6 Executive Functioning Skills All Kids Need to Master to Be Confident, Independent Learners

As parents and educators, we all want our children to become confident, independent learners who can navigate their academic and personal lives with ease. One of the key components to achieving this goal is the development of strong executive functioning skills. These skills cover a broad range of abilities and are essential for success both in and out of the classroom.

Here are some executive functioning skills all kids need to master and tips on how to foster them:

1. Planning and Prioritization

Planning involves setting goals and determining the steps needed to achieve them, while prioritization involves deciding the order of tasks based on their importance and deadlines. These skills are crucial for managing schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and personal responsibilities.

Individuals with ADHD in particular have trouble with task prioritization because their brain doesn’t rank tasks and rewards in the same way as neurotypical brains. It’s really important to create systems for these students in particular to help them build this skill. 

How to Foster Planning and Prioritization:

• Set Goals Together: Work with your child to set short-term and long-term goals. Break these goals down into manageable steps that you can visibly check off as they’re completed.
• Create To-Do Lists: Encourage your child to make daily or weekly to-do lists, prioritizing tasks by importance and deadlines. Schedule in the things you know they’ll do anyway to help them learn to balance work and play in healthy ways.
• Use Visual Aids: Calendars, planners, and digital apps can help children visualize their tasks and manage their time effectively. The key is to use a system your kids will actually use, so experiment until you find the tools that work for your family.

2. Organization

Organization skills help children keep track of their materials, assignments, and schedules. An organized student can find what they need quickly and is less likely to lose important items or miss deadlines. As more and more of our kids’ materials and tasks move online, it’s also critical to help them develop good digital organization strategies. Messy backpacks aren’t as common, but messy Google Drives, lost assignments, or struggling to balance different teachers’ expectations certainly are.

How to Foster Organization:

• Designate a Study Space: Create a specific area for studying and homework that is free from distractions and equipped with necessary supplies so there’s nothing standing in their way of being able to do what needs to be done.
• Teach Filing Systems: Show your child how to use folders, binders, and digital tools to organize their school materials. Modeling these systems and helping them take ownership is key to finding what will work best for them.
• Regular Check-Ins: Periodically review your child’s organizational systems and offer guidance to keep them on track. Whether it’s a weekly backpack reset, laptop organization session, or filing party, turn on some music and work together to make sure everything is where it needs to be until they’re able to do it independently.

3. Time Management

Effective time management allows children to allocate their time wisely among various activities, ensuring that they complete their work on time while also making time for relaxation and hobbies.

How to Foster Time Management:

• Set a Routine: Establish a consistent daily routine that includes time for homework, chores, and leisure activities.
• Use Timers: Encourage the use of timers or alarms to help your child stay on task and manage their time.
• Teach Estimation: Help your child practice estimating how long different tasks will take and plan accordingly.

4. Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is the ability to control one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations. It’s crucial for managing stress, staying focused, and making thoughtful decisions.

How to Foster Self-Regulation:

• Model Calm Behavior: Demonstrate how to handle stress and frustration calmly and constructively.
• Teach Coping Strategies: Introduce techniques such as deep breathing, mindfulness, and positive self-talk for the times when stress becomes overwhelming.
• Encourage Reflection: Help your child reflect on their behavior and emotions, and discuss ways to handle similar situations in the future. The key is to do this once the stressful moments have passed so that they can approach it with a calm mind.
• Teach Resilience: Lots of times, emotional dysregulation stems from a fear of failure or a desire for perfection. Help your kids realize that failure is part of growth, and that resilience means bouncing back and trying again. 

5. Flexibility

Flexibility involves adapting to new situations, changes, and challenges. This skill is important for problem-solving and coping with unexpected events. Cognitive flexibility is a major challenge for lots of kids, but there are things you can do to help them be better prepared for when plans change.

How to Foster Flexibility:

• Practice Problem-Solving: Engage in activities that require creative thinking and problem-solving. Playing games is a great way to do this in a low-pressure setting. Here are a few of our favorites that engage critical thinking skills >>
• Role-Play Scenarios: Act out different scenarios that require adaptability and discuss possible solutions. Especially for more rigid thinkers or younger kids, talk through several different scenarios or possibilities of what could happen and what appropriate responses would be.
• Encourage Open-Mindedness: Foster an environment where new ideas and perspectives are welcomed and valued. Help your kids see that not all issues are black and white.
• Don’t Take Their First Answer: When you ask your child how they’re going to get something done, don’t take their first response. Instead, say something like “what are 2 other ways you could do that?” This gets them in the habit of flexibility and seeing that there are multiple ways to do certain things (and they are all valid).

6. Task Initiation

Finally, task initiation is the ability to avoid procrastination and actually get started on the task at hand. For many kids, this is the hardest part of getting homework or projects completed. There are lots of reasons why they may struggle to get started, but you can also help foster this skill in a variety of ways.

How to Help Kids Avoid Procrastination:

• Don’t Nag, but Agree on a Code Word: Instead of peppering your child with reminders to do their homework, have a simple code word that you agree on that is their gentle nudge that it’s time to get started. Something like “time check” can help them see that they’re running out of time to get everything done without it feeling like you’re riding their back the whole time.
• Make It Routine: If there’s a task your child really struggles to get started on (like math homework or writing a paper), create a routine around that task to make it more enjoyable. Maybe they get an M&M for every math problem they complete, or 5 minutes of screen time for every paragraph they write. Building in incentives can help them be more willing to try.
• Plan for Breaks: Lots of times kids struggle to get started because it feels like this bottomless void: once they start, they’ll never be able to stop. Have clear endpoints or breaks built in so it feels more manageable.

Building Executive Functioning Skills: How LearningRx Charlottesville Can Help

At LearningRx Charlottesville, our brain training programs are designed to enhance executive functioning skills through targeted exercises and activities. Our personalized approach ensures that each child receives the support they need to develop these crucial skills, boosting their confidence and independence as learners.

We’re not tutors or a homework help center. Instead, what we do is dig deeper: which cognitive skills are making these higher-level executive functioning skills so hard for each student? Once we know where that disconnect is, we can create a plan to build their cognitive strength and confidence that bleeds over into so many other areas of life. 

The fact is that you can’t “system” your way to strong cognitive processing. Ultimately these are helpful tools, but they often compensate for weak skills. While this is helpful in the short-term, long-term change comes from building up those underlying cognitive skills that you use for problem-solving, memory, attention, and more.