A Forgetful Kid Isn't Lazy — The Prefrontal Cortex Just Isn't Done Yet
A 14-year-old boy's prefrontal cortex won't finish developing until 25, so forgetting things isn't an attitude problem. The real problem: parents whose own executive function is already stretched thin have to build a system the kid can't possibly hold up on his own.
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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 their twenties. So a 14-year-old boy still has ten years to grow. She specifically points out: we don'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 assume that by 10th, 11th, 12th grade the kid should ‘have it all together’ — that expectation itself is wrong.
— Dr. Tori CordianoParents have to catch their own guilt first, then talk solutions
The mom 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 there's a string of scary questions behind this: Did I make him this way? Will this follow him his whole life? What will he be like at 18? She also reminds them 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. Not bypassing the discomfort, but turning the discomfort into fuel for building a system.
— Dr. Tori CordianoThe system has to be simple enough to hold, with a safety net
Tori thinks of a system as ‘a 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 also glance 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, ‘Assuming you saw this.’ Tori says this trick is enough 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 to go over 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 time has already passed, 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 follows up: 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, buddy, 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, a planner, to-do lists, reminders. Tori says this gap is ‘what we forget to fill in for our kids’ — it's not a switch that just 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 support 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 herself, one of them to confirm the carpool for her son's afternoon soccer game, because ‘our kids don't drive yet.’ Before she takes her phone away at night she does a little check, asking herself: ‘What is there today that I'm very likely to forget?’ Second, the email ‘remind me later’ function, made specifically 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 up. Third, a 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 very 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 need the phone to help my kid stay 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 puts them at a disadvantage to begin with. 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, say your purpose out loud before you pick up the phone — ‘I'm picking up the phone to set this alarm’ — to prime yourself and remind yourself there's only one task on this device.
— Dr. Tori CordianoYou can't push a kid on something he doesn't care about
Tori explains why executive function is ‘uneven’: bandwidth is limited, impulse control is limited, and it drops as it gets depleted, so the more important things in a day get first claim on attention — work, picking up the kids — rather than 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 the risk? Tori says first find what he does care about — for example, 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, 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: see if it's bleeding into what he cares about
The letter asks: how do you know if this is normal ‘still pulling it together’ or whether it's time for a referral? Tori says gather feedback from several places. The school already raised executive function concerns in middle school, and after the school year starts the parent should bring it up proactively at the October parent-teacher conference. The advantage 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 the places he really 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 | twenties (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 people with ADHD and executive function difficulties.
- metacognition
- Observing your own thinking process, e.g. asking yourself ‘what am I very likely to forget today?’
- natural consequences
- Not intervening in advance and 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 back-to-school time, whose kids forget everything and who drop the ball themselves; people doing adolescent psychology or educational consulting.
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