I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and start to the New Year.

Often, when I meet with students and/or their parents, I am reminded just how challenging executive function weaknesses can be. At the end of December, I met with a lovely young man and his mother to discuss his organization challenges.  The student had a very hard time knowing what assignments he needed to do, where he put his completed homework once he did it, what he had coming up next week and how much time he had to actually do the work on any given day.  Yes, we all know students who have similar struggles.  But, this young man was particularly challenged because not only was he struggling to keep his materials for school in one place, he also struggled with finding the articles of clothing that he needed to get dressed in the morning.  He took his shoes off when he got home the day before, but they “disappeared” by the next morning.  Try as she might, his mother designated particular places for shoes, but to no avail.  The morning was always frantic and the student was exhausted before he left the house.

This made me think that we all need to remember that children do not choose to be disorganized.  They are really not trying to make their lives more complicated, rather they are trying to “survive” with all of their belongings from day to day.  So, next time you get frustrated with your child, and believe me, there is reason to get exasperated,  remember that we have to keep reinforcing the structure set in place until the child had learned it.  This, of course, is not an easy task, but keep the faith, it WILL get better!