This morning I told a room full of teenagers that they weren’t lazy and that there wasn’t something wrong with them. A lot of them have spent a long time feeling differently. It’s hard to be effective when you don’t understand how your brain works.
I ran an assembly on something we almost never actually teach: how your brain gets things done. It’s called executive functioning. It’s the part of your mind that gets you started instead of staring at the task. It’s what remembers why you walked into the room. It’s what knows whether “five more minutes” will really be five minutes, or fifty.
We teach young people what to learn. We rarely teach them how their own mind works while they do it.
So I started with the reframe. Staring at a screen for an hour and producing nothing isn’t laziness. Forgetting why you walked in isn’t stupidity. It’s executive functioning, and every brain in that room runs it differently.
That’s the part I care about most. Some of those learners are neurodivergent — autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, and plenty who’ve never had a name for it. Their wiring isn’t broken. It’s different, with real strengths and real friction. But here’s what I wanted every one of them to hear, neurodivergent or not: just because you struggle with tasks that require executive function it doesn’t mean you always have to. There are no broken brains, just ones that need a little extra support.
Then we got practical. Six skills, each with something they could use on Monday. Can’t start? Promise yourself five minutes. Head too full? Get it out of your head and onto a screen. Your brain is for having ideas, not storing them. Time slipping away? Make it visible. Overwhelmed? It’s a wave, not a wall. It rises, and it passes.
I didn’t want them leaving with six things to fix. I wanted them leaving with one thing to try.
The goal isn’t forcing my brain to work like someone else’s. I’m recognised as autistic and ADHD, and for a long time I believed my brain was a problem to be solved or fixed. It wasn’t. What changed everything for me was learning how my own brain works, then building a life that fits it instead of forcing myself to try to function in a way that has never worked for me.
That’s the whole message, and it fits on a sticky note: learn how your brain works, then build what fits it.
There is power in knowing you aren’t alone. Knowing that other people share the same challenges you do. When I asked how many people struggled to get going with a task even though they knew they had to, nearly every hand went up on screen. The moment of relief that follows knowing “oh, it’s not just me” is its own important teaching moment.
We spend so much energy telling young people to try harder. Sometimes the kinder thing is to show them how their own mind works, and trust them to take it from there.
Every brain is different, neurodivergent or not. Finding the right keys to unlock how yours works is what makes all the difference.
