When Mental Health is Compromised

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

And as educators, this month is an invitation to go deeper.

Not just to acknowledge mental health in a general sense, but to look honestly at what happens when mental health and our work collide.

Because they do. More often than we sometimes want to admit.

The Story

Last year, I began working with a student who was preparing for one of the biggest transitions of her life: high school to college. From the very first session, I noticed something. She had a flat affect. No visible emotion. No energy in her responses. Now, in this work, you learn quickly not to jump to conclusions. First impressions can be misleading, especially when a student is nervous or overwhelmed by a new situation.

But as we continued working together, the red flags started to stack up. Missing assignments. Explanations for those missing assignments that didn't quite add up. She wasn't responding to texts. She was pleasant in our sessions, appropriate even, but there was a wall. Not an effort wall. Not a motivation wall. Something deeper. Something I couldn't reach, no matter what strategy I tried.

I shifted approaches. I wondered if the issue was connection, so I transitioned her to a younger coach, someone closer to her age who might be able to build rapport in a different way. We also increased the frequency of sessions to twice a week. And still, something wasn't moving.

The Executive Function Lens: What Was Really Happening?

As coaches, we talk a lot about executive function skills: emotional regulation, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. But what happens when those skills aren't just underdeveloped? What happens when they're frozen?

What I was seeing with this student wasn't laziness or lack of desire. Her executive function system was blocked at the root. Emotional regulation and working memory, two of the skills that quietly hold everything together, require a nervous system that feels safe enough to engage. When mental health is compromised, those skills don't just become hard. They become inaccessible.

This is why the work of distinguishing between can't and won't matters so much. And it's why coaches need to know the difference between a student who needs more scaffolding and a student who needs something we are not trained to provide.

Back to the Story

Eventually, we made the difficult but necessary decision together. It was time to pause coaching.

What this student needed wasn't a different coach or more sessions.

She needed a mental health counselor who could help her identify what was truly blocking her.

And when she was ready, really ready, coaching would be there waiting.

I want to be clear about something: I didn't arrive at this decision quickly.

I tried multiple approaches. I adjusted my style. I brought in a different coach. I increased session frequency. I looked for every possible way to reach her before I acknowledged what I was seeing.

Because as coaches, we are wired to find the strategy. To try one more thing. To believe that if we just adjust the approach, something will click.

And sometimes that's true.

But sometimes the barrier isn't the strategy.

Sometimes the barrier is that the brain simply isn't in a place where coaching can reach it.

Deeper Dive 

To understand what was happening, we have to talk about the prefrontal cortex.

This is the part of the brain that governs our executive functions: emotional regulation, working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, and decision making.

But the prefrontal cortex doesn't work alone. It is in constant communication with the amygdala, the brain's threat detection center.

When a student feels safe and regulated, the prefrontal cortex can do its job.

When the amygdala perceives threat, whether real danger or the chronic, low grade stress of untreated mental health challenges, it takes over. The prefrontal cortex goes offline. And when that happens, the skills we are coaching simply aren't accessible.

You may have heard this referred to as the window of tolerance. When a student is inside their window, they can think, reflect, problem solve, and learn.

When they are pushed outside of it by anxiety, depression, trauma, or emotional overwhelm, the brain shifts into survival mode.

Coaching strategies, no matter how well designed, cannot reach a brain in survival mode. This is what I was seeing.

Her working memory couldn't hold information because her nervous system was too dysregulated to allow it. Her cognitive flexibility was frozen because shifting requires a felt sense of safety she didn't have access to. Her emotional regulation wasn't something she could practice her way into because the very system that supports regulation was overwhelmed.

This wasn't a skill gap. This wasn't a motivation problem.

This was a brain working very hard just to get through the day.

Educator Tips and Tricks

When Is It Time to Refer?

This is the question I hear from coaches all the time.

There's no perfect checklist. But there are signals.

You've tried multiple approaches and nothing is shifting. Not just one strategy. Multiple. You've adjusted your style, your structure, your frequency. And still, the needle isn't moving.

The student is compliant but not progressing. They show up. They're pleasant. But there's no growth. No momentum. No spark. This feels different from a student who is struggling but trying.

You're seeing signs that go beyond executive function. Persistent flat affect. Withdrawal. Patterns of avoidance that feel less like executive dysfunction and more like something deeper is driving things.

Your gut is telling you something. After years in this work, I've learned to trust that feeling. When I find myself thinking "I'm not the right person for this," that thought is worth listening to.

What I Want You to Take From This

If you're working with a student right now and something feels off, trust that feeling.

Try your strategies. Be creative. Bring in support. But also know this: recognizing the limits of your scope isn't a weakness.

It's one of the most professional, ethical, and compassionate things you can do.

Coaching is powerful. And part of that power is knowing when to pass the baton.

Want to go deeper on how executive function data can guide your coaching decisions?

Join our Workshop: Turning Executive Function Data Into Real Student Support May 14 @ 6:00pm EST. Register Here