Student Success Coaching
Does your child struggle with time management, completing assignments, note taking, stress, anxiety, comprehension, organization, motivation, or goal setting?
Student success coaching strengthens executive functioning skills, which are essential to a student’s growth, learning ability, academic performance, and life.
Why call it "student success" Coaching?
And what is Executive Functioning?
We call it Student Success Coaching because the goal is to build habits that prepare students not only for today’s challenges but for life. Executive functioning includes key skills like time management, planning, organization, and self-regulation. These are considered strong predictors of success in adulthood. In fact, many colleges now refer to executive functioning simply as student success. As students grow in these areas, they become more confident, independent learners—ready to navigate high school and beyond with clarity and purpose.
1:1 Coaching
Our 1:1 coaching is available year-round and designed to meet your student wherever they are. Sessions can be booked individually or in packages — a great option if you’re looking for more consistent, ongoing support at a better value. We offer student-only sessions as well as combined student and parent sessions, because we know that when everyone’s on the same page, progress happens faster.
Group Classes and Parent Workshops
We offer different group classes and workshops throughout the year going over executive functioning skills in preparation for final exams, the transition to high school, and even specialized parent training to support skills at home. See below for a list of our upcoming opportuities.
10 Areas of Executive Function
School performance is affected by lost papers or assignments, forgotten homework, last minute work and careless mistakes. These learners don’t know how to begin long-term assignments and their workspaces, desks and backpacks resemble “black holes.” At home, mornings can be chaotic and misplaced clothing, sports equipment and school materials are a routine occurrence. Chores don’t get done unless nagging is constant. During the teen years, emotional outbursts are common and parents hold their breath when their son or daughter gets behind the wheel of a car or goes out with friends, fearful of the risks they might take.
Select an attribute to see how the lifelong learner embodies that trait.
Selections from Peg Dawson, Smart but Scattered (New York: The Guilford Press, 2009).
Emotional Control
Does your child’s emotional reaction to setbacks like a bad grade, a difficult assignment, a lost game seem outsized or hard to recover from?
Does anxiety, frustration, or worry consistently interfere with your child’s ability to focus and do their best work?
Does your child avoid challenges or shut down entirely when they feel overwhelmed, rather than pushing through?
Emotional control is the ability to regulate and manage emotional responses in order to stay focused, complete tasks, and make thoughtful choices. Students with strong emotional control can handle disappointment, manage nerves, and recover from frustration without letting those feelings derail their performance or wellbeing.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Helping them stay composed under pressure through things like managing test anxiety, pre-performance nerves, and academic stress so emotions don’t override performance.
- Building resilience after setbacks by learning how to process disappointment constructively and bounce back with a plan, rather than shutting down or giving up.
- Improving the overall atmosphere at home by giving your child the tools to regulate their emotions so that the daily friction of homework, transitions, and challenges becomes significantly smoother for everyone.
Working Memory
Does your child frequently forget multi-step instructions even moments after being told?
Does your child lose their place during tasks, needing to frequently start over or ask for repetition?
Does your child struggle to connect material from earlier in a class or unit to what’s being taught now?
Working memory is the ability to hold and use information in your mind while completing a task. This includes using past experiences to solve current problems or plan ahead. Students with strong working memory can juggle multiple instructions, track multi-part assignments, and make connections between ideas.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Improving classroom performance through retaining and applying information from lectures and discussions without losing the thread.
- Making multi-step tasks less overwhelming by developing systems and strategies to reliably hold onto instructions and track progress through complex assignments.
- Building stronger academic connections and linking new material to what they already know, leading to deeper understanding and better test performance.
Response Inhibition
Does your child frequently blurt out answers or interrupt others even when they know they should wait?
Does your child act impulsively and then seem genuinely surprised by the consequences?
Does your child have trouble pausing before reacting in social situations, during tests, or when receiving criticism?
