Have you ever dropped a stone into a quiet lake or pond just to watch the ripples? Even the smallest rock that hits the water causes waves to spread out in every direction; every part of the surface absorbs some of the disruptions. Our coaches often use the EF ripple effect as imagery for how challenges with executive functioning impact neurodivergent individuals.
What starts as a tiny disruption–a homework assignment, a change at work, car troubles–causes a broader set of disruptions when a learner struggles with executive function skills.
Now, there is such a thing as a positive ripple effect as it relates to decision-making in our everyday lives, too. However, this post will focus solely on the ripple effect as it relates to challenges experienced by neurodivergent individuals.
Click here for the TL;DR summary.
What is Executive Functioning?
Executive functioning skills encompass a wide range of behaviors that help govern our actions in the world.
For example, executive functioning includes skills like managing our time, being organized, impulse control, breaking down large projects into manageable parts, initiating small tasks, and more.
The work we do with our clients gets at the root of what’s causing them to struggle from an executive functioning perspective.
This understanding allows us to create a framework that makes learning and generalizing real-life skills like budgeting, studying, meal planning, applying for jobs, etc., much more scalable.
What’s the EF Ripple Effect?
As mentioned in the intro, when learners struggle with executive functioning skills, it can cause a cascading impact on other behaviors. EF skills help learners tackle bigger tasks by building foundational habits. Miss those, and we see learners often face additional challenges.
Facing these challenges repeatedly can lower motivation, confidence, and school performance.
Research demonstrates that teens and young adults who struggle in these areas may also experience elevated feelings of depression and anxiety.
What starts as a tiny disruption in the pond can, over time, cause a ripple effect in other areas of learning and achievement.
The EF Ripple Effect in Action
Consider this example and how quickly things can cascade for a learner:
Cole, a 17-year-old learner we work with, struggles with paying attention, specifically to tasks he doesn’t like to do. After school, he gets distracted by his phone and talking to his siblings, which means that when he sits down to start homework, it’s always late in the evening.
By then, Cole is tired, which makes it harder to focus. So he gets frustrated and snaps at his mom and brothers, which means that Cole now feels guilty on top of everything.
After trying a few more times, he gives up on homework and goes to bed, which means the next day, he turns in his homework partially finished, and his teacher gives him a failing grade.
This pattern repeats as Cole gets farther and farther behind. Eventually, he stops trying to finish homework completely. His parents become frustrated and start to punish Cole by removing more and more of his privileges to see friends and socialize.
Cole now stays up late on his phone and plays video games as the only way he can socialize (and escape from his parents’ reminders), which impacts his sleep and makes it more challenging to focus.
Cole tries a few times to ‘get a fresh start,’ but because he’s so far behind and exhausted most of the time, he always gets stuck in the same spot. This ultimately leads to stagnation, low motivation, and in Cole’s case, symptoms of depression.
Disrupting & Reversing the EF Ripple Effect
Imagine standing by that quiet pond again. Drop a stone, and the ripples spread. But now, place a circle of stones around where the ripples begin. Those extra stones act as a support system, helping manage these challenges before it reaches the surface.
That’s what building executive functioning skills does for learners. Skills like decision-making, time management, planning, and impulse control serve as critical stepping stones. They help reduce stress and support mental health, friendships, and emotional balance.
Strong executive functioning skills equip learners with tools to thrive. Yes, the unexpected will always happen—rocks will find their way into our own lives. But when you’ve built a circle of stones, it helps keep the pond calmer and in better balance.
What Happens When We Reverse the EF Ripple Effect
If you suspect that your learner might be struggling with the EF Ripple Effect, there are some simple steps to start working on the EF Skills (see below).
While learners experience benefits in academic achievement (getting better grades, more manageable and less stressful to complete homework and projects), there are also social benefits.
Learners also experience:
- More confidence handling difficult situations without needing adult support.
- Fewer disruptions and more time for the social activities they like and enjoy.
- Healthier relationships with parents, caregivers, and family members.
- Better and more meaningful friendships.
6 Practical Steps to Improve Executive Functioning Skills
Does the EF ripple effect align with what you experience with your student or child? Not sure where to get started? Here are some tips on how to start boosting your learner’s executive functioning skills:
1 – Learn About Executive Functioning
Understanding the different types of executive functioning skills, how we learn them, and what to expect at every stage of development is the first place to get started.
Use our Executive Functioning 101 Hub to educate yourself on what types of skills your learner might need to know.
