Developing Executive Skills at Home
By Dawn Matera
Founder & Executive Director of A Way to Learn
What is Executive Function? The cognitive process that regulates an individual's ability to organize thoughts and activities, prioritize tasks, manage time efficiently, and make decisions. Impairment of executive function is seen in a range of disorders, including some pervasive developmental disorders and nonverbal learning disabilities. Students who struggle with executive function disorders have difficulty planning, executing, managing, and self regulating both cognitive and social behaviors.
What you can do at home to help your child build executive function skills?
Remember that our kids have developed many “bad habits” and coping mechanisms for dealing with poor executive skills. Some kids and teens use avoidance and passive behaviors to deal with their lack of executive ability, whereas others act out, complain, or send up other “smoke screens” to divert attention from the executive task at hand. Whatever your child’s defense mechanisms are, it is important to realize that they are not simply lazy, nor do they want to fail. They just don’t know where or how to start. Keep in mind that developing new skills takes time and starting with small steps and celebrating the smallest of accomplishments is where you need to start. I explain to my students that I wouldn’t be able to run a marathon without training for it! And since I am not a runner at all, and avoid exercise at all costs, I may need to start with just a jog to the mailbox!! Building executive skills is like training for a marathon. It takes commitment, hard work, feeling uncomfortable, and pushing yourself to reach your goal. Although I work with students to build their executive function skills through their academic curriculum, there are things you can do at home to help your child or teen develop strong executive skills since these skills are not only about academics and classroom management, but managing both simple and complex aspects of their own life.
- How doing chores builds executive skills!
Begin encouraging age appropriate independence. Can your child make their own lunch, wake up at the sound of their own alarm, feed the dog at the same time every day? Whatever their age, choose one or two “executive building” tasks that they can carry out. You may need to provide reminders, lists, or checklists but slowly remove the prompts when your child can provide their own reminder and are on the road to self-monitoring (write their own sticky note, set their own alarm). Start small, and add more independent tasks when they feel successful. The work you put in will be celebrated when you realize your child is less dependent and feeling good about themselves! Laundry was my favorite executive task I taught my own children!! It was a truly ugly process that took a LONG time and a lot of hard work. I was told by my boys that I was a terrible and neglectful mother, and that they would happily just wear dirty clothes. And, at first they did. I replied with my favorite parenting and teacher response, “I’m sorry you feel that way”. Thinking back, I am certain it would have been far easier to train for that marathon, but today as teenagers, they are each responsible for their laundry. Success for all. Especially Mom!
- Timing is everything!
Do you have a child who can’t seem to get ready on time for anything? Do they often underestimate the time it will take to get dressed, complete a homework task, or write a research paper? Children and teens with executive function difficulties often struggle with time. It may seem as if they have no internal clock and their report card may say “Does not manage time wisely”. Use timers and clocks at home to help your children begin to self-monitor. Rather than telling them “Making your bed and cleaning your room should take you 20 minutes, so I am going to set the timer!”, better to pose the question, “How long do you think it will take you to make your bed clean your room?”. Let them set their own timer, using their phone, or their i-touch and see how close they were to their estimate. Granted some kids will play the race against the clock game and sacrifice quality for speed. That’s ok, as it is the beginning of a true understanding of time versus quality. You can improve quality as your work toward the goal of cleaning their room. For the most reluctant “cleaners” you may need to break down the task to picking up 5 toys and 5 pieces of laundry. Ready, set, go………… The true lesson here is allowing your child to start to self-monitor their time and be aware of what “ten minutes” really feels like when they are doing a chore, doing a math worksheet, or watching tv. Ten minutes can feel very different depending on your setting. Ten minutes at the beach, alone and reading a book is drastically different than ten minutes scrubbing the kitchen floor. Making our kids aware of this is helping them develop a strong sense of self-awareness and time management.
- Make every opportunity a learning opportunity!
When kids are small we take the time to point out letters on signs, sounds animals make and play rhyming games to develop those important pre-reading skills. Let’s take the next step and develop executive skills in our children and teens. The grocery store is a perfect example of why you need strong executive skills. You need a list, a plan, an idea of how much money you have to spend, not to mention the skills you need to navigate each isle. Younger children can make the list as you plan. Can they organize the list so that frozen foods are listed separately from fruits and vegetables? Older kids can be responsible for budget planning or sorting and putting groceries away. Any opportunities to model, discuss, and deliberately teach the steps it takes to complete a task, the better. Next time you plan a movie outing, have your child locate the movie times, research the ticket costs, and ask them what time they think you should be ready to leave the house to get there on time. Older children will even be able to estimate travel time. The more we ask our children to recognize time, consider all the steps involved in a task, and invest themselves in management and planning, the more we help them develop their own executive skills.
