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Executive Function
Build Your Child's Executive Functioning Skills
What are these skills, and how do we help our children build them?
Posted September 29, 2023 Reviewed by Davia Sills
Key points
- Executive functioning skills include time management, organization, and prioritization.
- These skills are needed to function successfully as students as children enter middle school and up.
- These skills can be developed and maintained over time.
As parents, we want to give our children the tools they need so they can be successful. Unfortunately, when our children enter late elementary or middle school, there isn't a class to teach them how to organize their materials and plan ahead for their assignments, projects, and tests.
When my son and daughter started middle school, they were overwhelmed with how many responsibilities their teachers now expected them to juggle. They weren’t prepared to handle the demands of each class with a different teacher, a locker, so many notebooks to carry, and the weekly array of quizzes, tests, journals, and so on. Throw in a pandemic, and the result is that many kids lost out on building these skills during a critical time.
For children and teens with ADHD, it’s OK if parents need to coach and mentor with a more hands-on approach. Many parents even continue to coach their young adult children while in college, and that’s OK. Keep in mind that each child’s journey is going to be unique. The goal is to make progress without the pressure (on you and your child) to achieve a certain goal by a specific age. That will only serve to frustrate the both of you.
Add Color
Children with ADHD tend to have a visual-spatial learning style. What does this mean?
At a very basic level, this means that they tend to think in images rather than words. They are more likely to understand concepts based on how they work and come together dynamically in practice, instead of based on the words in a textbook.
But because words are unavoidable in school (and in life), color-coding notebooks and materials by subject can be a great way to organize materials. When working with students, I ask them to identify the color they associate with each of their subjects. For example, math is red, Spanish is blue, and so on. Any and all materials related to that subject should be that color—down to the spiral notebook, folder, binder, and pencil case holder.
Why is this helpful? When your child is looking in their locker, backpack, or around their bedroom for their math notebook, they are not looking for the letters “M-A-T-H.” Instead, they are looking for the color red. Instead of forcing a visual-spatial learner to direct their attention to the words, allowing them to process things by color is more closely aligned with their natural proclivity.
Project and Plan Ahead
Planning ahead is not an easy task when you are living in the moment. Many kids with ADHD and related challenges want to prepare for their upcoming test right before it’s time to take it. They want to get an assignment started and finished all at once. Yet we know that as children get older, time management and planning ahead become increasingly essential as their assignments become more complex.
Keep it visual by placing a whiteboard calendar in your child’s room. Once your subjects are color-coded, write the upcoming test, quiz, paper, or project in that color on the whiteboard.
Don’t like a whiteboard? No problem. Try an old-school desk calendar (a large one). You can set it up on the wall or place it on a desk and use it in the same way. Color-code subjects as well as extracurricular activities and social plans. When your child is looking at the week ahead, they will be able to process in terms of color and associated subjects.
Break It Down
Most adults know that studying for long periods of time does not guarantee that someone will remember the information. In fact, sitting for any extended period of time almost ensures that children are going to be frustrated and learn close to nothing.
For myself, as an adult, and for my own children, I like breaking it down. That is, for a homework assignment, create smaller assignments and get each chunk done. For example, if there are 30 math problems to complete, set a timer for 10-15 minutes and work on 10 problems at a time.
If your child is studying for a test, break down the content into sub-topics and review a chunk of information each night over multiple nights. This will further provide repetition and improve consolidation of this information, making it more likely for it to be transferred into long-term memory.
Let’s say that your child has a test on Friday. Ask your child to assess how many days of studying will be needed, given the number of sub-topics on the upcoming test or quiz. If they say two days, write “Math – Study” on the Wednesday and Thursday before the Friday test using a red marker. Not only is the amount of information smaller, but the amount of time spent studying is also shorter.
Building executive functioning skills is a necessity for managing life as a middle school, high school, or college student. The amount of responsibilities continues to grow, and our ability to hold that information in our memory will no longer work for us. This is when our strategies and techniques come into play and help us build the skill to get things done without too much distress or worry.
