Executive Function Skills- How to Help Your Child-Teen

 Read some excellent books on the topic on how to improve your child's emotional regulation, focus, self confidence and overall life skills and made some notes. I have also added my personal touches. Hope it helps!

The book I reference from and do recommend: Executive Functioning Skills For Teens By: Gail A. McHugh

Executive functioning skills

Some children and adolescents may have difficulties with executive functioning skills, which can sometimes lead to frustration for caregivers. It is important to understand that these behaviors are part of the challenges they face. The brain manages most skills and includes the stress a child experiences due to adverse environmental conditions. These skills require practice and instruction from an early age and should be incorporated into daily routines. Research shows that other skills such as teaching, language, social, and math skills are all interconnected for child's overall development.

The four main components of executive functioning skills are:

·       Making decisions or choices

·       Planning, ahead to achieve goals.

·       Performing actions that help to stay on track and achieve your goals.

·       Performing the required task as effectively as possible

The executive functioning skill inhibitory control, is useful on how they can stay focused and perform task at hand, or do they get distracted and overwhelmed? Such as how they manage interferences in their lives and how well they can get back to focus.

The executive functioning skill of working memory is necessary for decision-making and considering multiple factors. Here the memory puts information together that is related to other things, such as associations or making decisions.

The executive functioning skill cognitive flexibility or shifting is important when we need to consider multiple perspectives at once. Are they able to prioritize perspectives and base an outcome on information provided. Are they able to visualize different scenarios at the same time based on those outcomes. This skill works best when you have strong in an inhibitory control and working memory, which executive functioning skills can also be interdependent on each other.

Other executive functioning skills are planning, organization, task initiation, prioritization, time management, flexible thinking, self-control, and self monitoring.

Some symptoms of Executive Dysfunction

·       Difficulty in solving problems.

·       Getting overwhelmed when presented with added information and difficulty in retaining and processing that information to make well balanced decisions.

·       Struggling with maintaining focus and attention to a task at hand having,

·       Difficulty listening to instructions or following through on instructions.

·       Being unable to learn from past mistakes and being stuck in a cycle of poor choices and consequences

·       Being unable to identify their own destructive patterns of behavior

·       Having trouble with task initiation, planning, organization, and completion

·       Having trouble with managing different tasks and attributes

·       Presenting destructive /aggressive behavior

Consequences of these difficulty of skills can lead to poor academic or work performance, little to no motivation, loss of interest, low self worth, self esteem and self-confidence. You can also see mood fluctuations in your child and avoiding challenging tasks.

What are some things we can do to help?

·       Breaking huge goals into smaller more manageable tasks

·       Using lists planners to help with scheduling and time management

·       Using apps digital devices and calendars to set reminders and track progress

·       Apps have come a long way; you can find apps to help with organizing tasks and daily schedules and there are apps that can help children with note taking in the classrooms.

·       Games are another way to help children learn executive functioning skills.

·       Some games are chess, brain teasers that help work in developing memory and problem-solving skills.

·       Pictionary is another fun game that can help with cognitive flexibility.

·       Any games that include a distraction and at the same time they need to answer questions.

·       Scrabble is a good word game to assess their verbal ability skills and the importance of organizing and involves a planning period.

·       5 Second Rule: A fun game that improves kids' time management, flexibility, and organizational skills.

·       Freeze is a game when the children are to dance and when the music turns off, they must freeze you can also add in a distraction when they are frozen.

·       Django is an important game to help with planning flexibility and self-control skills.

·       Sudoku puzzle game that takes time and patience and teaches critical thinking skills.

·       Other ways to help your child is to use agendas calendars and trying to stick to it and providing structured brakes.

·       Helping students cope with stress by introducing times for mindfulness meditation and breathing exercises.

·       Exploring tools that may work and do not work for them and playing games and activities that help them develop executive functioning skills in a fun and engaging way.

