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.

5 Strategies for Strengthening Basic Math Skills

Ahhh math facts… the age old computation skill that most children find repetitive, difficult and down-right boring. Let’s face it, memorizing our times tables is something we all have to learn how to do, but that doesn’t make it easy! Rote memorization is not only difficult for many students, but also being required to show mastery in a timed setting often leads to stress and testing anxiety. However, quick computation skills and mastery of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division basic facts is key to your child and their ability to confidently comprehend and manipulate more complex math concepts such as word problems, area and perimeter, algebra, and many more. So, how can we help our children to start gaining confidence in their basic math computation skills? Here are five tips and tricks to help get the ball rolling:

1. Flashcards: Flashcards are one of the most simple, effective, and convenient ways to help memorize and learn math facts. All you need are some notecards and a pencil. Have your child write down each fact they are working on with the equation on one side and the answer on the other. Make sure to write equations both ways (for example, 3+4 and 4+3). Visual representations of numbers can be included if beneficial. Run through these cards multiple times a day. A good time might be in the car on the way to school, during breakfast, or even right before bed! 

2. Flashcards not cutting it for you? It’s time for some reinforcement… cue the electronics. There are some incredible apps and games out there to help learn math facts, and let’s face it, digital learning is almost natural for kids nowadays. A free flashcard based app called My Math Flash Cards can be downloaded on the iPad. There are also apps that make learning math facts into a game such as Rocket Math which can be downloaded on both IOS and ANDROID. A few other great apps are Duck on the Run, Math Racer, and Smartick. Try multiple options and see which ones work best for your child!

3. Incorporate physical movement to keep math facts engaging. Try this game called “Answer Races”. Stand on one side of the room and read the problem aloud for your child. Then they have to run to the other side of the room and write the answer down on a large piece of paper and run back to you! Adding some physical movement will instantly make math facts more fun and bearable for everyone involved!

4. Try a new math facts game: There are tons of games to help with basic math skills.  One of the most simple ones is to roll dice and either add, subtract, multiply or divide the numbers on them (depending on which operation your child might be working on). You can even purchase special math dice sets. Math Bingo is another cost effective, simple and fun way to help learn math facts.

5. Change it up: sometimes the smallest thing can make something more appealing to kids. Instead of having your child use a pencil, try giving them markers, colored pens, or even a whiteboard to write down their facts. Another option is to help them practice their facts orally. Often, it can be hard for a kid to focus on a timed test and get their numbers written down quickly even if they know their facts well. