Executive Dysfunction Therapy

I want to bring up a pattern that I see in families where one of 2 kids is identified as having executive function problems and one is not.  There is a tendency to see one as good and the other not so good, healthy and fragile, easy and a workout.  Once they are categorized that way, it becomes hard for the family to see the good, healthy, easy one as having needs or the not-so-good, fragile, work out one as having the ability to succeed unaided.

Folks tend to be unaware of doing this, they really see the older boy as badly behaved and given to poor choices, while the younger one has a teacher who doesn’t understand, and a coach who asks too much. Sometimes it’s the older kid who is identified as needing help while the younger one doesn’t essentially because the older one has hit a heavier workload in the upper grades, while the younger one hasn’t yet.

The thing is when you get in the habit of seeing one kid’s difficulties as faults needing correction (punishment)  and the other as having a need for support, you’ve got a bigger problem than you think.  You are teaching your children how to think about themselves and each other.  If I think of myself as the troubled one, how does that influence my choices about, say alcohol?  Worth thinking about…..