The Future Is Built for Neurodivergent Brains
Now we just need to give them the tools to get there
It’s been a rough few weeks in our house.
The end of the semester is tough for most kids, but it’s a special kind of torture for kids whose brains crave the novelty and the dopamine that comes with the beginning of the school term. Midway through the semester, the “shiny new class” energy wears off, and by the end? It’s intolerable.
Every single semester, like clockwork, he hits the dip:
My teen goes from A’s and B’s to “please just finish the class with a passing grade.”
He lives in that not-so-sweet spot where a semester drags on forever, but a quarter would fly by too fast and be overwhelming. So we’ve been navigating the “dip” for the last three weeks and it hasn’t been pretty. Wake-ups are brutal, classes are missed, and he’s doing a lot more horizontal processing (read: sleeping).
The good news is that I understand what’s happening in his nervous system. I don’t mistake it for defiance, laziness, or manipulation anymore. (Keyword: anymore. Yep, I’ve done all three. I’ll be repenting until the end of time.)
Am I a perfectly calm and understanding parent now? LOL, no.
Am I doing my best to show up with my best mom-self every day with empathy and compassion? Absolutely.
Here’s what we’re up against:
Because he’s so naturally intelligent, he coasted through school for years. No studying, no major effort. In the lower grades executive functioning skills are basically done for the kids. He just had to show up and grasp the content. The first two years of private high school were similar.
But when he switched to public high school in 11th grade, he hit a wall. Suddenly he had to organize, plan, initiate, follow through. And he couldn’t. Not because he didn’t care, but because his executive functioning skills weren’t developed, and he wasn’t ready to accept help.
He dropped out, passed the GED easily (because again, content knowledge isn’t the problem), and then entered community college… where the executive functioning demands came roaring back.
(Bear with me, I’m going somewhere with all of this).
Give him a lecture? He’ll ace the test.
Ask him to write a paper on it? No problem.
Require him to initiate tasks, plan projects, proactively study for an exam or tolerate ambiguity (see my rant below)? Complete shutdown.
Not because he can’t think, but because anxiety hijacks his thinking brain before he even gets there.
Case in point: His Political Science professor sends out essay questions before each exam. Great in theory. In practice? The questions are so dense and poorly worded, he shuts down instantly. Just looking at them triggers panic. Too many words. No structure. No clarity.
And THIS is one of my rants with the education system:
Why are we still wording assignments and tests so poorly? This kind of word salad is kryptonite for neurodivergent kids who need clear, concise instructions, not a puzzle to decode.
Two semesters ago, he had a professor who clearly understood neurodivergent learners. Whether she was well trained or neurodivergent herself, I don’t know - but the difference was night and day. He thrived in her class. No support needed.
In contrast, I literally had to decode another professor’s assignments that term because I couldn’t even make sense of them.
For the first Poli Sci exam this semester, I took the essay questions and rewrote them into smaller, clearer bullet points. He got it. He studied. He aced the test.
Did I do it for the next two exams? Yes.
Did it work again? Yes. Once.
Did he maintain momentum through the rest of the semester? Not a chance. Dopamine dipped. Motivation nosedived. We’re back to “please just pass.”
In my end-of-semester haze of frustration and worry, I found myself asking (again):
How is this kid ever going to make it in the “real world” if the world keeps working against his brain?
So I went for a walk and listened to one of my favorite podcasts, The Executive Function Brain Trainer Podcast . I know both of the hosts personally, and they have this rare ability to explain complex ideas around executive functioning, neurodivergence, and AI in education in a way that makes sense. If you have any interest in these topics, Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran will make you smarter.
The podcast is about the recent World Economic Forum’s Future Jobs Report of 2025, that Darius (bless him) read and analyzed so we don’t have to. Here are few sections of their podcast transcript:
It's a really in-depth report that a lot of very serious companies pay a lot of attention to. So basically what they do is they look at the macro trends within society. They look at the technology changes, the impact on jobs, the changes of skills people are going to need, the impacts of AI and automation, the global economy, different changes in demographics, et cetera.
And this is what he found:
And can you guess what the top five to seven skills are? They're different than the last five years. But they've all got a theme, and you're going to guess what the theme is, aren't you?
Executive Functioning.
And the number one skill that will be needed according to Darius’s analysis:
The ability to analyze problems, the ability to find patterns and get solutions, the ability to step back, look at something critically and solve a problem and look at the data and see the patterns and just come up with a solution.
The big takeaway?
The future belongs to analytical, creative, pattern-seeking minds.
Neurodivergent minds.
These are the thinkers, problem-solvers, and innovators we’ll need.
But here’s the catch: these same brilliant minds often struggle with…
Cognitive flexibility
Working memory
Inhibitory control
Self-awareness
Sustained attention
These are the executive functioning skills that make their intelligence usable.
These skills can be built and strengthened. But kids can’t do it alone - and neither can parents.
We need schools to catch up.
(And no, having kids use a planner is not an executive functioning curriculum.)
We need educators who know what executive functioning is, how it impacts learning, and what it looks like when a child’s struggle isn’t behavioral - but neurological.
Because right now, our neurodivergent kids are falling through the cracks. And if we let that continue, the whole world loses out on their brilliance.
So what can you do?
👉 Learn everything you can about executive functioning.
👉 Talk to your child’s teachers.
👉 Advocate for better supports in school.
It won’t be easy.
(But learning about executive functioning is - start here: The Executive Functioning Playbook for Parents.)
I’m working on helping schools catch up as fast as I can.
But this work doesn’t happen in isolation. It takes all of us.
Let’s make sure these kids aren’t left behind in systems that were never designed for them.
They have too much to offer - and we’re going to need them.