Response inhibition is the ability to pause before acting or speaking, giving yourself time to consider the consequences. It’s what allows students to think before they respond, resist impulsive choices, and navigate social and academic situations with greater self-control.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Reducing impulsive mistakes through pausing before answering on tests or starting assignments leads to fewer careless errors and better overall results.
- Improving peer and teacher relationships by learning to listen fully and respond thoughtfully makes a significant difference in how your child is perceived and how conflicts unfold.
- Building better judgment and developing the internal pause that helps them think through consequences before making decisions, inside and outside of school.
Goal-Directed Persistence
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Enabling them to follow through on commitments like finishing projects, completing study plans, and reaching goals they set for themselves without needing constant external pressure.
- Building resilience when things get hard by developing the internal drive to push through boredom, frustration, or difficulty rather than giving up.
- Preparing them for bigger life goals like college applications, multi-step projects, and long-term pursuits that require sustained effort over weeks or months.
Planning
Does your child reach the night before a big project or test feeling completely unprepared, despite knowing about it for weeks?
Does your child seem overwhelmed by large tasks because they don’t know where to begin or how to break them into steps?
Does your child tend to dive into assignments without any clear strategy, often having to redo work or start over?
Planning is the ability to create a step-by-step roadmap to reach a goal or complete a task. It involves identifying what needs to be done and figuring out how to get there — from a simple homework assignment all the way to applying for a summer program or internship.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Reducing last-minute scrambling and approach deadlines with confidence because they’ve already mapped out what needs to happen and when.
- Making big projects feel manageable by learning to break daunting tasks into smaller, concrete steps so they don’t get stuck before they’ve even started.
- Improving the quality of their work through having a plan that means more time to review, revise, and do their best rather than rushing to finish.
Prioritization
Does your child spend a lot of time on low-stakes tasks while more important deadlines slip by unaddressed?
Does your child struggle to decide what to tackle first when they have multiple assignments or responsibilities at once?
Does your child frequently tell you they “didn’t know” a big assignment was due, even when it was listed on their syllabus?
Prioritization is the ability to determine what tasks or information are most important and need attention first. It requires deciding what can wait and what can’t and resisting the pull of easier, more enjoyable tasks when something more urgent needs to get done.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Reducing missed deadlines and last-minute panic through regularly assessing what’s most urgent so important work never sneaks up on them.
- Building smarter study habits by focusing energy on high-value preparation rather than reviewing material they already know well.
- Feeling more in control and moving through their week with intention rather than constantly reacting to whatever seems most immediate in the moment.
mental Flexibility
Does your child become disproportionately upset or derailed when plans change unexpectedly with even small changes?
Does your child get stuck on one way of solving a problem, even when that approach clearly isn’t working?
Does your child struggle to shift gears between subjects, tasks, or activities and needs a long time to mentally “reset”?
Mental flexibility is the capacity to adjust your thinking and actions when plans change, challenges arise, or new information comes to light. It involves adapting to shifting situations with resilience rather than resistance and is essential for navigating the unpredictability of school, relationships, and life.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Reducing meltdowns and rigid behavior through learning to tolerate unexpected changes without getting completely thrown off track.
- Building problem-solving creativity by becoming more willing to try new approaches when the first one doesn’t work, rather than shutting down.
- Improving performance under pressure and staying composed when tests, group projects, or real-life situations don’t go as expected.
Organization
Does your child regularly lose handouts, homework, or supplies even when they were just using them?
Is your child’s backpack or binder a source of stress, full of crumpled papers and missing assignments?
Does your child have trouble keeping track of what’s due, what’s been turned in, and what still needs to be done?
Organization is the ability to develop and use systems for managing information, tasks, or belongings. It goes beyond having a tidy binder — it’s about building reliable systems that make it easy to find what you need, track what matters, and stay on top of responsibilities.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Eliminating lost work and missing assignments through having consistent systems so nothing falls through the cracks and grades aren’t lost to simple disorganization.
