Zoom call told me, guess what, mom, I started keeping a to-do list. I was like, I’m sorry, what? How did that happen? I was floored. was like, my gosh, that’s the best thing you could have ever told me today. This is after years of suggesting here’s a journal. Here’s a planner. But finally it was like, no, actually I need this. And it had to be on my birthday.

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah, as you’re talking about that, I’m like it kind of has to come from within and sometimes we have to hit that point of like, whoa, I think like like we said, like I’m playing on hard mode, something could get easier and that’s where a lot of executive function, innovation and adoption comes from and to kind of fall up on the, actually I need to write it down feel. I heard once, and I’ve Googled it so many times to find the person to credit it, and there’s several people who credit making it up, but it is not me for sure. And that’s our brains, our factories, not warehouses. So we don’t store well, but we can problem solve. We can make, we can do that. And when we can honor that my brain’s not a warehouse, well, that means I have to find my warehouse, get a notes app, a Discord page private to me, a sticky note, whatever it is that works for me to kind of capture what’s important and what future me needs to remember.

Debbie:
Yeah, I love that. So we touched upon this a little bit before the break, this idea of living in hard mode. But I had listened to an episode that you did on your podcast about this. And I just really loved that the way that you laid out all of these approaches to moving through life that we might not realize, like the odds are not stacked in our favor because of decisions we’re making or ways that we’re doing things. Could you talk us through that a little bit and how we can get out of hard mode or help our kids get out of hard mode.

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And you know what’s funny? My brain is a factory, not a warehouse. I’m going to write it down. But the hard mode episode really got a whole bunch of traction and people writing into me. And somebody made the coolest graphic, and I’ll send it to you if you want to post it, about, you know, reminders of not playing on hard mode because it was really. So we talked a little bit earlier about how, you know, our brains are not static even throughout the day we’re changing. And so hard mode is considering what are the things that we’re doing that are sort of working against us in particularly that impact our executive function. And this isn’t like big whopping changes that you’re going to have to uproot your whole habits. It’s more like hydration.

I mean, there’s a study, I can send you the link if you want, of it’s a 2 % dehydration, which would be like going for a walk and not having some water. I mean, just a pretty easy level where probably all 2 % or more dehydrated. And that caused a cognition impact. our cognitive test scores took a ding for the participants by up to 12%. And that was, those were kind of executive function based. Can I make a decision? Can I hold my focus? That kind of thing. So when we’re dehydrated, we’re playing on hard mode. When we’re emotionally dysregulated, when we’re kind of ignoring something that’s really bothering us and not ⁓ managing well, kind of feeling distracted by an emotion, that’s pulling our brain activity more into our limbic system, which is taking it away from our prefrontal cortex.

Not that anything ever goes all the way offline, but, and that, that can be another spot where it’s harder to focus. It’s harder to think. It’s harder to form a sentence or react in a way that shows true you. And those are spots where we can say, okay, maybe if I don’t have time to address the social or emotional need, maybe I at least make it safe to say future me is going to think about this at 6 PM when I’m done. Or I’m going to text the person that I’m having the conflict with and say, I love you. This is important. Let’s talk about it later. So those are a couple of the spots where we play on hard mode. Was there anything that kind of stuck out to you that

Debbie:
No, I think what I took from it is that when we talk about executive function, building those skills, my experience, has been these kind of very strategic things to learn and grow the skills of how to plan and organize and how to manage your time and how to keep track of things and all of those types of executive functions. But this is something different. This isn’t skill building. This is how to give ourselves kind of the best foundation to show up as our best selves in any situation. So I just really appreciated that interconnection of all these aspects of just taking care of ourselves, right? Practicing good hygiene and well-being and how that can actually also really impact our executive function at any given time.

