A Kid Who Loses Everything Isn't Lazy — The Prefrontal Cortex Isn't Done Yet
A 14-year-old boy's prefrontal cortex won't finish developing until 25, so losing things isn't an attitude problem. The real problem: parents whose own executive function is already stretched thin are supposed to build a system the kid can't possibly hold up.
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The prefrontal cortex isn't done until 25 — not even at 18
Tori defines executive function as ‘a set of behaviors and processes led by the prefrontal cortex,’ and the brain develops ‘from back to front,’ with the prefrontal cortex the last part to mature, not ‘fully cooked’ until a kid is in his twenties. So a 14-year-old boy still has ten years to grow. She specifically points out: we wouldn't expect any high school graduate to have executive function ‘fully wrapped up’ — an 18-year-old brain just isn't at that developmental level. But many parents think that by 10th, 11th, 12th grade the kid should ‘have it all figured out’ — that expectation itself is wrong.
— Dr. Tori CordianoParents have to catch their own guilt first, then talk solutions
The mother who wrote in said ‘I see myself in him’ and wondered if it was her fault. Tori says before giving advice you have to stop, because for many parents this sits on top of a string of scary questions: Did I make him this way? Will this follow him his whole life? What will he be like at 18? She also reminds us to ‘hold two things at once’: for that boy, wearing the wrong T-shirt to the first practice is the end of the world, and that feeling is real; but in the big picture, this is the textbook definition of a ‘natural consequence’ — you didn't know to bring the jersey, so you have no jersey, it feels awful, and then we go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make this happen less often. Not bypassing the discomfort, but turning the discomfort into fuel for building the system.
— Dr. Tori CordianoThe system has to be simple enough to hold, with a safety net
Tori thinks of the system as ‘division of labor’: who's responsible for checking Google Classroom, who's responsible for checking the soccer team's app, while keeping a big safety net. If checking notifications is the son's job, the parent should still glance at it regularly to make sure nothing major slips through. Lisa shares her own approach: when her daughter ran cross-country in 10th grade, after getting an email from the coach she'd still yell from the kitchen, ‘Did you get this email?’ and wouldn't let it go until she confirmed, sometimes just copy-pasting the content into a text to her daughter with a note: ‘Assume you saw this.’ Tori says this works for kids without major executive-function issues, but many families need a more fixed, more consistent way of checking.
— Dr. Tori CordianoDon't rely on memory — rely on a 6 p.m. Sunday alarm
Ideally you'd sit down at 3 p.m. Sunday and go through the coming week, but Tori says this ‘all sounds lovely until there's a soccer game at 2 p.m. Sunday, the 3 o'clock check-in has already come and gone, and it never happened.’ So the second layer is the safety net: set a repeating alarm on your phone for 6 p.m. every Sunday, called ‘Weekly Check.’ If you already did it at 3, turn this one off; if you didn't, or something else knocked it out, this reminder tells you ‘before the week takes off, you need to do this.’ Lisa presses: so it's two slots on the calendar, 3 p.m. to theoretically do it, 6 p.m. to confirm it actually got done — but 6 p.m. doesn't rely on memory. Tori says, ‘I can't remember anything at 6 p.m. on a Sunday.’
— Dr. Tori CordianoThere is no organization fairy — only lists and reminders
Tori and Lisa spent years counseling at schools and found some kids believe ‘the organization fairy will sprinkle some magic on me one day.’ Both of them react: No, dude, there is no organization fairy, she's not coming. The kids who look organized aren't organized because they remember everything — they're organized because they have lists, planners, to-do lists, reminders. Tori says this gap is ‘what we forget to fill in for our kids’ — it's not a switch that flips on by itself. And the more distractions there are (an after-school job, caring for younger siblings, managing a chronic illness), the more you need a good, simple system to prop up executive function that's ‘still under construction.’
— Dr. Tori CordianoThree free tools: alarms, snooze email, visual timers
Tori starts with the things that cost nothing. First, the alarm function on your phone — she set six alarms that morning, one of them to confirm her son's carpool for the afternoon soccer game, because ‘our kids don't drive yet.’ Before she takes her phone away at night she does a little check-in, asking herself: ‘What's something today I'm very likely to forget?’ Second, the email ‘remind me later’ function, made for those ‘mark this date, it's an October thing’ emails — you can't think about October now, so let it pop back up in three weeks instead of relying on memory to go dig it out. Third, the visual timer, aimed at ‘time blindness’: for people who don't have a good sense of how much time has passed or how long something takes, seeing time elapse visually is enormously helpful.
