Mom, Where Is My Water Bottle? And Other Executive Functioning Mysteries
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Today, I'm going to be talking about executive functioning. This is a topic that comes up over and over with parents, and it relates to so many of the struggles we see with our kids day to day. Being able to want something and not have it, being able to plan and stay organized, being able to think about things in the future, these all are related to executive functioning.

I'm going to be talking to Zach Grisham, a certified ADHD professional and the author of Scattered to Focused, smart strategies to improve your child's executive functioning skills. I can't wait for you to listen and get actionable strategies you can use right away. We'll be back right after this.

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I'm good. So good to have you here. And I'm especially excited because the topic I know we're going to discuss is something that parents ask me about all the time and I have so many thoughts on. I know you have so many thoughts on it too. And so I thought I would just jump in by kind of saying executive functioning, right? I know parents now listening are like, oh, yes. Yes, an episode on executive functioning. I hear about this at my school. I heard about this from another parent. I keep reading about this online.

So many things I know the two of us want to say to parents around it, but let's just start maybe with a definition. Like, what is executive functioning?

I mean, there are many subsets of it, but really, it's just our ability to organize our world and our reality using our prefrontal cortex, our ability to inhibit our instincts, our ability to have that short-term memory to be able to solve problems on the go, and the ability to plan ahead. All of these skills that are needed for everyday life

That, you know, for some of us, it's a little bit more difficult. I think what you're also talking about this category of skills, kind of long-term planning, organization, inhibition of impulses, right? Emotional dysregulation, processing speed, all of those things. And all of these things, I feel like a lot of those skills...

are a little bit countercultural, especially in this culture we live in now, which is kind of all about instant gratification. Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. And we're just being bombarded with a lot of different stimulation as well. And so it's almost like we have to go through it so quickly. And in some ways, that's an advantage for those of us with ADHD, but in a lot of other ways, it's not. Because we do need to inhibit those impulses, like you said, and plan ahead and

be able to solve problems on the go. Yeah. And so just everyone listening, I just want you to think about some of the things you probably feel frustrated about with your kids because I think a lot of these things apply, right? So even like, oh, like my kid knows not to hit their sibling. Okay. Well, this is a good example. I always say there's nothing wrong with having the impulse or the urge to hit. We all have urges to do things all the time. Yeah. But in order to not hit, you have to do something called inhibit something.

your impulse or your urge. Or when we say to our kid, maybe who's even a little bit older, come on, you knew to bring your water bottle, you have soccer practice after school. Okay, well, I have to be in my house thinking about what I'm doing after school, planning today for something later, or maybe planning today for my test in a week. That's this long-term planning. When I'm out in the world and there's an issue on the playground, I have to have kind of real-time problem-solving abilities, right? When we say to our kid, oh,

Why did you say that to your friend? To some degree, again, we're talking about this real-world problem-solving in the moment. And so I think so many of the things we struggle with with our kids, and me too as a parent, we feel frustrated with, relate to executive functioning. Exactly. And it's very anxiety-producing for parents. And it's very frustrating that we have to kind of say the same thing over and over again.

But because of that, we don't want to make sure that we do that in ways that's going to affect the child's thoughts about themselves. Yes. And you're exactly right when we're talking about the inhibition. I kind of use the analogy of a fast car. Kids with ADHD or executive dysfunction, they have a very fast car oftentimes. It's just their brakes are slow.

Need a little work. Underdeveloped. Yeah. They're there. They're there, but they're underdeveloped and they can develop.

So I want to ask you a couple of questions. I want to talk about ADHD too, but I also want parents to know executive function matters even if your kid doesn't have ADHD. This is just kind of right. So how do executive functioning skills develop in kids? Because there's not an age where you're just gifted it, right? That's not how it works? Okay. It's not a birthday present. No. And yeah, it's not like we're going to get to a certain age and then, oh, it's all there. Hopefully, you kind of think of it as a gap. Yeah.

And the gap can close throughout their teenage years.

But how they develop is just over time with repetition. We're going to need probably three times more repetition when it comes to feedback because we're going to take a lot longer for those routines or for those things that we just naturally learn on a day-to-day basis to really sink in. So they develop with kind of feedback and practice? Absolutely. Yes. Okay.

