Executive Function Coach for Teens: What It Does and What It Costs

It's Sunday night. You've got three tabs open: two coaching websites and a calendar. You've tried the planner, the chart on the fridge and the evening check-ins, and a friend mentioned that a coach helped her son. Then you find a price, multiply it by a school year, and sit back in your chair.

Plenty of parents look into coaching after trying everything else at home, and for a lot of families it's a good fit. It helps to know what you'd be paying for before you decide.

When I was in school, I froze whenever a piece of work was vague, and it always happened at the desk on a weeknight. That's worth keeping in mind with any kind of help: where it shows up, and when.

Most teens could use some help planning their week and getting started on big assignments. For teens with ADHD it tends to matter more. ADHD is a difference in how the brain manages attention, and it often makes the brain's management skills harder: planning, getting started, keeping track of time. Those skills have a name, executive function, and that's what these coaches work on.

What an executive function coach does

A coach usually meets your teen once a week, often by video, and works on how the work gets done. That can mean planning the week, breaking a big project into steps, building an evening routine, and noticing the moment a task stalls. Sessions typically review the past week, set a few short-term goals and try out strategies (Understood).

A tutor teaches a subject; a coach works on the habits around every subject. Coaching is also separate from therapy. Coaches aren't allowed to diagnose or treat ADHD, and a good one will suggest a therapist or doctor when something needs one.

What it costs

Coaches typically charge somewhere between $75 and $200 an hour, and some offer packages that bring the hourly rate down (Understood). One report put the average at about $150 an hour, with some coaches charging over $500 (Smithsonian).

At one session a week, $75 to $200 an hour works out at roughly $300 to $800 a month, or about $2,700 to $7,200 over a nine-month school year. Insurance generally doesn't cover coaching, so most families pay for it themselves.

That puts coaching out of reach for a lot of the families who need it. About 42% of children with ADHD live in households below 200% of the federal poverty line (NSCH 2022–23). The best ADHD support is priced for the few, and that's a big part of why we built Ganzy.

How to choose a coach

ADHD coaching is mostly unregulated, so anyone can call themselves a coach, and the research on it is still thin. A 2018 review of 19 studies found mostly positive results, but many of the studies were small and had no comparison group (Smithsonian).

Some questions that might be worth asking on a first call:

• What training do you have, and how much of your work is with teenagers?
• How do you stay in touch with my teen between sessions?
• When would you suggest a therapist or a doctor instead?
• How will we know when coaching has done its job?

Big promises are worth a second look. A coach who talks about building skills over months is usually more believable than one who promises a new teen in 30 days.

It might also be worth letting your teen meet two or three coaches and pick one. Coaching asks a lot of the teen, and help they chose tends to feel like their own.

The six days between sessions

A coach sees your teen for about an hour a week. The plan they make on Tuesday has to survive Thursday night, when the chemistry worksheet is vague, three other things are due and the phone is right there. The coach holds the long-term plan. Something still has to hold every evening.

What could help is asking the coach for one small routine to practice between sessions, like a Sunday planning slot your teen runs themselves. It can also help to agree on what your teen does when they get stuck at night, such as writing down the smallest possible first step and doing only that.

If coaching isn't in the budget

Some of what a coach does is available through school. If your teen has a 504 plan, it can include help with organization as well as extra time. A school counselor or a teacher who's willing to break a big assignment into smaller parts can cover some of the same ground.

At home, the habits a coach teaches are worth trying anyway: a weekly plan your teen leads, small first steps, the phone charging in another room as their call, and the work done before whatever usually eats the evening.

Where Ganzy comes in

Ganzy isn't a coach, and it doesn't teach skills the way a good coach does. We built it to give teens control over their focus by translating schoolwork into the way their brains work, every day of the week.

When the work is vague, your teen tells Ganzy what's due, by voice or by typing, and it asks a few questions until each assignment becomes small, clear steps with an obvious finish line. When everything lands at once, Ganzy sorts it and shows only the step that matters most right now, while the rest waits out of sight. When the payoff is months away, Ganzy brings it forward: starting a step earns a reward on the spot, with more for the step that matters most and for the ones they've been dreading, and it all builds into levels and progress they can see.

Your teen decides what goes on the list. Ganzy decides the order and keeps them pointed at the next step, and the work stays theirs. If they fall off for a few days, coming back is one step, with no pile of overdue tasks waiting for them.

If your teen has a coach, the coach holds the long-term plan and Ganzy covers the nights in between. If they don't, Ganzy is there for the evenings. It's in free beta at ganzy.app.

Whatever you decide about those tabs, it might be worth asking your teen which night of the week is hardest. That's usually where help needs to show up first.

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Ganzy is not medical treatment and doesn't diagnose or treat ADHD. It works alongside medication, coaching and school supports. If you think your teen may have ADHD, talk to a clinician.