Did Their Executive Function Move in Too?

Following Steps Given Is Not the Same as Owning Them

Your young adult knew how to do this at home. They got assignments done, showed up where they were supposed to be, followed the checklist, and earned the grade. Then the environment changes, and suddenly you ask one big question:

Why aren’t they following through?

That question can be especially confusing when a young person has always appeared responsible or academically successful. We assume that because they demonstrated a skill, they know how to reproduce it independently. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they have become very good at following steps inside a structure that was doing more of the executive-function work than anyone realized.

That is not failure. It is information.

The developmental work now is not simply completing the next task. It is learning how to create a system, understand why it works, evaluate whether it is working, and adapt it when life changes.

Executive Function Is Still Developing

Executive function is not one skill. It is a group of mental processes involved in planning, prioritizing, holding information in mind, regulating impulses, shifting between demands, beginning tasks, monitoring progress, and adjusting toward a goal. These abilities continue developing through adolescence and into young adulthood. That means college often arrives during development, not after it.

A young adult can be accomplished and still be developing the ability to organize themselves. Strong grades do not automatically mean every executive-function skill has been internalized. Success tells us that a young person functions well in a particular environment with the support, expectations, and structure available there. Change the environment and we may begin to see which parts of the system they owned, and which parts were still being held around them.

Neurodivergence belongs inside this conversation, too.  ADHD, autism, learning differences, and other neurodevelopmental profiles can influence how a young person experiences using executive function. There is no single neurodivergent profile, just as there is no single system that works for every student. The question is not whether a young adult should be responsible. The question is what support helps them to understand and manage that responsibility for themselves.

Support is not the opposite of independence.

Independence includes knowing yourself well enough to choose support intentionally.

Sometimes We Were Part of the System

Parents, teachers, coaches, and mentors provide scaffolding because young people need it. We remind, create routines, check the school portal, and notice what has not been done before the consequence arrives. That is a natural part of development. It also means that sometimes we were part of the executive-function system.

Think about one assignment.

In high school, the assignment may appear in the school portal. The teacher mentions it in class. A parent asks about it at dinner. The student writes it on a list, completes it, checks it off, and turns it in on time. They did the work, but the system around them helped hold the deadline, the reminder, and sometimes even the decision about when to begin.

On campus, that same young adult may receive a syllabus with an assignment due three weeks from now and hear very little about it again. They still know how to do the assignment. What they are now being asked to develop is the capacity to notice the deadline, decide when to begin, estimate the time required, place it among competing priorities, monitor their progress, and adjust before the deadline arrives. That is more steps than we may even recognize. 

Maybe putting the due date on the phone is enough. Maybe they discover they need the phone calendar plus an alarm, a paper calendar they can see, or a sticky note on the mirror. The tool is not the point. The learning is: This is what helps me follow through.

That is the movement from mimicking a system to owning one.

From Stopgap to Support

This is where parenting can feel uncomfortable. We see the missed deadline. We know what would fix it. We can step in quickly because we have years of experience building the structure around them.

But the goal has changed.

The young adult is not only learning to complete the task. They are learning to notice themselves inside the process: what they decided, what happened, what they learned, and what needs to change. The point is not to leave them alone with every consequence. It is to resist automatically becoming the stopgap before they have an opportunity to think.

A useful question for parents is:

What part of this are they still learning to own?

That question leaves room for further development however our young people present. It leaves room for a capable young adult who succeeds in one environment and needs a different tool in another. It leaves room for neurodivergence, changing demands, and the reality that development does not move in a perfectly straight line.

It also leaves room for us to change.

We are still here. We still offer wisdom, resources, encouragement, and a safe place to think. Increasingly, though, the decisions need to connect to our young adult’s understanding, actions, and experience.

The goal is not for our young adults to perfectly reproduce the systems we created for them. The goal is for them to understand themselves well enough to build, use, evaluate, and adapt systems of their own. That is executive function becoming theirs.

Go a Little Deeper

For an accessible look at adolescent brain development, the National Institute of Mental Health’s The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know offers a short overview of continued development in areas related to planning, prioritizing, learning, and decision-making.

Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s TED Talk, The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain, is another introduction to why adolescence remains an important period for brain development, learning, and adaptation.

Continue the Conversation

Have you ever watched your young adult do something successfully for years and then struggle when the environment changed? What did you discover they had learned, and what were they still learning to own?

Share your thoughts, lessons, or questions with us here at Parents Need Love.

PATHworks™ Love Them to Life introduces parents to ideas that can strengthen relationships, support development, and prepare teens and young adults to increasingly understand, manage, and advocate for themselves. Check out our free resource  HERE.

About Ms Patricia

Patricia Wicks, MSW, is a human development expert specializing in young adults and founder of PATHworks™, with more than 30 years of experience helping young people build the tools needed for a successful transition into adulthood. She partners with families and the organizations that serve them to strengthen relationships, build independence, and improve outcomes through coaching, consulting, training, and facilitation. Learn more at www.pathworksglobal.com.

Research and Resource References

Folker, A., Bertrand, C., Hong, Y., Steinberg, L., Duell, N., et al. (2025). A longitudinal study of adolescent-to-young adult executive function development in seven countries. Developmental Science, 28, e70040.

Dijkhuis, R., de Sonneville, L., Ziermans, T., Staal, W., & Swaab, H. (2020). Autism symptoms, executive functioning and academic progress in higher education students. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 1353–1363.

Anastopoulos, A. D., Langberg, J. M., Eddy, L. D., Silvia, P. J., & Labban, J. D. (2021). A randomized controlled trial examining CBT for college students with ADHD. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 89(1), 21–33.

National Institute of Mental Health. (2023). The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know.

Blakemore, S.-J. (2012). The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain. TEDGlobal.