Why the EF clients getting stuck are getting older

For years, the clients who challenged me most were middle and high school students. The ones who couldn't seem to turn work in, who lost track of long projects, who knew the material but couldn't show it. That's who I expected to find sitting across from me.

That's changing. More and more, the people reaching out are adults. Twenties, thirties, forties. And many of them arrive already knowing the words. One recent referral wrote to me, and I'm sharing this close to how it came in: "I believe the lack of executive function skills is at the root of many of my stressors. Diet, exercise, keeping on top of things at work, responding to things, keeping my apartment clean and organized. I have self-diagnosed ADHD."

That message stayed with me, so I want to unpack what's underneath it.

These adults are not a separate population

It's tempting to file adult clients as their own category, a different service line with different needs. But when I sit with them, I don't hear a new story. I hear the same one, caught decades later.

The gap that showed up in a seventh grade report card didn't resolve on its own. It followed them. It moved from missing assignments to missed deadlines at work, from a messy locker to an apartment they can't keep organized, from "forgot to study" to "can't keep on top of things." Same underlying skills, same quiet struggle, just a different stage of life wearing the consequences.

Why they already know the language

Something has shifted in the last few years. Adults aren't arriving confused about what's wrong. They've read the articles, listened to the podcasts, found the communities. Many have diagnosed themselves before they ever reach out.

That self-awareness is real progress, and it's also the heart of the problem. These adults know exactly what they're missing. What they never got was someone to build the skills with them, consistently, when it would have come more easily. Awareness was never the gap. Consistency was.

This is the piece most people miss

Here's what I want you to sit with. The executive function skills at the root of that adult's message are the same skills we're building with a struggling twelve year old right now.

The prefrontal cortex, where much of this work lives, isn't fully mature until the late twenties, and arguably into the early thirties. That means the student in front of you is at the easiest point they will ever have for building these pathways. It's never impossible to build them later. The adults reaching out are proof that it's never too late. But it is harder the longer you wait, because the pathway was never laid down when the brain was most ready to form it.

So when we coach a struggling student, we're not just rescuing a grade or a semester. We're standing at a fork in that child's timeline. One path leads toward the skills becoming habit while the brain is still laying them down easily. The other leads toward the adult who writes that email at thirty five, still carrying the gap, finally naming it alone.

That's not pressure. It's the opposite. It's the reason this work matters so much, and the reason the student in front of you is exactly where the difference gets made.

What this changes about how we coach

Three things stay with me when I sit with a student who's stuck.

First, I name the window, quietly and for myself. This student is at the easiest point they'll ever have. That keeps me patient and it keeps me from treating a stuck moment as a verdict.

Second, I listen for the laziness story. So many stuck students have decided they're lazy or not smart. Part of our work is replacing that story with a truer one. This is a skill they haven't built yet, not a flaw they're stuck with. The adults who reach out are often still carrying the version of that story they picked up as kids.

Third, I connect today to the long game. The assignment a student is tracking this week is practice for the apartment, the job, and the inbox later. We're not just chasing a due date. We're laying down a pathway.

The real takeaway

The adults reaching out aren't a trend to build a new service around. They're a message. Everyone of them tells us how much it matters to reach students while the window is open, and how much it costs when nobody does. They are the clearest argument I know for the work we do with young students, because they show us exactly what's waiting on the other side of a skill left unbuilt.

So the next time you sit with a student who can't seem to get it together, remember who might be writing that email in twenty years. Then remember that you're the reason they might not have to.

This is exactly why I'm reshaping the Academy in January. If the window for building these skills is open in childhood, we need more educators trained and ready to step in during that timeframe.

Something new is coming, with a place for you wherever you are on the path, whether you're EFCurious, ready for EF Foundations, or All In. I'll share more details in November. Stay tuned…