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah, it’s kind of that integration, right? Because we can like watch a video online of like, here’s five organization tips. And then we’re like, ⁓ cool. And then half the time we either berate ourselves because we don’t actually integrate them and generalize them, or we’re like, that’s neat. And then, boop, our brains aren’t warehouses. It falls out of our ears. So it’s kind of thinking in a different way of like, there’s no right or wrong way to support or even enact your executive functions. Executive functions don’t ordinate. It’s not like learning phonics or something where you kind of have this like ordered skills. And that’s great news because that means we can tailor it to each of us and just sort of start being observers and watching ourselves in our life laboratory, like I like to say, and sort of saying like, okay, how did my brain react to this? What did I notice? What seemed to go right? How can I use that as like sort of a tool for future me thinking in those terms so that it doesn’t feel so overwhelming? Well, Sarah said I have to do it this exact way. And if I don’t, I’m failing more just like, let me see how this goes for me.

Debbie:
Yeah. It makes me think about, well, I’m curious how you work with people as an executive function coach, because I know that that’s part of the work that you do in the world. are you, are you, yeah, I just love to know more about your philosophy and how you help strengthen students’ executive function skills.

Sarah Kesty:
I touched on it a little bit there in terms of the openness. I’m not coming with an agenda or judgment ever because I’m coming with an awareness that we live in a society that tells you you’re wrong if you struggle with executive function, tells you that you have character flaws if you interrupt because you have impulsivity issues or if you happen to forget your homework that you clearly don’t care about school. And I’ve lived it, I’ve walked alongside people long enough to know that executive function is not tied to morality in any way. So I bring to our coaching sessions a curiosity, ⁓ a real openness. Like you can drop whatever happened this week and we’re going to look at it and think about like, okay, cool. Where do you want to go with this? Like if you got in trouble, was it worth it? Or, you know, like, what does future you want to take from this? So it’s a real safe, like, just beautiful space. I love what I do. ⁓ And then I would say we kind of have a coaching arc. I wrote about it in my book too, to try to help teachers kind of know the rhythm and the pattern of having a coaching conversation. So it’s connecting, you know, just kind of what’s up.

A follow up on last week, like last week you took this tool out to the world to experiment with it. What went right? What do we want to adjust? And then asking the students or young adults, like, what’s on your radar this week? What’s been tricky? What’s coming up? What do you need? Because I never want to dictate and say, okay, well today I’m teaching you this because Debbie, when they come to me, it’s usually like, I don’t have time for extra. And so I really try to make the coaching applicable to real life stuff. Right now we’re getting in there and helping solve problems. And in the meantime, I’m saying, this is why this works for your brain. This is what it looks like in other situations. How are you going to remind future you to keep going with it? Does that make sense?

Debbie:
Yeah, totally. And I love your passion for it. can, if you’re listening to this, you should check it out on YouTube because you can see that Sarah’s eyes light up when she’s talking about this stuff. It’s great. I do want to just mention your book so listeners can check that out. It’s called Growing Executive Function, Empowering Secondary Students with Skills for Lifelong Success. I wanted to circle back to something we talked about in the first part of this conversation when we were discussing the different types of executive functions. You mentioned self-regulation. And I think that’s an important one to bring up because it’s not necessarily something that people think about when they’re thinking of executive functions. And it’s huge, right? And I imagine, you know, when you and I were going back and forth planning this episode, we talked about the stealth ways that executive function can impact us. Is that one of the ways that you would consider to be kind of stealth?

Sarah Kesty:
Yes, yes, that’s a great way of putting it. And I didn’t necessarily call it out in the book in that way, but that’s absolutely true. I mean, we can’t really engage with executive functions if we are dysregulated. So you think about when you’re in a panic and like, my gosh, you have to make a decision and it’s that flustered feeling and you’re looking all over and you’re kind of gesturing with your hands. that is the lived experience of dysregulation sort of. Prioritizing survival your brain’s going to like black white. Yes. No do this and it’s when when our brains are. We’re not going to be able to hold in our working memory and evaluate like, okay, here’s a potential consequence. Can I estimate the cost of this? We’re just going to sort of shoot from the hip, so to speak. So yes, it’s when we’re dysregulated, we can’t use our executive function. And then the backwards of this is it oftentimes takes executive function to plan for and manage our regulation. So if I know that I’m entering a tough conversation, I need my executive function to maybe have planned to put my regulation tools on like a timer or like a reminder on my phone of like, Hey, remember your belly breaths or somewhere in my environment. so past me had to think for future me to help me have my regulation tools at the ready or maybe I needed to use my executive function to think about how to communicate my needs in the future. If I work with students who kind of lose their verbal abilities when they’re really dysregulated, and that’s a normal natural thing that happens, they might need some sort of written something to express what they’re going through. And that helps with self-regulation, but it also wires executive function to get to it. So you can see how that kind of intermixes and makes it pretty tricky.

