A college professor recently described a student who spent her lecture doing homework for another course. When she addressed it, he told her, “I’m paying you. You do your job.” She called it entitlement, and some of it may be. But after years of working with students, I’ve learned that the more useful question is what sits underneath the behavior. Four different problems can look identical from the front of the room, and each one needs a different response.
Entitlement is real, but it isn’t the only explanation
Some students do expect the world to bend around them, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But if entitlement is the only lens we use, we treat a skill gap like a character flaw. Then we miss the chance to help.
The numbers point to a real gap
Only about 60 percent of undergraduates finish their degrees within six years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024, as cited in an analysis of executive functioning in college). In 2024, 94 percent of companies reported hiring recent college graduates, but only 25 percent said all of those hires worked out well (EthicsSage, 2024). These figures don’t explain why students struggle, but they show the gap is widespread and measurable.
Lens 1: The hidden curriculum
SMARTS describes the hidden curriculum as the set of tacit norms and expectations that insiders expect every student to follow, even though they are rarely taught directly (SMARTS). Eye contact, tone, when to speak, and how much sarcasm is safe, all fall into this category.
When a student misses one of these rules, adults often read the miss as a choice. A student who was never shown the rule can’t follow it, no matter how much they care. That’s why explicit teaching matters.
Lens 2: Executive function
This is the lens I see most often in coaching, so it gets the most space here. Executive function covers the mental skills that help us plan, start, organize, hold information in mind, shift focus, and stop ourselves from acting on impulse. The brain systems behind these skills are still maturing. Zelazo describes the prefrontal systems that support executive function as relatively immature during adolescence, with skills and connectivity continuing to develop into adulthood (Zelazo, Executive Function: Implications for Education).
Research on the classroom side points to the same mismatch. One recent review describes frustration that comes not from defiance but from “a developmental mismatch between what students are neurologically ready to do and what they are being asked to do” (Bryson et al., 2025; Moody et al., 2022). The same review notes that when this gap is misread as laziness or lack of motivation, students can carry those labels into adulthood (LD@School, citing Beck Wells, 2024).
SMARTS also makes the case that explicitly teaching executive function strategies can help level the playing field for students who would otherwise have to guess at how school works (SMARTS).
What does this look like? A student wants to listen. They understand that they should. But by the middle of your explanation, working memory has dropped the thread and attention has wandered. From the front of the room, they look disengaged. From inside their head, they are trying hard and losing ground.
Lens 3: Generational values
Some students have not rejected the rules because they can’t follow them. They have questioned the premise. Why show up to a lecture that’s available online? Why stay loyal to an employer if loyalty doesn’t lead to better pay?
One Psychology Today analysis found that only about 2 percent of Gen Z holds the values that companies most want in new hires: achievement, learning, and a strong drive to work (Psychology Today). A CHRO’s guide to Gen Z retention argues that “entitled” is the wrong word for much of this, because what looks like entitlement is often a different understanding of the workplace bargain. Both views point to the same practical task: making the older expectations visible and explaining why people still rely on them, even when a student disagrees.
Lens 4: Developmental readiness
Executive function doesn’t develop on a school calendar. Research on school-age executive function describes planning and organization as peaking early, inhibitory control consolidating in early adolescence, and working memory and cognitive flexibility continuing to mature into late adolescence (Portellano, 2005, as cited in a review of executive functions and school).
This is why a student can manage a homework assignment or a friend conflict on their own but falls apart when both arrive during a week that also includes a job or a heavy course load. The issue isn’t ability. It’s capacity. The load is larger than the system can carry right now, and the response is support and a lighter load, not another lecture about responsibility.
So which lens fits?
Most students are dealing with more than one of these at once. Still, sorting them helps you choose a response that fits.
A student who doesn’t know the rule needs it named and modeled. A student who knows the rule but can’t carry it out needs scaffolding and practice. A student who has rejected the premise needs to understand the expectation and why others still rely on it, and then they can make a real choice. A student who is developmentally stretched needs a manageable load and time.
Where coaching fits
Families often arrive thinking they need help with organization or homework. Those things matter, but much of the work involves teaching what nobody else is naming: reading a room, understanding sarcasm and nonverbal cues, seeing what a teacher or employer expects, and practicing the timing of when to speak. The goal is to give students the full picture so their choices are informed, not to make them conform.
What lens shows up most in your students? Tell me in the comments or reply to this post. I’d especially like to hear what has worked when you’ve named the rule out loud.