And I just want to double down on that for parents because parents ask me this all the time. And Zach, I say something very similar to you. They say, well, when will my kid be able to be more organized with their homework? At what age will my kid stop hitting? Like at age eight, at age 16, whatever these ages are. And I always say, age has never given skills. That's like me saying, when will I be a professional figure skater when I'm 16? And someone would be like, well, what are you doing from age two to 16? Like if that matters to you. So what we do is

in the years is what helps our kids develop and definitely gain skills. But age on its own, and I know parents find that, oh, really? But there's something really empowering in that. You don't have to wait. You're not waiting for some age. You can say, oh, so I can do small things here and there that could actually change the trajectory of my kid's life? Yes, we can. And that's what we're going to talk about. Well, and also, if my child doesn't have those skills yet...

it doesn't necessarily mean it's your fault as a parent or that it's their fault as the kid. And so it is frustrating, though, because we all naturally compare and we see, well, the other children are able to do this. Why is my child not able to do this? And if we don't understand ADHD, we're going to come up with some kind of explanation that's probably not the best that might be damaging, whether it's

internally for the child or the parent as well. So how do you see the link for everyone? I know we have a lot of parents who their kids do have ADHD or they suspect that. What is the link or the relationship maybe between ADHD and executive function? Well, you know, executive functioning skills like impulse inhibition, processing speed, short-term working memory, the ability to sustain focus, those are all key things

key points when it comes to a diagnosis for ADHD. And so it's almost that like any child with ADHD is going to have some sort of executive dysfunction when they're not quite meeting the developmental milestones for those skills. And so I would say that, you know, you don't have to have executive dysfunction to have other diagnoses, but to have ADHD, you will have some sort of executive dysfunction. And so for people listening again,

So understanding what these executive functioning kind of struggles look like or understanding how that can relate to ADHD, it gives us a framework to understand our kid. And then instead of often taking it personally or we kind of blame, we either often, when we don't understand something with our kid, we tend to blame them or ourselves. And usually neither, almost always. It's not our fault. It's not our kid's fault. We might just not understand it. And I think what you're saying is this is a framework to help understand, oh, that's why my kid is

struggles in this way. Absolutely. And to understand that, again, it's not your fault. I think so many parents can beat themselves up and they're worried about, you know, getting a diagnosis for having a label or is this going to be an excuse for my child? But in reality, it is just creating a new way of perceiving all of this and kind of normalizing it to some degree.

I think that's so powerful, right? I don't hear parents say like, diabetes is an excuse. And you're like, what? What are you talking about? Now that you know your kid has diabetes, it sounds like now you actually have a shot at helping them. I mean, you can't do that without knowing that. So I always say that the difference between an explanation and an excuse is just where the responsibility lies within us. You know, I have ADHD.

And so if I'm expecting the entire world to change for me, then that is an excuse. But if I'm expecting myself to adapt, and it can be the same for your child as well. If you're expecting the entire world to change, that's probably unreasonable. But if you yourself and the family can adapt and we can work on advocating for certain adaptations in school, then it's not an excuse. It's just an explanation that we're working through.

I love that so much. I also, just to drive this point a little bit further home for parents, and then I want to ask you about some concrete strategies for different parts of executive functioning. You know, I don't know why I often use sports as like a metaphor where if I'm a tennis coach and I don't know, I see my tennis player that I'm trying to coach always hit the ball into the net. Obviously the ball is supposed to go over the net. Okay. You don't have to know too much about tennis to know that. But if I don't understand why it's going into the net,

I'm not gonna be able to help them because we, like, there actually could be a million reasons. Maybe they're not strong enough and they need, I don't know, muscle training. Maybe it's their form. Maybe it's their grip. Maybe it's their body position. Maybe they're actually just saying really negative things. So it's actually their self-talk. And so trying to understand my kid

is a necessary step to be able to effectively help my kid just like it would be for an athletic coach. Absolutely. Okay, so there's so many different areas of executive functioning. And I just would love...

It's like a game, Zach. I'm going to name one and you're going to share your brilliance. Okay. I'm going to name one. And then I love us to think together about, okay, so if parents hear this and say, oh boy, yeah, my kid needs this area of executive functioning help. Like what are, what's a way of understanding it? Really? What are some things I can do? Right. So here's a big one and it has to do with inhibition of impulses, right? Self-control.

Self-control. How do you understand that? And how do you help families if they're saying, ding, ding, ding, my kid definitely needs more of that. And if it's not going to be a gift for them, I guess I got to kind of work on it. What can we do? Well, first, with almost any of these, we have to kind of reframe how we're looking at everything. We're not going to be able to have any intervention or

that is going to be like a light bulb. So I always try to talk to parents about these are seeds that we're planting that hopefully start to bloom in the future. And so when it comes to self-control, we've got to look at it through that lens because if we're expecting the child to meet that marker four times out of five or perfection in some way, then we're probably going to be disappointed.

