Tips and Tricks To Help With Task Initiation

Imagine this: a high school student has an essay due in one month. They know they have the whole month to finish it so they focus on other assignments that are due sooner. One week from the due date, the teacher reminds the class about the essay due at the end of the month, yet now that student also has two tests, two quizzes, a busy extra-curricular schedule and one more project all due at the same time. Suddenly, the once small task that they had plenty of time for, they now have zero time for. This is an example of where task initiation skills would have come in handy. Task initiation, the opposite of procrastination, can be one of the hardest executive functioning skills to improve. Let’s dive into some strategies and tips to help strengthen this vital skill that is needed not only during school years, but into adulthood as well. 

Have a discussion with your child about obstacles that they feel inhibit them from starting their work. Make a list of these obstacles on one side of a paper, and then work together to come up with specific strategies on the other side of the paper of how to perhaps overcome these obstacles. For example, a common obstacle for starting a task might be “This assignment is going to take way too long, and I don’t have time to start on it tonight.” A solution may be to break down the assignment into smaller pieces, i.e. picking two of the fifteen total math problems, or writing just the introduction paragraph of the essay. Have this chart of obstacles and solutions easily accessible so your student can pull it out whenever needed. 

For particularly hard-to-start tasks, consider rewards. For example, if there is an assignment that your child has been avoiding all week long, perhaps they can earn a small reward (like their favorite smoothie or a special dessert) if they get started and make significant progress on that work. It will be helpful to specify exactly how much of the assignment they need to complete to earn the reward. 

Try using a timer to help with short bursts of work. Set a timer for twenty minutes and tell your child they are going to work on this assignment for twenty minutes only today and then take a break and move onto something else. Sometimes, having a set time to work on it can make the task seem less overwhelming. 

Set up a prepared environment for homework time. Make sure that your child has a clutter and distraction free place to get their homework done each day. Consider if they may need reduced access to their phone or the internet during their set homework time. Having a calm and organized environment with minimal distractions can help with task initiation. 

Provide extra support at the beginning of hard tasks. It can be helpful to sit with your child as they begin a task or assignment that they have been putting off. Tell them that you are going to get some of your work done while they start to get their work done. This may be enough to give them the structured push they need to get going on their work. 

Written by: Laine J

Metacognition: Reflecting Upon First Semester and Setting Goals and Rewards for the Second

The start of a new year is an excellent time to both do some self-reflection on the past semester and look ahead at the upcoming semester. One of the key executive functioning skills, metacognition, is essential in doing both of those things. Metacognition, in its most basic definition, is the act of thinking about thinking. Sounds simple, but in reality it is one of the hardest skills to strengthen because we often just don’t take the time to sit down and think about what went wrong and what went right and why. However, if we can improve this self-regulatory process we can begin to strengthen all of our other executive skills because they all work interdependently. So, let’s take a look at what it means to reflect on the past semester and set goals and rewards for the second semester!

Helpful strategies when reflecting on the previous semester: 

• Be Specific: When we begin to “reflect” on the past semester, it is important to be as specific as possible. Hopefully, you had some goals previously set that were measurable. For example, your child’s goal might have been “turning in all homework assignments on time with no more than one missed assignment per week.” Now is the time to go in and see if this goal was met and how often it was met. If possible, giving a percentage here is helpful (i.e. this goal was met 80 percent of the time).

• Open Discussion: After looking as specifically as possible at previous goals or grades from the last semester, spend some time discussing what went wrong and what went right. It can be helpful to do this for each class individually, especially if there are one or two classes that goals were or were not met in. For a class where goals were met, ask questions like, “What were some things you felt helped you the most to stay on track in this class,” or “What do you feel you did really well in this class?” For classes where goals were not met, it may be helpful to ask questions like, “Can you tell me what the hardest aspects of this class are,” or “What are some things that you felt you struggled with in this class?” Jot these things down and spend some time discussing strategies to adjust or improve in each area!

• Future Planning: Once we have identified the successes and areas for improvement from the past semester, we can better plan realistic goals and rewards for the semester ahead.

Setting New Goals and Rewards

• Setting New Goals: January is naturally a great time to look ahead at the remainder of this school year and either make new goals or adjust previously set ones. Let’s say in the previous semester your child had a goal of turning in all homework assignments on time with no more than 2 missed assignments per month and they did this 90 plus percent of the time. Now may be a good time to adjust this goal to “completing all homework assignments on time with only 1 or no missed assignments per month”. If a goal is consistently being met (85 percent or more of the time) it would be good to either adjust it to strengthen it more, or possibly look to see if there’s another area that could be worked on instead.

• Defining Rewards: Rewards can be extremely beneficial in all scenarios but especially if many of the goals from the previous semester haven’t been met. Let’s go back to the goal of completing all homework assignments per month with two or fewer missed. If this goal was only being met 50 percent of the time, now may be a good time to add a reward in for reaching this goal. It is good to offer a mix of smaller attainable rewards and then possibly a larger reward. In the scenario of turning all homework assignments in on time, there could be a weekly, or even daily, small reward for turning work in and a larger reward to look forward to if the month-long goal is met. It’s great to discuss with your child what rewards are most interesting or exciting to them and work together to come up with an incentive plan as the new semester begins!

Written by: Laine J.

Self Regulation and Emotional Control: 5 Tips and Tools to Use at Any Age when Stress Gets High

We’ve all been there… the work has piled up, there isn’t enough time to complete everything and anything that can go wrong does. Yes, life can be full of stressful situations no matter who you are or what age! A key life skill is our ability to handle our emotions and self-regulate even at times where it may seem impossible. Self- regulation and emotional control are skills that most of us are, in fact, still developing each and every day. Similarly to how we strengthen our bodies at the gym, we must also practice our tools to de-stress and self-regulate on a regular basis. Below are five tools and tips to help improve these vital executive functioning skills at any age. 

