The Executive Function Toolkit

What This Guide Is

The Executive Function Toolkit is a practical set of tools for ADHD kids, built on one idea: externalize, don't memorize. Make time visible, get tasks out of a leaky memory, and turn routines into something your child can run without nagging. These are tools you can set up this week — not a neuroscience textbook — designed for a brain that runs on interest, not obligation.

It reframes the whole struggle: ADHD isn't a knowing problem, it's a doing problem. Instead of more discipline, you get scaffolding that lets your kid succeed now while the skills slowly catch up.

What's Inside

Make Time Visible

• Beating “time blindness” with visual timers, analog clocks, and now/next boards
• Countdowns that turn surprise transitions into ones their brain can handle

Get It Out of Their Head

• Visual checklists, the launch pad by the door, and first-then
• One instruction at a time — working with a small working memory instead of against it

Routines That Run Themselves

• Morning and bedtime charts your child follows independently — so you coach the chart, not the kid

Homework & Focus

• The two-minute start, chunking with breaks, body doubling, and a workspace that helps

Organization, Motivation & Big Feelings

• “Everything has a home” — the one rule that keeps stuff findable
• The dopamine levers: interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency (without the bribe spiral)
• Working with the school (504/IEP) and co-regulating the meltdowns that come with the territory

Who This Is For

For parents of 6-to-12-year-olds recently diagnosed with ADHD — or clearly struggling with focus, time, and organization — who are tired of nagging and want tools that work with their kid's brain instead of against it.