— Dr. Tori CordianoThe tool that helps your kid focus is the one that distracts him
Lisa quotes Angela Duckworth: we generally don't put ice cream next to the broccoli. She asks: if I'm relying on the phone to keep my kid on track, but the phone is exactly the thing that most derails him, what do I do? Tori first admits adults are the same — you pick up the phone to set an alarm, then get sucked into email, reply to the first text, and then ‘I spend my whole life asking: what did I come in here to do?’ She says asking kids to do this with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex already puts them at a disadvantage. Her solution is low-tech: a Time Timer, the kind with the red pie slice, battery-powered, with nothing on it that can distract you. Also, before you pick up the phone, say the purpose out loud — ‘I'm picking up the phone to set this alarm’ — to ground yourself and remind yourself there's only one task on this device.
— Dr. Tori CordianoYou can't force a kid to care about something he doesn't care about
Tori explains why executive function is ‘uneven’: bandwidth is limited, impulse control is limited, and it drops when depleted, so the more important things in a day get first claim on attention — work, picking up the kids — not returning the library books. But the hardest question is: what if this 14-year-old simply doesn't care about school and doesn't see any risk? Tori says first find what he does care about — say, playing soccer has a minimum GPA requirement, and you can't miss too many practices. Tie the requirements to what he actually cares about: if you want to keep playing soccer, here are the things we want to see happen, and here are the structures we'll build around you. The key is that this conversation can't happen in the heat of the moment when ‘he forgot about tomorrow's test’ — it has to wait until everyone has calmed down.
— Dr. Tori CordianoWhen to get an evaluation: does it bleed into what he cares about?
The letter asks: how do you know if this is normal ‘still pulling it together’ or time to refer for an evaluation? Tori says gather feedback from several places. The school already raised executive-function concerns in middle school, and after the term starts the parent should bring it up proactively at the October parent-teacher conference. The upside of high school is having different teachers, not just one teacher's opinion — some who teach subjects he cares about, some who teach subjects he doesn't. Then look at two things: whether these relatively simple systems can't even touch the problem, and whether the problem is starting to bleed into what he genuinely cares about, like soccer or hanging out with friends. If so, it may be time to get more information and evaluate for an underlying cause like ADHD.
— Dr. Tori CordianoIn their own words · checked verbatim
So even parents with fantastic executive functioning skills struggle during this time of year. It's hard because it's hard. It's not hard because you're doing it wrong.
Dr. Tori Cordiano4:06
This is the last part of the brain to fully develop. It will not be fully cooked until this kid is in his mid-20s.
Dr. Tori Cordiano5:12
It's not that they're remembering all of these things. It's that they have checklists and they have planners and they have to-do lists and they have reminders.
Dr. Tori Cordiano16:30
So the fact that we expect adults to do this, and now we're expecting kids to do it with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. It's kind of stacked against them.
Dr. Tori Cordiano27:51
And if we think about executive functioning, it's like impulse control. We don't have an unlimited amount of this. And it goes down as it is taxed.
Dr. Tori Cordiano29:58
And this is a conversation that we have not in the heat of the moment when they've forgotten to study for the test that's tomorrow. This is a later conversation when everybody has cooled down a little bit.
Dr. Tori Cordiano31:59
The bottom line is we have to work with the kid we got. We get to work with the kid we've got.
Dr. Lisa DeMore36:08
Figures
| Age at which the prefrontal cortex fully develops | the mid-20s | 5:12 |
| Number of alarms Tori set that morning | 6 | 19:34 |
| Effective duration of deep cognitive work | about a half hour or so | 25:47 |
Glossary
- executive functioning
- A set of abilities led by the prefrontal cortex: planning, organizing, inhibiting impulses, remembering what you need to do.
- time blindness
- Lacking a sense of how much time has passed or how long something takes; common in ADHD and people with executive-function difficulties.
- metacognition
- Observing your own thought process, e.g. asking yourself ‘what am I very likely to forget today?’
- natural consequences
- Not intervening in advance, letting the kid bear the consequences of the behavior itself — e.g. no jersey means no jersey to wear.
How to listen
Parents of middle-schoolers drowning in school emails at the start of the term, whose kids lose everything and who drop the ball themselves; people doing adolescent psychology or educational consulting.
The sponsor ads at the start and end, the Season 7 format-change notes, and the lawyer's disclaimer at the end.