Debbie:
Yeah, and as you’re sharing that, also think about adding anxiety into the mix, adding rejection sensitive dysphoria into the mix, there, all these things are interrelated. And, you know, I imagine, and again, I’d love to know your thoughts on this, but do you see this as when we can really address even one piece of this puzzle that it could have a trickle down effect and kind of support these other aspects, whether it’s impulse control or communication challenges or anxiety.

Sarah Kesty:
Absolutely. And you know what’s so wild is I don’t necessarily address anxiety in coaching. I respect that that’s more of a therapy situation, but you can literally watch like kids come in with their shoulders up as earrings. You know, they’re really like, I’m overwhelmed or they’ll be texting me and, you know, really just that, my gosh, I have so much to do.And then when we concretize it, we brain dump, when we sort of sort it out and it’s solid in a plan, time estimates, we know what future you is going to need, where you’re going to be, what you’re going to do, you watch the shoulders come down. And one of my clients with anxiety described it as sort of, it feels like this like nebulous lion sort of like hovering around in her brain. But when she brain dumps, when she has it under control, but she’s kind of evaluated, like, do I actually need to do this thing? Because one of the first swipes we take on a brain dump is like, what can actually go? Like what goes on my Elsa list? Like, let it go. And eventually she said that that sort of nebulous sort of growling beast in her head, she looks at it she’s like, that’s a house cat. I can manage this. So it’s interesting that like when we have executive dysfunction, we feel overwhelmed. We feel like we need a system, add into it that the world is giving us feedback about our character because we happen to have a neurology that struggles with it. Of course, we’re going to kind of be up here having that feeling of anxiety or that lived experience of anxiety. And so it’s, yes, it definitely plays into it and kind of interacts with executive function.

Debbie:
And I’m thinking too about avoidance as a coping strategy when kids are struggling. So is that a piece of executive functioning as well? You know, maybe it’s the opposite of, or it’s related to task initiation. I’m not sure. You tell me, but how do you help students who default to avoidance when they start getting overwhelmed with all of the things or getting behind on things because of the lagging executive function skills?

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah, I mean, and we first just kind of acknowledge it. I’m like, whoops, okay, well that was in the plan and it didn’t happen. What did you notice? Like walk me through what that sounded like in your brain, you know? And a lot of the times it’s two things. It’s one of two things, maybe both. When a task is unclear, we tend to avoid it. So if I like have this feeling of like I need to do X, Y, Z, but I don’t know where to start, our brains won’t engage. Like it’s really hard to initiate because like, where are you initiating? Like, where do I start on this game board? So having clarity oftentimes helps with the avoidance or procrastination. The other piece is tricky because avoidance is sometimes biologically reinforced, meaning that if I wait long enough, I’m going to like have that pressure and urgency build up.

And that will cause my body to make adrenaline and cortisol, which feels a whole lot like the focused juice that I’m actually waiting for my brain to produce naturally. And so we’ll notice, and we’ll be so frustrated with our kids and be like, bro, you waited till like Thursday to work on the Friday paper. And they’re like, I don’t know, my brain could just do it. And that’s often why. So I will be honest with kids and be like, this is what’s going on. What are your thoughts on the experience of the 11th hour? Are you open to trying false deadlines? What are your thoughts about breaking this into chunks? And nine times out of 10, they’re like, yeah, I don’t want this not sleeping for a couple days experience. What else do we have?

