Executive Function Skills: The Basis For All Learning
It’s midnight. Well past your bedtime, and definitely well past your teenager’s bedtime.
Yet, the two of you are awake, desperately putting together a project that’s due tomorrow. Your teen came to you only three hours ago in tears, stressed about what to do and how to get started, pleading for help. An argument you’re not proud of ensued, after you learned that the project was assigned a whole month ago.
As you yawn into the night, eyeing your equally exhausted child, you realize that this isn’t the first time this has happened. In fact, it’s almost becoming a habit for your child to wait until the last minute to complete assignments. And it’s not only the issue of homework. Your teenager is often late to class after losing track of time while talking in the school hallways. His lunchbox almost always comes home packed with the same food as you sent, because there “wasn’t time,” to eat it. At home, it’s a struggle to convince your teen to spend time cleaning her room or to help load the dishwasher.
You sigh. There has to be a better way. There has to be a way for your child to approach planning and prioritizing their time in an efficient way.
So, you ask your go-to—the Internet—for help. You discover that your teen is struggling with beginning tasks by himself because his task initiation is weak. Not only this, but she is unable to prioritize tasks and use her time well due to poor time management. Task initiation and time management are both executive functioning skills.
On the bright side, executive functioning skills can be improved with time and practice. Furthermore, you can avoid the daunting task of strengthening these skills on your own. Waypoint Education Louisville offers individualized, one-on-one sessions for middle and high school students with Interventionist and Executive Function Coach, Sidney Schell. With over a decade of experience working with students, Sidney deeply understands and strongly advocates for holistic student success and well-being. At Waypoint, she helps students identify and then facilitates a step by step process for explicitly teaching executive functioning skills.
Why Is Executive Functioning Important?
Executive functioning skills are the basis for all learning. Though no one is born with executive functioning skills, these skills begin to develop in infancy. And they continue to develop and strengthen through experiences, practice, and time.
When children are young, early executive functioning skills help them in many ways, such as:
Learning to read and write
Recalling the steps for a math problem
Taking part in classroom discussions and group projects
Beginning and maintaining play with peers
Executive functioning skills develop most rapidly in the toddler and preschool years, but adolescents and young adults also go through significant development in this area. When children are given experiences, practice, and time to encourage the growth of these skills, the benefits are powerful. Developing a child’s executive functioning skills strengthens their:
Life as a student: Imagine a better experience academically, socially, and emotionally at school for your child.
Life at home: It will be easier for your child to see themselves as a valuable member of your family, whether that is through doing chores or finding their way through daily life.
Friendships: Your child will have deeper and more meaningful bonds with friends.
Ability to grow into a capable adult: Your child will more easily navigate adulthood with all its responsibilities, such as continuing education, parenting, and employment.
Overall health: Sticking to healthy habits and applying strategies to decrease stress will strengthen your child’s overall health.
When we view executive function through this holistic lens, it becomes clear that these skills are truly the basis for all of life and learning.
What Are Executive Functioning Skills?
Executive function is like the brain’s air traffic control system. Air traffic control directs and helps planes take off and land safely. Similarly, executive functioning skills help the brain prioritize and control thoughts, feelings, and actions. They light the path for learning.
Each executive functioning skill is crucial for child development and in helping children feel like they are in control. Each skill plays a part in accomplishing not only daily responsibilities, but long term goals while often working simultaneously.
Waypoint Education Louisville focuses on explicitly teaching the following executive function skills:
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This skill allows you to keep information in your mind without losing track of what you’re doing. For example, your working memory includes:
Keeping a number in your head while doing a math problem
Recalling details in a story you read
Remembering where you left your car keys
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To focus means to pay attention to a person or task for a period of time. It also involves:
Ignoring distractions
Refocusing when needed
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This skill allows you to manage and control your emotions to:
Achieve goals
Complete tasks
Stay calm under pressure
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This means to begin a task independently. And without procrastinating, even if it’s that pesky task—the one you don’t like at all—like doing the dishes or cleaning your room.
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This skill allows you to come up with a plan for goal accomplishment.
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This involves using strategies to stay tidy. When you are organized, you:
Develop plans to keep materials tidy
Have a designated place for everything
Clean up as you go
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This skill allows you to estimate how long it will take you to complete a task. It also allows you to:
Prioritize tasks
Use your time wisely so that you can complete assignments on time
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These allow you to choose and keep the habits and routines that are important to your daily life. Working toward both long and short-term goals provides motivation and fulfillment.
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When you have strong flexibility, you can effectively cope when change happens. Practicing flexibility looks like:
Stay open-minded
Are willing to test out new approaches or ways of thinking
Are able to see situations in more than one way
Are able to adapt to unexpected change
Each of these skills can be strengthened over time and with practice. Waypoint is dedicated to both when working with students. Skills are joyfully practiced one-on-one through reflexive questioning, games, and explicit teaching.
Could Your Child Benefit From an Executive Function Coach?
Everyone has both strengths and weaknesses when it comes to executive functioning. Even adults struggle in some form or another. Let’s face it: we all have that one family member who is late to everything or the cousin who can never find her car keys. However, because the executive functioning system is so complex, weaknesses can significantly impact a child’s success at home, at school, and in life.
Your child might need help with executive functioning skills if there’s difficulty with:
Starting or completing tasks
Prioritizing tasks
Following directions or a sequence of steps
Switching focus from one task to another
Adjusting to changes in rules or routines
If your child is struggling, it’s important to remember that executive functioning skills can be improved. It takes time and practice, but for skills that are the foundation to life and learning, it is worth it to invest in improvements.
Ways to Improve Executive Functioning Skills
Executive functioning skills are learned, so there are strategies to help develop and improve them. Think back to your teenager who had you awake at midnight helping with his school project. With time and practice, those long and stressful nights can become fewer and far between.
Here are some methods you can use to help strengthen your child’s executive functioning skills:
Ask questions (lots of them!) to help your child self-evaluate: Where are your thoughts? Is that most important right now? What is most important right now? What’s the next step in your plan?
Model good time management: Before leaving to reach a destination, talk with your child about how long it will take to get there. Then, decide together on a time to leave, but talk through potential disruptions like traffic and build in extra time to account for them.
Plan the week together: Create a shared calendar and a set time each week to review it. Involve your child in the planning process instead of telling them where to go and when.
Hire an Executive Function Coach: Give your child individualized, one-on-one support for strengthening executive functioning skills.
Developing and polishing executive functioning skills is crucial for your child’s learning, development and success in life. Give your child the gift of investment in the most important skills for their learning. Even more, the process of learning such skills can and should be joyful.