- Reducing daily friction by spending less time searching for things and more time actually doing them, which lowers stress for the whole family.
- Building routines that grow with them and establishing the organizational habits built now that will become the foundation for managing college coursework, jobs, and adult responsibilities.
Task Initiation
Does your child constantly procrastinate on projects, even when they understand the importance and know exactly what needs to be done?
Does getting started on homework turn into a prolonged battle — lots of time “getting ready” but very little actual work happening?
Does your child freeze up or shut down when facing tasks that feel unfamiliar, overwhelming, or unpleasant?
Task initiation is the ability to start tasks or projects without excessive delay. It means getting going in a timely and efficient way, even when a task feels challenging or unfamiliar. This skill is often the hidden barrier behind procrastination. It’s not laziness, it’s a genuine difficulty with launching into action.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Turning procrastination into momentum through learning practical strategies to get started quickly, even on tasks that feel intimidating or unpleasant.
- Reducing nightly homework battles by establishing consistent routines that make starting feel automatic rather than an uphill struggle every evening.
- Freeing up time and energy to get started earlier means less stress, more time for review, and higher-quality work overall.
Sustained Attention
Does your child frequently lose focus mid-task, leaving a trail of unfinished work throughout the day?
Does your child complain they “can’t concentrate,” even in quiet environments with few obvious distractions?
Does homework that should take 30 minutes regularly stretch into 2 hours because of constant mental drift?
Sustained attention is the ability to stay focused on a task or activity despite distractions, tiredness, or lack of interest. It’s what allows students to work through a long assignment, absorb a lecture, or study effectively — even when the material isn’t inherently engaging.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Dramatically cutting down homework time through learning to focus in shorter, productive bursts so work gets done more efficiently and evenings aren’t consumed by a never-ending to-do list.
- Improving comprehension and retention by absorbing more from class and study sessions when their attention is consistently on task.
- Building sustainable work habits and sing structured focus strategies that help them concentrate without relying on willpower alone.
Time Management
Does your child consistently underestimate how long tasks will take, leaving them scrambling at the last minute?
Does your child’s afternoon “disappear” and when you ask how they spent it, there’s no clear answer?
Does your child miss deadlines or turn in rushed work despite technically having enough time to do it well?
Time management is the ability to estimate how much time tasks will take, use time wisely, and meet deadlines. It includes developing an internal awareness that time is limited and valuable and learning how to allocate it thoughtfully across competing demands.
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Ending the chronic last-minute rush by accurately estimating time and building realistic schedules so deadlines are met with room to spare.
- Reclaiming free time by managing school responsibilities well, giving your child genuine downtime rather than a constant backdrop of unfinished work.
- Building a skill that matters for life as time management is one of the top factors in success at college and in the workplace, and the earlier it’s practiced, the more natural it becomes.
Metacognition
Metacognition is the ability to step back and observe yourself in a given situation: to see the bigger picture of how you’re thinking and responding. It involves noticing how you approach problems, assessing your progress, and asking reflective questions like, “How am I doing?” or “What could I do differently next time?”
Strengthening this skill would benefit your child by:
- Helping them catch and correct errors on their own — noticing mid-task when a strategy isn’t working and pivoting, rather than submitting work with careless mistakes.
- Building real academic self-awareness — understanding which study methods actually work for them, not just doing what’s familiar.
- Creating a growth mindset in practice — learning how to reflect after setbacks and make meaningful adjustments, rather than feeling stuck in a cycle of frustration.
Register for Student Success Coaching
Help your student build the skills to thrive! Our executive functioning tutoring teaches practical skills like time management, organization, and goal-setting so they can take on school and life with confidence. Sign up today and help them unlock the skills that will set them up for lifelong success.
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upcoming events and classes
opportunities for both parents and students
We have executive functioning classes for parents and students coming up. To see what exciting opportunities are next on the calendar, visit our Upcoming Events Page!