Debbie:
Yeah, very cool. Okay, great. So let’s, before we wrap up, I would love to give some ideas for parents who have kids with lagging executive function skills and how they can support them. know, certainly it’s something we talk a lot about on the show and in my community are parents who kind of get stuck in this push pull and feeling like they’re nags and not wanting to be a nag and wanting to support, but the scaffolding is messy and it’s just really complicated. What are some kind of your best practices for parents to support their kids who really are struggling? And I recognize this impacts kids of all ages, but I also have seen as kids move into middle school and high school and kind of the stakes get higher, the demands for executive function skills grows and then parents get more involved. And so just wondering, how you guide parents in showing up for their kids.

Sarah Kesty:
Yeah. And I would say the first thing is there’s, need to be mindful that we’re not shaming ourselves for over-helping and at the same time be ready to say, ⁓ what is it that my kid seems ready to take over if we’re trying to kind of extract ourselves and not be their external executive function? But it won’t be all at once. It might be one thing like, you know what, honey, I’m not going to prompt you anymore to put your lunchbox away. I think you got it.

And if you don’t got it, let’s think about what environmental cues can we use? What is future you need to remember it? You know, so it, I think sometimes people come to me and they’re very ashamed and they’re like, my gosh, I’ve been doing it all for my kid. And it’s like, well, it’s not without real life consequences that executive dysfunction happens. So it’s not as if we’re kind of experimenting outside in the backyard. Grades have real implications for opening doors in the future. So of course you’re going to try to kind of buoy and scaffold your kid. makes sense. And at the same time, it’s so smart to recognize I can’t do this forever. Like he can’t pack me and take me to college with him. So what is this going to look like? So I think just recognizing and being honest with ourselves and being gentle with ourselves is a first step. And then I would say just globally, one of the executive function helps we can have is to make time visual. So have calendars, have clocks, have time estimates, time timers, know, ways to concretize the feeling of time. Because sometimes that Thursday night work on the Friday assignment is a genuine surprise because they just haven’t had a lot of interactions with a visual of time and then think about other ways that we can kind of tweak the environment and make executive function easier to apply. for example, some kids need quiet kind of blank spaces where they can just lock in, and some kids need music.

Sometimes like a brain with ADHD will be scanning the auditory environment for something new and novel, because that’s going to give us dopamine. so maybe they need to lock in with, lock in is what they say for deep focus. ⁓ Maybe they need some auditory input to get into their space. So just being flexible with playing with the environment of what it looks like. If your kid’s having a hard time starting part of an environmental support can be body doubling, which means you’re working next to them, but you’re not prompting them. You’re just sort of saying, Hey, I have deep focus work. Do you want to body double with me? Do you want to both work at the same time? And if that doesn’t work with your kid, because hello, you are their parent and they’re going to be, there might be a smidge of eye rolling going on. ⁓ you can facilitate that with other people and say, okay, well, do you want to find a body double at school? Or do you want to make library time every week? That kind of thing.

Debbie:
Yeah. Yeah. One of the strategies I heard you talk about that I really liked is having spaces where you can kind of feed off the energy of the people around you. So if you’re in, like you just mentioned going to the library, like that, just being in that environment might trigger your own brain, like, this is work time, you know, and kind of give you a little bit of an edge there.

Sarah Kesty:
Absolutely. We have mirror neurons in our brains that kind of mimic what’s going on with us socially. That’s what helped we evolved to sort of check in with our people and make sure that we were jiving with our tribe. So it makes sense that we would match up and feel the environment. And sometimes to be fair, autism kind of messes up the messages a little bit in that where it’s a little bit harder to read it. But for the most part, that explains the phenomenon of if I whisper to you, you whisper back and you’re like, how did you get in my head? Same idea. So yeah, using the environmental cues, kind of the kids would say the vibes of a place, that’s legitimate. It really works.

Debbie:
Yeah. Yeah. It works for me for sure. That’s been a trick that I’ve used or a hack that I’ve used for myself for many, many years. Let me ask one last question because I, I’m always trying to channel like what would my listeners want to hear? What are they dealing with? And I’m just thinking about the kids who are really resistant to doing anything, right? And need a lot of evidence that their way won’t ultimately work or they might, you know, be PDA, they might have an incredibly strong desire for autonomy. And therefore, the strategies that we want to share with them that we hope they experiment with them might be a hard pass for a long time. Like, do you have any thoughts on how parents can kind of navigate when their kids are highly resistant to the kind of work that you do?

