The Seeing My Time Program® first teaches people to be self-aware and understand the source of their difficulties. Then they can make choices about what tools and strategies to use.
Self-awareness begins with an acknowledgement of the pain resulting from time management challenges. Many people with time-management difficulties have internalized that they are “bad” people, lazy, or that they just don’t try hard enough. The Seeing My Time Program® helps these individuals get past their resistance by focusing not on their poor time-management behavior, but on the brain. By educating participants about the brain and their executive functioning strengths and weaknesses, they overcome the emotional barrier to behavior change. The blame is transferred from their lack of “will power” to their brain. This opens the door to change.
Understanding the brain also sets the stage for understanding why specific external tools and strategies are effective. The Seeing My Time® workbook and the tools introduced in the course are a starting point for life change.
The activities in the Seeing My Time® workbook help participants with ADHD understand their brains’ executive function challenges, and how they can support their brain to get things done. The workbook was designed for the creative, visually-oriented ADHD mind.
There is no magic wand or pill to “cure” deficits in executive functioning. However, through the Seeing My Time Program® , individuals are able to understand why they have to use external tools and then how to use effective strategies to support reaching goals and getting things done.
Neuroscience is making great strides in understanding the executive functions. Executive function skills – the daily tasks that require our executive functions – are also a hot topic in neuroscience, psychology, and education. The Seeing My Time Program® is a unique model to develop the executive function skills of time management, planning, and organization.
When a defensive adolescent comes to me, I do my very best to connect with him or her by sharing my own struggles as a student. In the first hour or two I never mention time management or strategies. Instead of focusing on the adolescent’s poor behavior, I focus on the brain and how it’s executive functions impact our ability to get things done. This focus on the brain helps students let go of self-blame and begin to believe that they can get better. At the end of the first session I then ask the student if they are interested in coming back to learn more. Only a very few have chosen not to.
I want to be perfectly honest, I can’t make anyone change their behavior. A parent can’t make a child change behavior. Change has to come from within. If a person decides that they don’t want to participate, I leave the door open. I’ve had young people come back years later when they were ready for help.