2 – Identify the Most Significant Areas of Concern
With so many different skills and behaviors to work on, it can be helpful to identify which areas of executive functioning are the biggest challenges for your learner in their daily lives.
Conducting a skills assessment can help evaluate if a tiny boost in each area or a significant overhaul in one area is needed most.
To identify the most significant areas of concern, conduct a skills assessment.
We’ve created a set of free .pdf downloadable EF Assessments to help you and your learner develop a plan for which core executive functioning areas are the most important to start working on now.
3 – Rework Your Thinking–This Isn’t the Time for Blame or Shame
Then, it’s time to start looking forward instead of backward.
Many of the families we work with have already tried some sort of shame or guilt tactic to motivate their learners to try harder. News flash – it’s only going to perpetuate the problem.
Placing blame, shaming, or making your learner feel guilty only teaches a child to avoid you as a parent, teacher, or coach. It doesn’t actually teach them new skills.
Think about if someone tried to teach you to drive a car just by making you feel bad about not knowing how to do it. Not only would you feel terrible, but you also still don’t know how to drive the car!!
The other component of avoiding blame and shame is to rework our thinking about our habits as parents and caregivers.
We start to think we’ve failed our kids or that there’s something wrong with us. Blaming or shaming yourself through negative thinking patterns doesn’t help change your learner’s needs.
Bottom line, pack it up and ship it out. There’s no room here for the blame and shame game.
4 – Set a SMART Goal
Once you have a skill in mind you or your learner would like to work on, using practical goal setting becomes critical. Help your learner create a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive goal that’s written to succeed.
Check out our email course Helping Your Teen Set SMART Goals for more info on goal setting.
5 – Identify Your Learner’s “Why”
Once you have a SMART goal in place, it can be helpful to identify your learner’s motivation or “why” from both a practical and emotional viewpoint. Break it down and try to answer these questions:
What’s the main reason to work on this goal? What will it help your learner gain or accomplish from a practical stance? How might they feel if they achieve the goal? What are the additional ‘perks’ that might happen if they meet the goal?
Continue to explore these conversations until your learner has a strong why or rationale to move forward with the work.
6 – Contact An Executive Functioning Coach
Not every parent or teacher comes equipped to assess and evaluate executive functioning skills.
Working with a trained professional with experience in helping individuals develop and enhance these skills means you’re taking the best steps to help your teen or young adult succeed.
In addition, seeking out support from your child’s IEP team, teachers or working with an EF coach can provide some key benefits that you might not find working on your own, including:
- Access to a broader range of interventions and strategies that might benefit your learner. We use a workbook (coupon code LSA20 for 20% off at checkout) and curriculum with hundreds of visuals, calendars, and EF problem-solving tools.
- It saves time and resources when you can share the load of identifying, creating and using these intervention strategies. Coaches have experience honing in on the tools and techniques that might help your learner the most.
- Allows you to remain in the ‘parent role’ if your learner has a hard time when you shift into teacher or coach-mode. Sometimes we respond to feedback differently from a novel or less familiar adult with whom we don’t have a long learning history–even if it’s the same feedback.
Explore Our Suite of Programs
At Life Skills Advocate, we have countless free resources and downloadables (along with EF coaching) to help any student get the most positive impact out of their “ripple effect” as possible.
By working together and striving toward personal growth, we can move from ripples of frustration to ripples of possibility. Isn’t it time to step into calmer waters?
TL;DR Summary
- Executive Function (EF) skills help with tasks like planning, organization, and time management.
- When EF skills aren’t strong, even small issues can quickly grow into bigger challenges.
- Building EF skills helps learners feel less overwhelmed, improves school performance, strengthens relationships, and boosts confidence.
- To support EF skill-building:
6 Next Steps
- Learn about EF skills to understand the basics.
- Identify you or your learner’s main challenge areas using our free executive function assessment.
- Focus forward—avoid blaming or shaming yourself or your learner.
- Set clear SMART goals to make progress manageable.
- Identify you or your learner’s “why” for motivation.
- Consider getting support from our of LSA’s neurodivergent-affirming executive function coaches for expert guidance and gentle accountability.
Further Reading
- Executive Functioning 101 Resource Hub
- Executive Function Milestones By Age: What To Look For
- Harvard Health – Think Hard Before Shaming Children
- Helping Your Teen with SMART Goal Setting
- How Teaching Executive Functioning Skills Can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
- Shame Spiraling and ADHD – What Is It and How to Combat It