Sarah Kesty:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that is tricky. And I always say, don’t coach hostages. you know, we’ve got a readiness component there that really is very real. And sometimes we’ll hit a point or kids will kind of come to me at a point where they’re like, I don’t want any helping. And oftentimes it’s resistance because they’ve kind of developed this armor of apathy where, you know, they’ve been socialized to believe that they’re wrong for having these struggles so much so that they’ve closed down to it. So sometimes it’s sort of a thawing of that iciness that we have of normalizing and starting to talk about like, oh my gosh, I found this strategy for my brain, or I heard about this kid that had a really hard time with XYZ parallel to what your kid’s going through. And then he tried this and it’s been such a game changer. And so just kind of recognizing that sometimes the no is protective and it’s because we felt cruddy about ourselves for so long that we’re like, I’m, nope, I’m not even going there. That can be super helpful. ⁓ Being open to watching for what goes right can also be kind of a good side door of like, Ooh, look at you, miss. I just got an A. I’m like, do you want to talk to me about what you did to prepare? And sort of if they’re not willing to address deficits, maybe we start extracting what’s going right and using that as a template in the future too. So there’s lots of side doors because hello, when we need our executive function, we’re also in adolescence where we don’t necessarily want input from, you know, the old people.

Debbie:
Yeah, totally, totally. I love those strategies. And I will say, going back to the fact that my child is now making lists of important things to do, I think that was years of me just talking about it out loud. Like, ⁓ I really need to make lists. I lose track of things so much. Here’s my strategy for making lists today. Here’s, you know, I mean, years. This is years in the making, which I think was why it felt like such a gift to me that my child was making a to-do list, but I love all those strategies. Well, I think we should wrap up. I’m going to name your book again and then give you a chance to share anything else you want to share before we say goodbye. But Sarah’s book is called Growing Executive Function, Empowering Secondary Students with Skills for Lifelong Success. And I will have a link to that and other resources in the show notes. But is there any kind of last tidbit or nugget or word of wisdom or  idea that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Sarah Kesty:
No pressure. Pick the very best thing, Sarah Kesty, and do it. No, just kidding. You know what? It’s a positive thing. I think just kind of going back to like, what is executive function? It’s all skills, which is great news because skills can be grown or skills can be augmented. If we’re kind of in that space where we’ve got a gap that’s bigger than the demands we can fill at the time. We recognize it and we say, what can happen outside of me while my brain is developing? So there’s just, there’s loads of hope in this space. Yes, it’s messy. Yes, it’s heartbreaking to watch your kids’ grades suffer when they’ve got the knowledge, but they’re not studenting well. And there’s space for kind of grieving that reality. But at the same time, there’s loads of examples of kids I’ve worked with or probably like parents in your group as well, Debbie, that can say like, just hunker down, you can do this. And when you come out the other side, it might not be like this full transformation, but it might be a list. And that’s going to blossom into, okay, well now I’m using a calendar and like, oh my gosh, mom, did you know that you can actually schedule your things online?

Debbie:
Yeah. Wow. All right. I’m holding out for that day. But I like what you said that, again, reminding us that these are skills that can be learned. made me think of what Michelle Borba talks about resilience, that resilient kids are made, not born. So just a good reminder is that there is so much hope in this conversation. So last thing, where would you like people to connect with you?

Sarah Kesty:
You know what, if you need easy tips, kind of user friendly stuff, the Executive Function podcast is a great place to start. And my website is sarahkesty.com.

Debbie:
Perfect. Okay. Again, listeners, I will have links in the show notes for where you can connect with Sarah and listen to her podcast, check out her book and Sarah, thank you. This has been a fascinating conversation. I have gone down deep rabbit holes on executive function and I still continue to learn and I appreciate everything that you shared today.

Sarah Kesty:
Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.