And so for me, really, when it comes to self-control, I think of it as more of inhibition of impulses. We've got to become aware of when those times are that we're the most impulsive and then discuss what is the thought process behind that. So I'm a really big proponent of we allow the child to make a mistake. We give feedback. But after the fact, coming back and talking about it, the more that we're able to talk about it and slow things down, the

We're understanding, like you said earlier, where their brain is coming from. Yeah. So let's say a parent's like, this sounds like my kid. I just found them. This has happened before. They like,

I don't know. They took all the candy from the candy jar and they don't know they're supposed to take one or none. And this would, I don't know. Right. So walk us through when you say, okay, I should talk to my kid about it after. What would that look like? So, yeah. I mean, obviously if there's a limit on the candy, which, you know, let's hope there is, you know, there would have to be some consequence, but even an hour or a day later, we can come back and say, all right, so we need to have a talk, you know, and kind of make that a regular thing, a talk time, problem solving time regarding, okay, what were you thinking? What were you feeling? What were you thinking?

What did you do that you wish you could have done differently? And things like that so that we can kind of – because in the moment, their brain is working so fast, they're not thinking about all of those things. Now, those are times after the fact when we catch them. If we can get them beforehand, like let's say –

The big thing I hear is lying. That to me is twofold. That is impulse control. And it's also avoidance. I'm trying to avoid some sort of negative feedback that I don't like or just discomfort in some way that I don't like. So I think it's important to, if they do lie, we want to, yes, catch them, but give them 10 seconds. Give them five seconds, a pause button, so that they can actually think because what

They're walking around in is that world that's going so fast without those breaks and they get to that point and they're like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do now? Well, a lot of times because I'm impulsive, I'm going to double down. So just try to, if you can, give them, okay, I'm going to let you think about that for five seconds.

Or I see that you're really angry right now. I'm going to give you about 10 seconds to think about that, you know, and what is the best reaction? Or maybe even the, instead of pause, the rewind, hey, you need to do that over so that they can slow their brain down and practice that. I love this idea and, you know, that self-control is a skill, right? Absolutely. And to be honest,

Like, I know I'm still working on it. Like, even my candy example is probably on my mind because I'm like, maybe Zach will give me a strategy to, like, not eat more candy than I told myself I would eat, right? Because I think we forget with our kids who are working on these skills, we're working on these skills. Like, seeing, you know, a big jar of candy and when you say, okay, I'm going to have, you know, a couple of them is really hard for us or...

I know my partner say even like, oh, did you get toilet paper? Like I asked you, like my first instinct is like, yep, yep, I did. And then a lie to his face, not because I'm a horrible person. I'm like, oh shoot, I forgot. Yeah.

And so I actually think so important also with all these skills is just reminding ourselves, like, these are all skills where this is an ongoing practice. And that they are skills to be developed and not just necessarily character traits. That's exactly right. Because I think so often we just throw those labels on kids. Like you said, and I do it as well. My wife will ask me, what do you have for lunch? And I'll say salad. And I really had a sandwich. Like, it's not like I'm eating a hamburger, but it's like,

Why did I say that? One, it could have been impulse control. Two, it might have been memory. I might have actually thought in that moment, I got it mixed up with the day before, you know? And so, so many times I have parents that come to me, my child is a liar. They're all of these were a sociopath. And in reality, it's just a child that is very impulsive and scared. Yes. I love that framing so much. And I think along the lines of skills too, one of the things I want to give parents right now is,

The truth is, if we use my candy example, right? And this is true for so many things in life. I am always going to want more candy than I tell myself I'm going to have.

And I think too many times we intervene with our kid, like, I said three pieces. Three pieces should be fine. And we don't realize, but what we're saying to a kid is, you shouldn't have the impulse you have. That's a losing strategy. We can't change our impulses. And our impulses aren't a problem. The problem is when our impulse converts into an action we can't control. So the opposite strategy, even though it's counterintuitive, is really useful. Hey, yeah, sure, you can go get some candy. Hey, I just want to put it out there. I know I said you could have three. I'm making this up.

