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Raising a child impacted by trauma, neurodiversity, or prenatal exposure can be much like any other parenting experience. You face the typical joys, like sweaty hugs, silly mispronunciations, and imaginary friends. You also deal with the everyday frustrations of messy rooms, missed homework assignments, and sibling rivalries. However, when your child is coping with the impacts of trauma, ADHD, autism, or prenatal substance exposure, these frustrations can be magnified and overwhelming. Many of these challenges come back to delayed executive function skills.
What are Executive Functions?
Broadly, executive functions are the skills our brains rely on to organize, plan, and carry out tasks. The most common metaphor we usually hear when describing executive function is that of the conductor of an orchestra. This word picture resonates with me as a mom to several gifted musicians.
Picture the conductor of your child’s school band. They stand in the center of the stage, white baton in hand. During a tune-up, the noises are discordant, off-rhythm, and quite stressful for the listener. However, beautiful music pours forth when the conductor signals the band to attention and cues the band to begin on his count. (Yes, in many cases, “beauty” is in the ear of the beholders, especially the elementary band parents.)
The conductor keeps the band on tempo, signaling the sections when to play, when to stop, and how loudly or quietly to play. He leads practices of this piece, sometimes hundreds of times, before performing it for a crowd. They help the musicians learn their parts by breaking down the music stanza-by-stanza. She runs rehearsals in small groups and corporately. They assign individual practice before playing as a group. One beautiful 4-minute piece of music might have hundreds of hours of planning and practice behind it – all initiated and inspired by the conductor.
Executive function is the conductor of your child’s brain, pulling all the individual parts together to complete the tasks of daily life. Executive function supports your child’s brain to manage and complete daily tasks and routines. These skills include:
1. Self-Awareness
This is the skill of taking and maintaining control over what your child pays attention to. It’s like the thought bubbles in cartoons, where the character observes and comments on his behavior.
2. Emotional Intelligence
How does your child use feeling words or images (with their self-awareness skills) to manage their feelings about issues, tasks, or experiences?
3. Self-Restraint
To manage tasks, your child must hold themselves back from certain behaviors (yelling, interrupting, impulsivity, etc.). Think of it as the conductor reminding the brass section that they cannot play during the flute solo.
4. Non-Verbal Working Memory
Working memory is keeping things in their minds to guide their behavior. To return to the conductor metaphor, think about how the conductor can pull the woodwinds into the next movement with one baton wave because they’ve practiced this section of music so many times. They remember the non-verbal prompt.
5. Verbal Working Memory
This is when the conductor’s repeated reminders to “play softly in this section” echo in the instrumentalists’ minds. Retaining that internal language to guide behavior is a skill your child needs to manage tasks.
6. Self-Motivation
Your child needs self-motivation to keep progressing to task completion, even with no direct external consequence. Please don’t confuse this type of self-motivation with the adult behavior of being a driven, self-starter personality. Instead, consider the role of the conductor again. His self-motivation keeps the orchestra moving beyond the first page of music to perform the entire piece for the audience’s listening pleasure.
7. Planning and Problem Solving
Finding new approaches and solutions to dilemmas, puzzles, and tasks they must accomplish requires that your child learn how to think creatively about solutions. They must plan how to implement that solution. Are they willing to reconsider their plan? Can they be flexible when the plan doesn’t work as hoped?
Why Do Executive Function Skills Matter?
Every day, your child must perform tasks and routines that range from simple and rote to complicated and intricate. Building their executive function skills equips them to tackle the range of responsibilities they face at school, band rehearsal, soccer practice, and home so they can successfully navigate their day. Developing executive function skills – in age-appropriate and ability-targeted ways – prepares them for the increasing demands they face as they near adulthood.
