We're Raising More Supported Kids Than Ever. So, Why Are So Many Less Independent?
Every summer, while most people are planning vacations or spending afternoons by the pool, I find myself sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee and a stack of psychoeducational evaluations.
It’s one of the most important parts of my job over summer.
Some of these reports belong to families we’ve been working with for years as we prepare for annual IEP meetings and plan for the school year ahead. Others are from parents who have recently reached out to see if executive function coaching might be the missing piece. I want to understand not only how the student learns, but how their brain works, where they’re struggling, what strengths they can build on, and whether the recommendations being made are truly setting them up for long-term success.
I’ve probably read hundreds of these reports since beginning my time in education.
Private evaluations.
School evaluations.
The reports that eventually become IEPs, 504 Plans, and Learning Plans.
Each one tells the story of a child.
Each one represents parents who have spent months, sometimes years, searching for answers.
And it is so clear that every single evaluator, teacher, administrator, and parent involved wants the same thing.
We want these children to succeed.
At least, I believe we all do.
But as I worked through another stack of reports this week, I found myself writing the same notes in the margin over and over again.
Where is the plan for independence?
Will these recommendations help this child become more independent over time?
After twenty years in this field, I’ve come to believe something that I wish we talked about a lot more.
The Hard Truth
If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me say this before.
Today’s parents are carrying more than any generation before them. They’re juggling work, activities, therapies, homework, sports, emails from teachers, online grade portals, mental health concerns, parenting in this tech-addicted world, and the constant pressure to get everything “right.” They’re exhausted.
When you’re that overwhelmed, it’s only natural to step in and do whatever gets everyone through the day with the least amount of conflict. We remind. We rescue. We organize. We problem-solve. We smooth the path because, quite frankly, there often isn’t enough time or energy to do anything else.
I understand that. I really do.
But here’s the hard truth.
When helping becomes our default, children lose opportunities to practice the very executive functioning skills they’re struggling to develop.
Overhelping often comes from love, but it’s reinforced by the messages parents hear every day, especially on social media. We’re told that good parents stay one step ahead, solve problems before they happen, and make life easier for their children. Rarely do we hear that one of the most loving things we can do is intentionally step back, scaffold well, and allow our children to practice becoming independent.
Here's the heartbreaking part. I talk with parents every single week who are doing everything they can for their children, yet many have never even heard the word scaffolding. They've never been taught how to meet a child where they are while intentionally transferring more responsibility to them over time. They know how to help. They just haven't been shown how to help in a way that builds independence.
Schools find themselves in a similar position.
Teachers are balancing classrooms of twenty or thirty students, each with unique learning needs, while trying to implement accommodations, meet curriculum standards, communicate with families, and keep everyone moving forward.
Just like parents, they often do what works in the moment.
And that’s the key phrase...
In the moment.
Because what works in the moment doesn’t always build the skills children need for the future.
Neither happens because people don’t care. In fact, I think the opposite is true.
We love our children so much that we naturally want to make life easier for them. Teachers want students to experience success. Psychologists want to reduce barriers. School teams want children to feel supported.
Those are all good things.
Over the years, I’ve become increasingly convinced of something I think we need to talk about more openly.
We have become exceptionally good at helping children today.
We have become far less intentional about preparing them for tomorrow.
It’s simply where we’ve drifted, I truly don’t believe that it’s anyone’s intention.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve confused accommodations with skill building.
I wrote an article all about this if you’d like to learn more:
Have We Started Confusing Support with Protection?
Somewhere along the way, many parents were led to believe that if a child feels anxious, frustrated, resistant, or uncomfortable, the answer is to reduce the demand.
They’re not the same thing.
Supporting a child should never be the final destination.
Supporting a child while intentionally teaching them to need us less over time is the ultimate goal.
That’s what scaffolding is.
That’s what executive function development is.
And I don’t think we’re talking about it nearly enough.
Why the Language Matters
Parents often read these reports looking for the diagnosis.
I read them looking for the language.
The wording in a psychoeducational or neuropsych evaluation often becomes the wording in an IEP, a 504 Plan, or a Learning Plan (in private schools).
Those recommendations become classroom practice, most times.
That practice becomes habit.
And those habits shape how children learn to function.
That’s an enormous responsibility.
Whether the language originates with the evaluator, the school team, or the district, the outcome is often the same.
The words we choose influence not only what adults do for children...
...but what children learn to do for themselves.
As professionals, I believe we have a responsibility to think beyond the accommodation itself.
We should also be asking:
What executive functioning skill are we intentionally teaching while this support is in place?
Because if the answer is “none,” then we’ve created access without creating growth.
Prompting Isn’t Teaching
One recommendation appears in evaluation after evaluation.
It usually sounds something like this:
Teachers should check in with or prompt students after class to ensure they understand assignments, answer questions, and remind students of important due dates.
At first glance, this sounds perfectly reasonable.
And honestly, in the short term, it probably helps.
But here’s what I can’t stop thinking about.
Who is doing the thinking?
The teacher.
The teacher remembers the assignment.
The teacher remembers the deadline.
The teacher decides what’s important.
The teacher determines what the student should be paying attention to.
The student simply responds.
And that’s where I think we unintentionally skip providing executive function support to our children.
Executive function = self-directed action.
Executive functioning isn’t remembering what someone else told you to do.
It’s learning to ask yourself:
“What am I supposed to be doing?”