Right? You're probably going to want 20. Like, I know when I go, I want 20. So let's just name that. You want 20. I want 20. It's so hard to want 20 and only take three. I wonder maybe like right now, let's take a deep breath. Let's remind ourselves you'll get candy again tomorrow and remind ourselves we can do things that are hard. Now I'm actually giving my kid something they can do in the moment when they want 20 and they're only supposed to take three versus when we say to a kid,

You know, three is a lot. You should be grateful for three. That doesn't speak to the reality, which is like, it's not about gratitude. It's just about desire and chocolate, like being delicious. And like, I'm not preparing my kid for that moment. And I love that you're validating that impulse. And that's okay. You know, it feels strange probably to a parent to do that. But I always say that's like staring against the wall.

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Okay. I want to talk about routines, right? So creating routines, following routines. This is another part of executive functioning. So

I think for so many families, they really struggle with transition moments, leaving for school, going to bath or shower, picking up a towel. How do routines play into an executive function? And what can families do to kind of help their kids master routines? I mean, absolutely. We all need routines. I mean, it just makes things easier in life when we don't have to actually think about everything and it's internalized within us. It's just, you

You know, that feeling you get when you don't have your wallet or your phone. It's like, I know I have to get that. And that leads to less stress in life as well. And so, but for me, I think it's first important to use our environment to remind ourselves of these routines. You know, whatever the routine is, we need to be able to use it.

visuals and tools to be able to remind ourselves of what are these things that we need to get. If it is at the end of the night, I need to brush my teeth. I need to go to the bathroom. I need to say goodnight to my sister. You know,

How do I remember all of those things at once? And so it might be just as simple as a visual chart, you know, pictures. And I know that might seem infantile, you know, for some kids, but we do have to remember that, you know, in some of these ways, which I want to also say, you know, the population of children with executive dysfunction are oftentimes very gifted as well.

But it may seem infantile, but I think it's really important to be able to have that because the more that we're able to see the visuals, the more we're able to adapt our environment to remind ourselves of these things, these habits, the more likely it is that they're going to start to be internalized.

I always say, imagine living your life for a week where someone didn't give you access to your calendar. I just picture my life like this and being in the worst mood, being so cranky to my husband. And I

I feel like if my husband's like, wait, is this just about you not having some like visual representation of your life in order? Maybe we don't have some major issue between us. Like maybe you just don't have access to your calendar. I'd be like, wow, I think that was 99% of my bad mood. Because you go about the world having so much, there's so much uncertainty. You feel like the world is doing things for you. You have no sense of order. And so I think it's true. I hear resistance from parents too, because I get it. Like coming up with some type of

visual or even writing out a calendar. Honestly, I was resistant to it too. I was like, oh, it's going to take so much time. But then I realized like the amount of time I spend managing my kids' meltdowns and kind of difficult moments, like that's also a lot of time. And so I was like, we can spend time preparing or we can spend time reacting. They're going to spend time either way. And it's actually shorter. And so I just went away on a work trip and putting up a little calendar for my kids because I'm not there helped them so much. Getting my kids'

bedtime and transition out the door routine down was so helpful. And so I get the resistance from parents, but I love what you're saying, Zach. Just like try it. Like try it for like a week and

And I think parents are amazed by how often that really helps things. Yeah. And give yourself grace as well. Because I think so many parents, one, if we're dealing with executive dysfunction, that's going to be highly heritable or genetic. So some of the parents may have these issues as well. And so they may start it off one week and they're really good about it.

sticking to a routine, but then things kind of fall off. You go vacation, you come back and kind of back in the old ways. That's okay. It's always just about picking yourself up and trying it again. But so many parents, well, that doesn't work. We would kind of just throw it away after the first resistance. And so I just encourage all parents to forgive themselves and understand that they're not going to be perfect with this and that this is a skill that for you might be developing as well.

That's exactly right. Okay, one more I want to go over because it's like seriously my favorite focus also. So selfishly, I want to talk about it. Resilience, building resilience as related to executive function. Talk to me a little bit about this. Well, if you think of resilience, you're going to need it.

your executive functioning skills to be a resilient person. You're going to need the ability to be able to solve problems pretty quickly, to move on from problems and not stew in them. You're going to need the ability to organize yourself and come up with a new solution if you've hit the mat. And so you're going to need all of that. Saying that, you're also going to need it because you're

Any child with executive dysfunction is probably two to three times more likely to get some sort of redirection or negative feedback.

