In the past 3 posts in this series (see Parts 4, 5 & 6), we've defined 11 of the 12 core executive skills we all need to succeed in both our daily lives and our careers. As parents, we want our kids to acquire these foundational skills they will need for the future. What we can't control is whether they naturally have strong executive skills or which ones are stronger than others. However, we can impact how well our children understand the importance of these skills and how we help fos …
read more

One of the benefits of learning about executive function skills is acquiring a vocabulary for the types of skills you want to help your child improve. We're not labeling or shaming, but being able to both recognize strengths and categorize weaknesses is the first step toward improvement (see Part 5). We can demonstrate a growth mindset by talking to our kids about our own weaknesses and how we compensate and work on them. It might feel clumsy and awkward to you at first, especially if …
read more

In the previous post, we looked at 4 key executive skills: response inhibition, stress tolerance, emotional control, and flexibility. Hopefully you are starting to see more clearly how these executive skills impact a person's daily life, and you are gaining clarity about the importance of nurturing these skills intentionally in your child or children. Today we're going to investigate 4 more executive skills; this time we'll be looking at those that more clearly relate to academic succe …
read more

Executive skills have little to do with business executives; instead, these skills are ones that our kids need for daily life, regardless of the career paths they decide to pursue. Think of them as skills that allow a person to effectively "execute" or carry out tasks - both those tasks that they desire and those that are required of them. In part 2 of this series, we briefly listed the specific skills that fall into this category, but today we're going to look at some of them in a lit …
read more

In Part 2 of this series, we discussed what executive function skills are and why they're important. We also gave a breakdown of the 11 or 12 key executive skills and how they translate into success in school and beyond. As you begin to track your child's weaknesses and recognize specific functions that need improvement, you're probably noticing that you could use help in some of them too. While this might make it seem as if you're not the best person to help your child along, the oppo …
read more

From the overview of executive skills in Part 1, you're probably starting to see how important these skills will be for your children to succeed both in the classroom and in their future professions - and other areas of life! While the brain's frontal lobe won't be fully developed until they're in their mid-twenties, these skills can still be honed as well as accommodated, helping give our kids the crucial life skills they will need in the workforce and beyond. It's estimated that up t …
read more

Did you know that your child's success at school - and beyond - is influenced by more than their academic prowess? No matter how much information we throw at them, if they lack key executive function skills, all the wonderful teaching they're given may not seem to matter. In case the term "executive function" is new to you, we'll be defining and analyzing the 11 key executive function skills in this series; after we've laid that ground work, we'll consider some simple ways to encourage …
read more

When it comes to math and language arts, it can be helpful to think beyond your child's age and grade level and to do a little bit of assessing to see where he or she is so you can fill any gaps that may exist. Especially in this year of unsettledness and educational transitions for many of our children and teachers and schools, there may be more gaps than there would be in a more "normal" year. But either way, it's important to plug those holes before the new school year starts, or fr …
read more

While it's helpful to incorporate some designated times for book work and traditional school subjects, you really don't want to re-create a classroom environment at home for multiple reasons. In this year when at-home learning has become more normative, we all do well to learn from some parents who have been homeschooling on the regular. In what's being termed the "Imagination Age," out-of-the-box thinking is increasingly valued. And with increasingly mobile workplaces and blurred line …
read more

While math and language arts are the primary areas where the summer slide shows up, over time it's easy for kids - well, really, for all of us - to not remember things we've learned. The more pathways to the brain the better, though, so the more senses you employ, the more likely ideas are to stick. Whether you want to help solidify some of the concepts which your child learned about during school last year or simply want to expose him or her to topics that interest or intrigue you, yo …
read more