However, it’s critical to remember that most of these skills are not conscious thoughts or progressive steps your kids follow when facing a task in their day. Typically, they are lightning-speed, unconscious responses in their brain. But when these skills are delayed or lacking, your child might act out or have a frustrating meltdown. They are not likely to be able to say that it’s because their self-motivation is stuck or that they lost self-awareness in their state of heightened stress.
The Benefits of Building Executive Function Skills
Your child will see several benefits when you scaffold them to develop executive function skills. This list is not exhaustive by any means!
- Increased self-regulation, resilience, and confidence
- Improved stress management
- Positive behavior management and decision-making skills
- Ability to navigate relationships with peers, partners, and co-workers
- Healthy development of independence
- Increased curiosity and creativity
How Can Parents Scaffold Executive Function Skill-Building?
We are glad you asked! Many practical, easy-to-implement tips are available to help you target your child’s executive skill functions and boost them no matter how delayed they may be. We’ve put together this list of ideas and linked to sources where you can get more ideas for your parenting toolbox.
1. Create and maintain a routine consistently in your home.
Established routines help your child predict what comes next, organize their thoughts around it, and practice how to do it. Following these routines comes easily for some kids. However, those impacted by prenatal substance exposure or neurodiversity usually struggle without external structure in place.
2. Create a growth mindset at home.
Teaching your kids that mistakes are normal and come from challenging themselves develops an attitude of “let’s try this again.” When your child feels safe to try new things or things that have previously failed, they build the resilience and confidence they need to face other challenges. A growth mindset that normalizes mistakes as part of life prevents them from developing an identity based on accomplishments or outcomes. Be patient with your child and yourself – if you’ve got a kid who struggles with perfectionism or fear of failure, they will need extra nurture and reassurance.
3. Set clear and simple expectations.
Your child needs you to spell out your family’s values and priorities. Clearly state what you expect from your children, like “We will be kind.” Or “We will try our best.” Keep them realistic, consistent, and straightforward. Then, repeat them often when your child bumps against an obstacle or melts down in tantrum mode (as opposed to long lectures about how we don’t do this or that). Doing this brings the boundaries to the front of their mind. It triggers their brain to re-organize their thoughts and plan another approach to a dilemma.
4. Be a good example.
You are not perfect, nor should you expect yourself to be. Remember, your goal is not perfection; you seek growth. When you expect and model growth in yourself, it’s easier for your kids to expect the same from themselves. Being a role model for your kids is an intentional choice to make your words match your actions.
For example, if you make a mistake in the family calendar and double-book your son’s hockey game and your daughter’s drum lesson, own it and apologize for it. If possible, model how to fix it, too. As a result, you are modeling self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and self-motivation. The bonus is that you can triple-layer the messaging to your child’s inner conductor and help them make their beautiful music!
5. Make projects or tasks “do-able.”
Your child will feel successful and confident when they taste accomplishment. So give them opportunities to shine:
- Find their niche and encourage them to dig into it. Sports, music, theater, community service, and hobbies are all excellent avenues to help your child find what helps them experience success.
- Break down big tasks into smaller chunks. Give them visual cues (like a checklist or rewards chart) of their accomplishments. This display will remind them of their capabilities and likely spur them on to further accomplishment.
- Make them part of the team. Every family needs to do basic tasks to keep their home running smoothly. Find responsibilities that your child can do well and require them to bring their skills to the family’s success.
- Focus on their strengths. When you find an area where your child shines, look for other places where that skill can translate to more success. For instance, if your child is the family dog’s favorite snuggle buddy, consider bringing that child to the local shelter once a month to snuggle lonely dogs waiting for adoption.
Using The Teachable Moments
Almost endless opportunities exist to scaffold your child’s developing executive function skills. While looking for teachable moments, remember to prioritize connection and focus on building your child’s confidence, joy, and pride in themselves. Their executive function skills benefit from repetition, routine, and feeling successful as they learn.
Download FREE Guide to Understanding Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol & DrugsThis post was originally published by Creating A Family on March 14, 2024. View the original post here.