Strategies to improve task initiation skills.

·       Reducing distractions, such as is the room too cluttered, helping them to keep it organized with labeled bins etc. Always check to see if there are too many things are going on at the same time; is the radio on and the TV and an Internet show in the background and music playing and dinner being prepared.

·       It is advisable to seek a quiet environment with minimal distractions to maintain mental clarity. The significance of a calm mind should not be underestimated.

·       Use calming techniques to help calm the mind like square breathing, three cycle breathing 4. 7..8, settle jar which is a snow globe and as the snow settles so do you.

·       Lazy 8 breathing; draw a picture of #8 lying down on its side trace the lazy with the finger as you slowly breathe in and out visualizing the breath following the lazy age shape.

·       Always break tasks down into smaller tasks do not overestimate what you can accomplish in an hour or two.

Planning

·       Knowing your end goal-what are you planning for

·       Identifying the next step-what are the steps, like creating a road map.

·       Creating a Plan B or contingency plan just in case something does not work out.

·       Identifying small goals and the big picture -How to get to the goal and what steps you need to take is an important part of the plan and sometimes what we need to give up if it does not go our way.

·       Using checklists-can help create sequence of activities that need to be done in priority sequence.

·       Using calendars-this will help to schedule things to anticipate and to know the deadlines and can be an excellent visual technique.

·       Setting reminders using different techniques, apps, message to help us with reminders, using methods that work well for your child.

·       Try visualization techniques, tables, diagrams, visual aids, and schedules to help chart out the plan.

·       Plan small and manageable steps with your child.

·        Personalize calendars, checklists, and organizers have fun and create colourful ways by adding neon sticky notes and highlighters.

·       Playing board games or sports, and cooking or baking as a family helps with helps with preparation and planning skills.

·       Always help your teen realize their strengths and limitations but always help them to see how they can strategize on the skills that they are good at such as creating systems that work for them could be visual tools, could be watching videos, could be auditorial learners, recording things etc.

·       Do not let your child think that they must plan perfectly, excellence or accomplishments does not require perfection.

organizing prioritizing and staying focused

organization skills

·       Use their planner along with the calendar and plan out their weeks or days in advance.

·       Start using timers for different tasks helping them to understand how long they spend on certain activities.

·       Getting creative by using office supplies, bins to organize different files for different purposes

·       Help create a map or image of the room of their locker at school and bag so they can have a ready reference whenever they need it, another idea can be to organize their sock drawer versus a bin for T-shirts etc.

·       Maintain a clutter-free and minimalist environment as much as possible.

Techniques

·       Pomodoro technique -breaking work into more manageable chunks. Set a timer for 25 minutes do the tasks with complete focus, after 25 minutes you take a 5–10-minute break then go back to another 20 to 25 minutes of focus and then back to a 5–10-minute break.

·       The ABC method-this helps children to improve their focus by training their brain to get back to the task at hand when they're off in distraction, A become Aware, B Breathe deeply and C Choice(do they need more time on the distraction or get back to task).

Sharpening or working memory skills and using techniques helps to build and practice range of skills that they can use for long term gain.

·       Knowing how your teen learns and what works best for them and their learning style such as visual learners, learning more by doing things, etc.

·       Encourage your child to take notes. When we write things down our brain processes the information in a much better way. It bonds to our memory quicker.

·       Use different games such as using the alphabet from A-Z to name animals for instance one person starts A is for Ape, the next person has to remember A is for Ape and then say B is for Bear next person must remember AB and then add C is for Camel etc., this can be done this with countries fruits and vegetables etc.

·       Create routines and rituals such as a distinct place where all the keys go etc.

·       Help them to do one thing at a time never have three to four things going at once such as television on when doing homework playing video games and having dinner at the same time this causes way too much chaos and stress.

·       Associations, creating connections and stories, some games you can play to help with short term memory are you say a word and ask the other person to say the first word that comes to their mind this is not to think too deeply but helping to understand some connections that exist between some words for us all.