“What’s important right now?”
“What’s my first step?”
“When is this due and when should I start it?”
“What would the future <insert student name> want me to do?”
“How am I going to remember?”
“What do I need to do next?”
Those questions have to become the student’s questions.
Not the teacher’s.
Not the parent’s.
Not the coach’s.
Because if an adult is always generating the plan, the student never gets the opportunity to build the internal processes needed to generate one themselves.
Prompting works.
Until it doesn’t.
It helps children complete today’s task.
But if prompting is never paired with intentional scaffolding, children can unintentionally learn something we never meant to teach them.
They learn to wait.
To wait until someone reminds them.
To wait until someone tells them the first step.
To wait until someone notices they forgot.
To wait until someone initiates the thinking for them.
Over time, the prompt becomes the cue for action instead of the child's own internal dialogue. That's exactly why developing internal dialogue is the very first thing we work on with every student we coach. If a child isn't learning to think through tasks independently, they'll struggle to develop executive functioning skills no matter how many planners, reminders, or strategies we give them. It really is that simple.
Imagine if the recommendation said something like this:
Initially, provide weekly teacher check-ins while explicitly teaching the student to independently record assignments, identify due dates, prioritize tasks, and generate clarifying questions. Use visual supports, planning tools, and guided reflection to help the student develop self-directed routines. Adult prompts should gradually fade as the student demonstrates increasing independence.
Do you see the shift?
The teacher is still supportive.
The child is still supported.
But now the support has a destination.
Independence.
Because every child, regardless of diagnosis, is capable of becoming more independent than they are today when we provide the right scaffolding, teach the right strategies, and intentionally transfer responsibility over time.
That, to me, is what executive function coaching is all about and why I made it my life’s work to help as many people as possible.
The Research Agrees
This isn’t simply my opinion after twenty years of working in education.
Research consistently tells us that accommodations alone are rarely enough to improve long-term outcomes for neurodiverse students.
They remove barriers.
But they don’t automatically build executive functioning.
Russell Barkley has spent decades reminding us that ADHD, for example, is fundamentally a disorder of executive functioning and self-regulation across time. Children need explicit instruction, external supports that gradually become internal supports, and opportunities to practice self-directed behavior.
In other words...
The accommodation should buy us time and meet our children where they are developmentally, because let’s face it, many children nowadays have delayed executive function. Add an ADHD profile, and we can agree that they are about 30-40% delayed behind their same-age peers.
The Question I’d Love More Professionals to Ask
First, let me be clear:
I’m not writing this because I think psychologists are doing a poor job.
I’m not writing this because I think schools don’t care.
And I’m certainly not writing this because I think parents should stop advocating for accommodations.
Quite the opposite, actually.
I think everyone involved wants what’s best for children.
I simply think we’ve become so focused on answering one question that we’ve forgotten to ask another.
We’ve become very good at asking:
“What does this child need today?”
I think we also need to ask:
“What executive functioning skill are we intentionally teaching so this child needs us a little less tomorrow?”
Because accommodations should reduce barriers.
Scaffolding should build skills.
And every recommendation should include a bridge between the two.
Every IEP goal should be intentionally building greater independence, especially the executive functioning ones. The ultimate purpose isn’t simply to help a student succeed this semester or this school year. It’s to teach the skills they’ll need when there isn’t an IEP meeting, a case manager, or a teacher providing daily support. College, the workplace, and adulthood all require self-direction. That’s why every goal should move a child closer to needing less support than they needed the year before. If you’d like to learn more about why this matters, I dive deeper into the below article I wrote all about this topic.
Why Your Child’s IEP or 504 Plan Doesn’t “Transfer” to College (And What Actually Matters More)
If you’re a parent of a child with a 504 plan or IEP, it makes complete sense to assume that support will follow them into college.
The Conversation I’d Love to Have
This is one of the reasons families ask us to review psychoeducational evaluations, IEPs, 504 Plans, and Learning Plans through an executive functioning lens all the time.
We aren’t looking to remove accommodations.
We’re looking to strengthen them.
We’re asking questions like:
Where is the skill development?
Where is the plan for fading support?
How do we move this student toward greater independence over the next year instead of greater dependence on adults?
Because this is bigger than executive function coaching. It's the responsibility of all of us who have the privilege of shaping children's lives. Parents. Teachers. Therapists. Psychologists. Coaches. School leaders. Every interaction should ask the same question:
How do I help this child need me just a little less than they did yesterday?
That’s how independence is built.
Helping them become adults who can eventually rely on themselves.
To me, that’s the whole point.
Always.
Thanks so much for reading.
With tons of gratitude,
Nicole Rouleau
If you would like to learn more about helping your child build the real-world executive functioning skills needed for long term independence, resilience, and self-direction, I would love to connect. I am always happy to support families, answer questions, and help bridge the gap between understanding these skills and actually applying strategies that strengthen them in everyday life.
And if you know a school or district looking to deepen their understanding of executive functioning and move beyond outdated approaches that often keep students overly prompt-dependent, I would love the opportunity to support their staff and parents as well. The more we align home and school around how these skills are truly developed, the better outcomes we create for kids.
quick links:
Have We Started Confusing Support with Protection?
Important Disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace individualized guidance from a qualified medical, mental health, or educational professional. Every kid and family is different; please use your own judgment and consult a professional for concerns specific to your child.