And so we get in trouble a lot when, you know, we have the children that get that feedback and then start to personalize it and label themselves and then they get stuck. And so it's really important to be able to solve those problems quickly, but also make sure that we're not labeling ourselves those things. And I think that's kind of where it comes into play again. Having that diagnosis is helpful.

And I think it could help with resiliency in that this is my explanation rather than I'm a bad person. Yes. So, and the other thing, I don't know about you, Zach, I'm curious what you think. I think often go hand in hand. I think they're like really very close cousins. When I think about building resilience, I think it goes hand in hand with, you know, this term frustration tolerance. Absolutely. Right? Because resilience...

really isn't our ability to get to success. It's not our ability to get it right. I actually think resilience is our ability to tolerate the inherent frustration of challenges of, oh, I'm tying my shoe. And guess what happens when you learn to tie your shoe? It's so frustrating. Or I'm learning to put on my clothes. Or I'm just learning something new. Those are inherently full of frustration. Learning is an inherently frustrating experience. And

I think for our kids, when we look to bring them to success right away or we expect it, we actually put our frustration on top of their frustration. On top of theirs, yes. Instead of, I know for my kids, when they're learning to tie their shoe and they're frustrated or, you know, when they're putting on their clothes and they're frustrated when they're younger or trying to figure out how to get out the door and make sure they have their water bottle as they get older, whatever it is.

And honestly, as a parent, if we switch our mindset to be like, wait, my goal isn't actually to get my kid out of frustration. My goal is to help them tolerate frustration. Now when they're annoyed a little bit inside, I can say, wait, I can show up in this moment. Instead of giving them a solution, I can say, oh, you're right. It is hard to learn how to tie your shoes. That's hard for me too. Or look, you are trying to get used to getting your homework

folder and following this checklist we have. And so it makes sense you're frustrated because you're really just learning how to do this. And when we normalize frustration, when we believe that our job isn't to give our kids success, but to actually help them tolerate frustration, I think that really builds this kind of resilience muscle. I'm curious if you see those two things as related. Absolutely. And I see it as, yes, let's focus on the process of getting there rather than the end result because...

Like I said earlier about, you know, planting seeds so many times as parents, we just want the quick fix and we want the behavior to just stop and change. And in reality, you know, that's not the way that it is. And so I think, yes, absolutely. Like you said, let's

dealing with the frustration. I kind of frame it from a perception of rejection, you know, rather than frustration or rejection. And so many times, you know, those of us with ADHD can develop that sensitivity to rejection, but it's important that we just develop the skills to be able to separate that feedback from the self, you know, that, that,

That redirection. And I think a big part of that, again, comes back to understanding ourselves and understanding ADHD and what it is and how it affects us on a day-to-day basis. And I think as a parent, you know, you can't expect an eight-year-old to do that. But as a parent, you can try to work on that. And how do I...

how do I model that for a child that I'm understanding ADHD? And then we're, we're working on it as an explanation. We're working on strategies to adapt. It's not an excuse, but an explanation. And so, yeah, I absolutely see that connection that you're making. Any, any strategy you have around building resilience that you know is really helpful for parents to try to play around within their home? Yeah. Again, just to be focused on problem solving and,

In the moment, what is multiple perspectives or different ways to solve a problem? Also try to be as focused on encouragement rather than praise. Like you said, we want to encourage the process of getting through this rather than the end result. So that might sound like, I can tell you've really been working on shooting that basketball. You've really put in a lot of practice on dribbling. Not, you're a great dribbler.

Because if we focus on that and the way that we give that positive feedback, then we're prioritizing the process of working through it rather than just getting to the end result. Because I think so many times those of us with ADHD are frustrated that we can't immediately get to that end result. And I encourage parents to really work on embracing the process rather than just focusing on the end result. Beautiful. Any last thoughts you want to share with parents listening?

You know, one, I have ADHD myself, executive dysfunction. My son does as well. I can empathize. I think it's just really, really important to understand and embrace the process, as I said, but try to avoid comparisons. Try to avoid being hard on yourself, personalizing things.

Try to avoid your child's dysfunction or executive dysfunction as a referendum on yourself. If you're here, you're listening. If you're reading, you're doing something. So give yourself some grace and then just embrace the process. So, so powerful. Thank you, Zach. Thank you. Thanks for listening.

To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. Or you could write me at podcast at goodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And you deserve resources and support so you feel empowered and confident for this very important job you hold.

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Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julia Knapp, and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico, Brooke Zant, and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.

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