·       Creating stories could be you start off by saying... Once Upon a time there was a girl her name was Susie, and she just moved into a new neighborhood and then you ask a child to continue the story, and you keep going back and forth like this and you can even draw the story.

·       Using mnemonic (prompts) devices or special techniques that help us to recall information easier. Visualization can be a mnemonic device guided visual meditation could help or things like acronyms to remember something or retain information.

·       Physical exercise always helps to improve our brain function and working memory especially when done outdoors 20-minute walk (set a routine daily after dinner) or immersing yourself in nature etc.

·       Teaching her child mindfulness techniques and learning how to be in the present moment, spend time doing nothing (like sitting under a tree) helping children learn that being “bored” is not a bad thing.

Emotional Regulation

·       Self monitoring is good for you and your child to learn how to check in on themselves. This takes a little bit of scaffolding when your child has difficulty initiating tasks you might need to take down or note how many times did the exhibit that behavior and what was the subject, is it to difficult for them, what time of day it is etc.

·       Helping your teen or child to identify their triggers can usually help to discover any patterns. Such questions as what do they have the most difficulty in exercising self-control? Showing your child how you both use emotional regulation tools to calm down like stopping and having to walk away from something and redirection or taking a few breaths together or repeating affirmations like I am calm I am ok, I am safe, or I have done this before and I am capable of doing this again.

·       Show them ways to remove themselves from triggering situations. For example if they're becoming extremely angry you can ask them to leave the room and come back when they have cooled down you can leave the room yourself you can both engage in breathing exercises that will help you to stay calm before you talk again Or help them to visualize a stop sign every time they do feel triggered etc.

·       If you find that your child has impulsivity, and they are in a habit of running off to play a video game or be with their friends you can ask them first to help you finish a small chore satisfactorily before they continue with the next action.

·       Always talk about and celebrate how and when your child is staying calm and doing well completing tasks.

·       Emotional regulation and flexible thinking are two skills that children need to learn to be able to lead successful lives.

·       Learning resiliency through tough times and being able to cope with multiple demands and helping them to be more focused on alternatives will help create strong executive function skills.

·       Being able to start tasks maintain the momentum and finish those tasks on time even when we are feeling anxious or paralyzed by the situation or the future.

·       Being able to identify their own emotions even when they feel mixed up can help to resolve any emotional issues.

·       Being able to identify or mentalize someone else’s emotions can be as equally an important trait, helping your child to identify their own emotions easily, and not becoming good at hiding them.

·       Being able to self soothe even when they do not want to confide in you or someone else, they still can take care of themselves in the situation for instance using words of kindness and compassion towards themselves and others who do not feel well too.

·       Being able to manage positive emotions is also important in emotional regulation. Making decisions under the influence of any extreme emotion is not good for over all health and well-being learning to moderate in our emotions leads to discretion in our decisions.

·       Delay gratification. Try not to feed into everything your child wants immediately therefore they will not have any patience when things they need to do take time building resilience, helps them to back from demanding situations instead of believing that everything has an immediate resolution to their problems.

·       Peer pressure- helping your child to become an emotionally stable person will help them to base their self worth on what they think of them selves and not what others think of them.

·       Helping them to not compromise their beliefs and principles to gain approval of others this is very difficult especially in the teen years

·       Awkward situations- when your child starts becoming a team there's immense hormonal and physical changes. When your teen can become comfortable with awkward situations, they will develop a stronger self-image.

·       Vulnerability -teens have a problem with having everything inside them be on displayed. They might try to ignore situations or people and run away from their feelings they might try to isolate or block any communication that would make them feel vulnerable.

·       Accepting your child quirks, stims, emotional roller coasters and giving them the space to express themselves will help with healthy emotional regulation at this part of their lives.

NEVER STOP ASKING “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”

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Rosetta Racco RP