Staying Regulated When Students Aren’t

One of the most important and hardest executive function skills for educators and coaches isn’t something we teach directly to students.

It’s our own regulation.

And let’s be honest. It’s not always easy.

Especially when we’re working with students who, despite thoughtful strategies, accommodations, and support, don’t use the tools available to them. Sometimes we offer strategy after strategy, and the student still doesn’t engage.

That’s when our ability to stay regulated matters most.

I’m thinking about a student I’ve worked with for a long time. She has diagnoses of ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia.

Dysgraphia is a learning difference that affects written expression. It can impact handwriting, spelling, organizing ideas on paper, and the physical act of writing. Writing is often slow, effortful, and mentally exhausting. When dysgraphia is combined with dyslexia and ADHD, writing becomes even more demanding because working memory is taxed at every stage of the process.

This student recently took a writing-based exam. She had accommodations approved through the learning support center, including the ability to type her responses. However, due to a breakdown in communication, the exam was not ready for her in the testing center, and she ended up taking it in the classroom.

When we talked afterward, I tried to understand what that experience was like for her. She shared that her handwriting became very sloppy and hard to read, and she was worried her teacher wouldn’t be able to decipher her answers.

This is not the first time we’ve had conversations about using her accommodation to type rather than handwrite. And historically, when she is able to use that accommodation, her grades reflect her understanding far more accurately.

So the question wasn’t whether the accommodation mattered.

The question was how to approach the situation without escalation.

EF Pause

When a student doesn’t use a support that clearly helps them, pause and ask:

• Is this about skill, stress, or emotional overload
• What might have made the accommodation feel inaccessible in that moment
• How can I stay regulated while we explore this together

Co-regulation starts with the adult.

The Brain-Based Lens

Regulation is an executive function skill, and it is highly contagious.

When a student is dysregulated, frustrated, or overwhelmed, their access to executive function is already compromised. Adding pressure, urgency, or disappointment from an adult often pushes the brain further offline.

For students with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia, writing tasks place an especially heavy load on working memory. When accommodations break down, the student isn’t just dealing with inconvenience. They are navigating cognitive overload in real time.

This is where educator regulation becomes essential.

Remaining calm doesn’t mean lowering expectations or ignoring patterns. It means holding boundaries without escalating emotion. It means staying curious instead of reactive.

Co-regulation allows the student’s nervous system to settle enough to reflect, problem-solve, and advocate moving forward.

Back to the Story

In this situation, I didn’t focus on what should have happened or why the accommodation wasn’t used. I focused on how she was impacted in that moment.

That shift mattered.

By staying regulated, I was able to help her reflect on the experience without shame and reinforce why accommodations exist in the first place. Not to give an advantage, but to allow her knowledge to show up without unnecessary barriers.

Working with students like this requires patience, consistency, and emotional regulation on our part. It means revisiting the same conversations more than once and holding steady even when progress feels slow.

Because when students struggle to regulate, they don’t need more pressure.

They need a regulated adult who can hold the boundary and the relationship at the same time.

That’s not easy work.

But it’s essential work.

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