Executive Function Solutions for Kids (and other humans in progress)

Recent events have me less immersed in my immediate surroundings, but I try to keep my focus on how to be one of the helpers, at least in some way. Last weekend, I put my hair in a pony tail and cut it off with a pair of scissors. It measured 16 inches from top to bottom, and is on its way to Michigan to be made into a free wig. My hair is wavy enough that (I think) no one can tell my new haircut was a hack job. Photo at the end.

Executive function skills are all the mental processes around organizing, planning, and doing tasks. I believe that our abilities around executive function are a combination of nature and nurture. We may experience time, planning and remembering differently, but we can learn to work with our unique wiring, and sometimes improve, at least a little. As parents, we can help kids with sustained, low pressure approaches, and give them tools that foster self esteem and accountability.

This article is just a brief overview and cannot touch on all solutions for each individual’s unique executive reality, but I hope that it can introduce the idea of approaching common issues from a different direction, and inspire sensitivity and patience for those who struggle. When someone has the same struggle over and over again, frustration with them is the wrong response.

Time

To help kids develop an understanding of time, we can calmly mention it in our day more. Calmly, because stress changes the perception of time. There’s a difference between information and a countdown.

“In 5 minutes, we’ll go.” “Dinner will be ready in 20 minutes.” Ask questions like “what time will you take your shower?” This invites them to look at the clock, to plan a time, to notice it more.

I also like to ask something like “How will you remember to stop playing video games at that time and take your shower?”

The answer is usually: Set a timer. I purchased an old fashioned egg timer for this purpose. Sure, there’s an app on my phone, but the ticking makes time real, and lets the child be accountable. Of course, it also helps parents.

Planning

Assign one complex chore, beyond your child’s ability, to do with them. The objective is not to make them do it. We don’t want to associate complexity with stress and pressure. This is just as much your chore as theirs (if not more). When my son was 5, I added Clean Room to his chore list. I broke the jobs into steps that I wrote on an index card and pinned to his bulletin board.

(To help kids to learn how to plan, let them see you create the list. Narrate and write down as you break a complex tasks into steps on scrap paper. Ask yourself questions aloud like: What are the steps? Which should we do first?)

The steps were something like:

1. Dinosaurs in dinosaur bin
2. Legos in Lego bin
3. Plushies in basket
4. Clothes in hamper

Every Tuesday evening, we read these steps off the index card and completed them together. Together can mean in the same room, not that the child always participates. Eventually, my son was able to clean his room on his own and we graduated to a new complex together-chore: rat cage cleaning.

Remembering

I learned to remember by never truly relaxing. When I truly zone out or focus, the awareness of having relaxed hits me with alarm, because it is when I relax that I forget. I can’t recommend constant anxiety as a tool. A better method accepts how we operate.

I believe that the brain is not our best calendar or to do list. It’s better to move the things we need to remember to paper, and find ways to refer to it regularly.

With a list, kids really only need to remember one task: to look at the list. The list stores the details. To help kids remember to look, teach them to connect this to other daily events or triggers: When I get home from school, I look at my list. Before I play video games, I complete my tasks on the list. Tape lists to prominent, strategic places like the bathroom mirror, the door, or coffee table.

Motivation and Starting

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that helps motivate us to do things. Many neurodiverse diagnoses correlate with different dopamine functioning. This helps make sense of why some tasks feel easy and other, even simpler tasks seem hard. I utilize 2 approaches to help kids jumpstart daily tasks.

1. Built in rewards. Built in rewards are high motivation activities to be enjoyed only after low motivation things are done, like video games after chores, or staying up 10 minutes late if in bed by a certain time.
2. Do it together. I utilize this method, which I call Family Clean Time, for everyday after dinner clean up and weekly bathroom cleaning. After dinner, we all clean until it’s done, and for the bathroom, we each have our assigned task. None of us wants to clean the bathroom, but if we do it together we motivate each other and hold one another accountable. Bathroom Clean Time has been on our schedule at 3 pm Sunday for the past 7 years and counting. I wonder if my son will keep it up as an adult.

Another resource: The Sensory Child Gets Organized by professional organizer and mom Carolyn Dalgliesh.

I recently created an “egg timer” computer app to help me be intentional with the time I spend on the computer. Mac only for now.

Share with me if you try these approaches with your family.

Friday’s newsletter continues my How to be deaf essay with Part 2: Internalized Audism. This one should only be sent to paid subscribers this time. Free subscribers can read the free preview here.