Smart but Scattered Teens Quotes

“Two Dimensions of Executive Skills: Thinking and Doing Executive skills involving thinking (cognition) Working memory Planning/prioritization Organization Time management Metacognition Executive skills involving doing (behavior) Response inhibition Emotional control Sustained attention Task initiation Goal-directed persistence Flexibility”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“Neurotransmitters are chemical-like substances that travel between nerve cells across a synapse and determine whether a nerve signal keeps going or halts. Levels of two of these neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, decrease during adolescence. The decrease in dopamine results in mood changes and problems with emotional control. The decrease in serotonin results in decreased impulse control. A third neurotransmitter, melatonin, increases in adolescence. Melatonin is responsible for circadian rhythms and the sleep–wake cycle. Its increase results in a need for greater sleep.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“While all executive skills are important, when it comes to teenagers, parents are likely to be particularly aware of the impact of specific skills. For example, in managing the demands of school, sports, work, and an active social life, the skills of planning/prioritization, organization, task initiation, and time management are particularly important.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“Your teen is probably trying—and trying hard—to do everything his or her peers are expected to do as they mature and face increasing responsibilities. But it’s a daily struggle when the teen has a deficiency in what are called executive skills, the functions of our brains and thought processes that help us regulate our behavior, set goals and meet them, and balance demands and desires, wants, needs, and have-tos.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“this research shows that receiving three pieces of positive feedback for each piece of negative or corrective feedback can produce positive behavior change all by itself.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“One minute your teen is cool, calm, and rational, and the next minute he’s a screaming, irrational, emotional train wreck. If this is the typical teen, imagine the one with executive skills weaknesses—can’t find anything (“Mom, where did you put my backpack?!”), doesn’t watch the road, no sense that deadlines really do exist in the world, willing to try whatever his friends do. If you have a teen with executive skills weaknesses, it’s like taking the typical teen and cranking up the volume—everything is louder, more intense, more scattered.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“A related but more complex aspect of working memory gives us the ability to draw on past learning or experience and apply it to the situation at hand or predict future outcomes.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“Working memory involves two different but related skills. The first is the ability to hold information in mind while performing complex tasks.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“To evaluate weaknesses in your teen, be aware of his capacity to engage in effortful (and nonpreferred) mental tasks. If he is bright and a good “consumer” of information (interested in a range of topics, likes to read and watch educational programs), but is not a good “producer” of information (struggles with projects, papers, etc.), executive skills are likely involved.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“While motivation can play a significant role in teens’ behavior, it’s important to recognize that some behaviors reflect a skill weakness rather than a lack of motivation.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“frontal brain systems, and therefore executive skills, will require approximately 25 years to develop fully. Given these factors, children and adolescents cannot rely solely on their own frontal lobes and executive skills to regulate behavior. What’s the solution? We lend them our frontal lobes, acting as surrogate frontal lobes for our children. Although we might not think of it in these terms, parenting is, among other things, a process of providing executive skills support and coaching for our children.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“Over a period of 10 to 12 years, beginning around puberty, the plasticity of the adolescent brain allows for rewiring. What the final wiring diagram looks like depends on two factors: what teens bring with them up to puberty and what experiences they have over the next 10 years or so.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“To highlight these issues of development in the adolescent brain, a recent article in Parade magazine compared the teenage brain to a Ferrari. It is fast, shiny, sleek, and it handles well. The problem is it has lousy brakes.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“For teenagers who struggle with these skills, more trouble lies ahead as the tasks in life become more complicated and more demanding of their ability to plan, sustain attention, organize information, and regulate feelings and how to act on them. Executive skills are, in fact, what your teenager needs to make any of your hopes and dreams for her future—or her hopes and dreams—come true. By late adolescence, our children must meet one fundamental condition: they must function with a reasonable degree of independence.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“When it comes to smarts, adolescents like Jesse have plenty. What they lack, however, are some of the brain-based skills that we all need to plan and direct activities, to regulate behavior, and to make efficient and effective use of these smarts. The trouble does not show up in math or reading; rather, it shows up when they need to regulate their behavior to respond to the demands of a specific situation. Despite their good intentions, these adolescents can struggle with time management and organization.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

“Neuroscience research tells us that the adolescent brain is primed for the acquisition of new skills. Teens are driven to seek out new experiences, more intense social and emotional relationships, and, for better or worse, new risks.”
― Richard Guare, Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential