Young Adults Have Their Own Unique Needs
Many young adults struggle with adjusting to life outside of the home and having to manage college, a job, and their new financial and personal responsibilities. Having to stay on top of so many tasks with various consequences at one time can be overwhelming. Without the right tools, this phase in life can exacerbate preexisting stresses and lead to low self-confidence. This is where our Executive Functioning (EF) support comes in.
EF allows us to keep track of all of our responsibilities, to break down those responsibilities into manageable and prioritized components, and finally to create proactive strategies to manage those responsibilities. We support our young adults as they transition into their new lives with confidence by instilling these necessary EF skills and strategies.
Here’s what you need to know to get started.
The first step is an Executive Functioning assessment.
Like all of our services, we want to custom tailor a strategy that is specifically designed to meet individual goals and to take into account personal strengths and weaknesses. We do this during our one hour assessment, determining current EF skill sets (how they mange their time, organize themselves, self-advocate, etc), the symptoms of their low EF (academic challenges such as missed assignments and low test scores, personal challenges such as difficulty managing bills, exercising, etc), the environments that shape their engagement, goals, and other pertinent information that will allow us to create the right strategy.
What happens next?
From there, we will find the meeting schedule that works best for them. Traditionally, our young adults see their EF Specialist once a week for one hour.
Where do the sessions take place?
For the time being, all of our sessions are being held via Zoom.
How often do we meet?
It so often depends on the student’s needs. We will be able to best determine the optimal meeting frequency after the Executive Functioning Assessment takes place.
Go on …
What do we cover in our Young Adult Services?
Our primary concern is academic responsibilities, whether that be at community college or a four year university. This includes:
Keeping track of all assignments, tests, and due dates.
Creating strategies to meet all due dates and academic requirements.
Advocating for themselves with professors, scheduling times to go to office hours, and utilizing all resources available to them.
Ensuring that they have the necessary 504 or IEP plans in place with the Students with Disabilities Services at their institution.
But part of being a young adult is managing a lot of other responsibilities. To that end, we help to ensure the following are being addressed during our sessions:
Tracking job responsibilities and schedules.
Track any other extra curricular activities and obligations.
Creating a schedule around personal care: when to go to the gym, grocery shop, clean, maintain all personal hobbies.
The goal is that after each session, our young adults leaves equipped with both the comprehensive strategies and the confidence to tackle their upcoming week.
What kinds of young adults do we support?
Like all of our services, we work with smart, capable, awesome people who are generally struggling due to low Executive Functioning that may be related to attention deficits, mental health issues, and learning differences.
Brandon is a junior at UT Austin studying Physics. He is generally interested in learning and wants to do well in school. He may even go to medical school one day, but he worries it will be too hard for him. He struggled in high school, but nothing like what’s happened now that he is at college. He has anxiety about assignments and so avoids them. He sometimes gets the work in, but it’s rushed, low quality, and stressful. He also doesn’t like talking to his professors, he’s embarrassed. This cycle of behavior drives his low confidence and makes him wonder why it’s so hard for him.
Brandon also has his first job and is living on his own for the first time. All of these big first responsibilities are exciting, but overwhelming. He just doesn’t always trust he can do everything that he’s supposed to. This only adds to his anxiety, depression, and ultimately low EF.
Meet Brandon
Because it can be so difficult, so shaming, to follow through with the tasks and responsibilities that we assume we should just be able to do, we are fluent in students like Brandon who are maybe defensive or self-conscious about the fact that they are struggling and whose low EF drives their negative feelings and stress.
Do we collaborate with Therapists?
Yes.
Therapists or mental health professionals are there to treat the root causes of negative thoughts and feelings, to treat past traumas, and to teach coping skills for stress, low confidence, and other mental health needs.
Our work is about looking forward. We help our young adults create appropriate goals and teach them the skills needed to meet those goals. But because behavior is so often impacted by negative thoughts and feelings, we believe in a collaborative approach. Put simply, we feel that it is critical that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
What is your role as the parent in this process?
It’s so hard as a parent to know what the appropriate boundaries are when it comes to supporting your child who is now an adult. Should you let them flounder? Is intervening just making it more difficult for them to be independent? What’s the right balance?
We help you be able to take the appropriate steps back in helping your child launch on their own. You can be sure that they are getting the support they need and that you are informed of their progress after each session.
Do you attend the Executive Functioning Assessments?: We do encourage parents to be present, but as an active listener. We will set those boundaries at the start of the assessment so that it is clear that this process is entirely about your child and you are there at our request as a listener. Our goal is to help not only carve a path forward for your child’s educational goals, but to also put a plan in place to build their independence.
Parent Consultations: Some family dynamics are more complicated than others and we want you to be supported as well. It is for that reason we offer Parent Consultations that help address how you can best support your child’s EF, unpack best practices for communication and interventions, and to have all of your questions answered about college next steps.