1. Mindfulness and Breathing Exercises: Mindfulness and breathing exercises can be some of the most beneficial tools to work on our emotional control and handle all that life throws at us. The key is to practice them on a daily basis, not just when things get hard. Think of it this way, a professional athlete spends an enormous amount of time training for the big day, they don’t just show up at the game and expect to be good. Our minds work the same way. For younger children, the ‘take five’ breathing exercise is a great strategy for calming down. Have your child hold up their hand and trace each finger breathing in as they go up the finger and out as they go down. For older kids and adults, the 4-7-8 is an excellent breathing exercise to use daily. Breathe in through your nose for a count of four, hold at the top for 7 seconds and breathe out for a count of 8. Repeat this four times. By making these exercises a part of your daily routine now, you can have them in your toolkit when stress gets high.

2. Movement: The benefits of regular physical activity cannot be stressed enough. When we exercise our body gets endorphins, and as Elle Woods says it, endorphins make us happy. It is great to try to incorporate movement a little each day, but especially when life gets chaotic it is more beneficial than ever to stop, take a break and get some physical activity. Going for a walk or bike ride, doing twenty minutes of yoga, or having a ten-minute dance party break for the little ones (and little ones at heart) can all be excellent brain breaks and give us what we need when we are having trouble regulating our emotions.

3. Create a Calm Down Kit: When we feel stressed, we often want to be comforted. A great idea to help with this is to create a basket or kit that can help us calm down and feel at peace during these times. For little ones, the basket might include a stuffed animal, a fidget toy or small puzzle, a book of yoga cards, a sensory jar or play dough. For older kids, a calm down kit might include headphones for listening to your favorite music, a comforting snack, a mindful coloring book, a warm blanket or pillow, a candle or anything else that brings us the feeling of peace that we crave during times of stress.

4. Change up the Routine: If your child all of the sudden has a bunch of projects, multiple homework assignments and a test due in two days, cue the stress and emotional overload. A simple tool that can help is to change up your routine. This might mean working in a new environment like outside or at a coffee shop. Another option is to alternate the harder tasks with something different and fun— perhaps an activity in your calm down basket or a quick trip to get some ice cream!

5. Nourish Your Body: When we get stressed, we tend to forget about self-care and that impacts our ability to self-regulate and control our emotions. Make sure to drink extra water, eat whole foods, get plenty of sleep and exercise. We can also nourish our minds by doing something creative like a craft, spending time with family and friends, or watching a funny show or movie to give a good old dose of laughter.

Written by: Laine J.

Summer Fun to Boost Executive Functioning Skills

Executive functioning skills are the “soft skills” that are seldom explicitly taught to children; however, they are essential to completion of tasks and demonstration of knowledge. They are also essential to successful social interactions and daily living.

The summer, when we spend more time with our kids and engage in novel and interesting activities, is the perfect time to encourage the development of executive functioning skills. Family activities, social situations, and games can all be orchestrated to foster skills like self-monitoring, response inhibition, working memory, task initiation, and planning and prioritizing.

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child recommends role playing, imaginary play, and storytelling to develop executive skills in pre-school-aged children. Learning to take turns and mimicking mature tasks help children get ready to meet the social and attentional demands of kindergarten. Singing songs that repeat and add, change, or delete words, like B-I-N-G-O and Wheels on the Bus, help develop working memory. Matching and sorting activities, increasingly challenging puzzles, and cooking encourage working memory, planning, and sustained attention. 

Reading and visits to the library are perfect for those hot summer days by the pool or enjoying the cool of indoor. Ellen Galinsky and her colleagues at Mind in the Making have created lists of books and accompanying tip sheets that promote focus and self-control, perspective-taking, communicating, making connections, critical thinking, taking on challenges, and self-directed engaged learning. The book lists include selections for children age birth through 12 years.

Games of all sorts, and designed for all ages, can promote various executive skills while increasing family time and decreasing screen time. Word and language games, such as Fannee Doolee, are especially adaptable to travel and situations that require waiting. The professionals at Understood provide us with 7 Tips for Building Flexible Thinking, which includes directions for this clever game.

Another list of activities for kids and teenagers can be found at Left Brain Buddha. Games like Simon Says require response inhibition and attention, while card games like Uno require working memory and attention. To engage and entertain teenagers, try games like Taboo and Apples to Apples that require complex thinking and impulse control.

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and Left Brain Buddha agree that games of strategy, like Risk, are especially valuable in developing planning, prioritizing, and other executive skills. Michelle and Kira at Sunshine and Hurricanes have created a list of the best board games for teenagers, actually chosen by teenagers.

So, whether your family is traveling around the world; playing word games and I Spy in the car or at the airport; planning a staycation that includes trips to the library and playing board games together; or maintaining the status quo with daily meal preparation, playdates, and sleepovers, there are always ways to incorporate executive skills development into the summer months. Your kids will be better prepared for the social and academic demands of school in the fall, and they might discover a new pastime in the process!   

Written by: Kerrilee W.

Resources:

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2014). Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills with Children from Infancy to Adolescence. Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu.

Mind in the Making website: www.mindinthemaking.org  

Understood.org: https://www.understood.org/en

Left Brain Buddha: the modern mindful life: http://leftbrainbuddha.com/

Sunshine and Hurricanes: smart parenting with purpose: https://www.sunshineandhurricanes.com/

Oxford University Press: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience: https://academic.oup.com/scan

Attention Deficit Disorder Association: https://add.org/