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

Recently, my wife balked at me for always being so calm, even in the face of what should be stressful circumstances. Naturally, I took this as a compliment. But I began to wonder if maybe I was skirting aloofness, thus not grasping the immediacy of certain realities. Thinking back to the origins of my 'calmness,' images of me being submerged under pounding waves in Haleiwa, Hawaii, or in Puerto Rico, I realized that sometimes life delivers me blows and setbacks.  Life is full of setbacks, it's how I deal with them that makes the difference. I recall 10-12 foot waves not only pummeling my body, but dragging me across sharp reefs, forcing water into my mouth, and covering me in darkness and uncertainty for what seems like an eternity. Tired, scared, and literally fighting for my life, I know enough from experience, that I need to follow my well-trodden protocol to not fight the wave in a physical sense, but to almost let it have its way with me. I must be calm, conserv...

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 ...

Sadly, just as if it were straight out of a Tim Burton movie, our American profit-driven culture is myopic on the balance of money profits and the very health of its citizenry.  Their are various examples that can be easily used to illustrate this point quite clearly: 1. Big Pharma answers to Wall Street which determines each companies stock price, to a great extent. New drugs need to be constantly pumped into the market in order to not have a dead stock, or a stock that is not rising.  Thus, an american landscape chock full of people with health issues is a bonanza to Big Pharma. Creating drugs that treat the symptoms rather than the cause is a great way to keep selling the same thing..over and over again! 2. Autism: Vaccines are a money-making industry. That is a fact. Billions of dollars are raked in by big pharmaceutical companies, who are constantly creating new vaccines, or new 'metal to your brain' vehicles under the banner that they are saving the world...

Parents and Coaches, Metacognition, an executive function skill, is the ability to think about your thinking. Taking a repeated objective look at the inner decision-making process of how one makes decisions is an abstract process that may seem nebulous at best to many. When used in conjunction with other EF skills, like self-monitoring, long term working memory, and foresight (anticipate/ predict), a person is able to learn, shift, correct, and execute better. But how do you get kids to this intuitively? Well, to a great extent you are already using your metacognitive execuvtive function skill 'muscles.' It is helpful to know where  your child's, or your own particualr deficits/ strengths are, in order to have a plan of action to be laser-focused and rendering results.  Consider this: small mindset, or perspective shifts can have massive implications down the road. Just like a large ship is moved by a small rudder, training our children with ...

"But there is now the point at which the research results have to be handled, and even if this committee decides that there is no association and that information gets out, the work has been done and through the freedom of information that will be taken by others and will be used in other ways beyond the control of this group." And I am very concerned about that as I suspect that it is already too late to do anything regardless of any professional body and what they say… My mandate as I sit here in this group is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized with DTP, Hepatitis B and if possible Hib, this year, next year and for many years to come, and that will have to be with thimerosal containing vaccines unless a miracle occurs and an alternative is found quickly and is tried and found to be safe."  - Dr. John Clements, World Health Organization, Simpsonwood, GA, June 7, 2000 The Center for Disease Control has been accused of flagrant co...

As a long board surfer of almost twenty years, having lived on O'ahu, Hawaii's famed North Shore, I have both experienced first hand and seen the immense power of crashing waves. It is quite a spectacle to behold especially if the breaking wave is coming on you. It is in that split second that I realize it is all coming down on me, that it is going to hold me down, scrape me against the reef, pummel me and then disorient me.  I am trained to use my energy smartly, since my body cannot come up for air. I literally meditate for 10-15 long seconds as the wave has its way with me. What can I do? Minimal energy expenditure to protect my head and face is all I can muster, knowing full well I must leave gas in the tank for the rest of the waves that will mercilessly crash on me to repeat the situation. You see, waves come in sets. You get stuck in the crash zone, and you will be there a while. the wave  sets come in 4-10 waves at a time. Your shoulders, back, arms, chest, and...

Coping when the facts say you have a deficit somewhere. . . . Does your child not have the best goal-directed persistence in the world? Does your child have an issue with sticking to the task at hand? How does this show up in long term goals? Feel like your not seeing that "stick-to-it-iveness?' Do not fret. For this child can learn to ask for help, work with others, and develop social skills necessary to get things accomplished. There is usually a silver-lining in all grey clouds. We just have to train our minds to look for it. It may be hard to find. Take the lotus flower for example. It comes straight out of the wet, swampy mud in its natural environment. When you look at its immediate nearby surroundings, it is not hard to marvel at how something so pleasant is born into what appears bleak, and forsaken-looking circumstances, yet the lotus thrives in the swampy land. The bottom line, forecasts and assumptions can be incorrect, no time to fret, or wallow in the mir...