Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

The development of your child's executive function skills may happen quite naturally given the right conditions, but if you are not well-versed in the language, it can amount to the blind leading the blind. A parent may actually help strengthen their child's executive function skills at a given point, yet a lack of knowledge on what to tone on a consistent basis will often times render splotchy results. Consider the idea that identifying effective metrics guides parents to hit upon key skills thus catapulting the child's skill strength on a whole. Below are some thoughts and activities on how to begin to approach this. My thoughts first... I think it use to be easier to raise kids because kids did not have modern day distractions that literally turned off their ability to self-monitor, be able to sustain their attention, or have goal-directed persistence. In fact, I believe that this is more and more an increasingly challenging balancing act for parents and dire...

Conveying self-empowerment strengthening may sound like a very abstract action. But it can be done if you hit certain parameters every week.  The core of this self-empowerment is how we show that we treat each others,  BY the use of:  laser-guided parent coaching sessions scheduled and carried out one to three times per week  parent to parent role modeling of wholesome paraverbal skills  Parents can create home labs for executive function skills development that boost, sustain and empower children's: emotional intelligence:  degree of one's ability to manage ones behavior, emotions, paraverbal skills, mental flexibility, especially in challenging situations. executive function skills are 'housed' in your frontal lobe, and are the ability to MOM one self in a goal-directed manner. MOM stands for manipulate, orchestrate, and manage. Manipulate is not to be misconstrued negatively as when a person manipulates another. You can 'manipulate' how you feel emotiona...

Dear Readers, Here is where we are at with getting the executive function skill addendum approved! We are moving forward! So far, we landed in the Office of Communications and Outreach for the U.S. Department of Education. Without layover we immediately moved on to another desk within the department! This means SOMETHING is happening. Some consideration is being made! Below is a picture of me waiting for a response. Please bear in mind  that I am patiently waiting:) ............................................. Dear  William Stowel-Alonso:   Thank you for your  letter  to Secretary of Education Arne  Duncan which has been forwarded to the Office of Communication and Outreach  for a response .   We  thank you for  your comments regarding Common Core Standards .  Thank you for contacting the U.S Department of Education  w e wish well in all your future endeavors.   Sincerely     Vanessa McKinney Information Resourc...

"During every minute of the nine months of pregnancy, the brain gains a quarter of a million cells. The brain is hardwired to produce a staggering total of around 100 billion neurons and a trillion glial cells, which provide all the necessary support and protection. This will lead to a multi trillion network of connections capable of performing 20 million billion calculations per second." - Adam Cox No Mind Left Behind:Understanding and Fostering Executive Function Control Truly, truly, it is a marveous thing to behold. The built-in complexity of the brain and mind follows an intelligently-designed blueprint that will always exceed that of even the smartest, most versatile computer. This would not be  due to intellectual smarts, or experiental knowledge, but for the human beings ability to shift into genuine, heart felt expression, love, such as a Mother or Father has for their child. Self-less, altruistic love that seeks no payback, with no hidden motive.   Some m...

One's executive function skills are located in the prefrontal lobe (your forehead area), and are responsible for the manipulation, orchestration, and self-management of one self, in a goal directed manner. Commonly referred to as the brains CEO, it is responsible for a host of skills that range from the ability to focus and sustain attention, to exercising self-control, or using your foresight to anticipate and predict outcomes. As a Special Educator and an Executive Function Skills Coach, it behooves me to introduce strategies, activities, and tools that are accepted by my students, and readily integrated into their daily life with the support of their parent(s).  Regardless of what their diagnosis is, I divorce my thought processes from any label that may have been placed on a child or adolescent.  I do not work with ADHD kids, or EF skill deficit kids, likewise, I do not work with autistic kids. I hope I never do. I do work with kids who have been diagnosed with ...

One thing that Coach Bill is well-known for amongst the families and individuals he works with is 'pushing the envelope.' In order to be sought out for my skill as a coach for kids and adults with Learning Disabilities, Executive Function Skill deficits, or Autism, rendering results on an on-going basis is essential.  That means that I have to be keen on identifying that fine and shifting line of just how far past a learner's comfort zone I should push them.  If we are doing muscular exercise, the ideal goal would be to do high-quality resistance training repetitions until muscle failure. The coach guides the learner to the right resistance and acceptable movement arcs so as to limit doing a large quantity of reps before the muscle begins to tremble and fail. When muscle failure is reached, it is in that moment we have left the comfort zone, and are breaking new ground. As a life-long longboarder, while living on the North Shore of O'ahu, Hawaii, I sometimes su...

Are you a parent of a child who fly's off the handle easily? Have you been making unprofitable attempts to modify your child's behavior? Try a back-door approach next time. Put on a mindset of "small beginnings." Introduce some new activities, like meditation (start at 10 seconds if that is what they can endure  (with a sleep mask to keep their eyes closed, and you holding their hand in a comforting way) Other Executive Function/ brain balancing activities and sports to put into your arsenal are  ping pong, role-playing, yoga, tennis, swimming, paddleboarding, hiking, or working with coaching cards (parentcoachcards.com). Likewise, introducing acceleration interval training (30 seconds speed burst, 1minute rest, repeat 8x's), and chess, teaches kids social skills, and refines their frontal lobe self-management activities. Through the context of these very engaging activities, parents and coaches directly facilitate executive function skill development, but...

Many by now have thought long and hard about what it will take to drastically diminish, or cold-stop these 'wild, shoot everyone in sight' sprees. It seems like a monumental task. We are over 300,000,000 strong in America. How can we bring coherent impact to solving this dilemma? I believe that much of what I have to say below has already been said. So in essence, I am joining the ranks of civic-minded citizens, educators, and mental health professionals, when I say that we must change: Family: Put a strong focus on strengthening the family unit in America. Teaching executive function skill developmen t early on. Make it a national priority! Personalize educational instruction to students, in order to maximize repetitive successful outcomes over time. Quiet the mind: Make it a law that all schools must teach and make time for quiet time meditation 2x's per day at school. Get Olympic-style serious about physical education programs in public schools. Pass a law a...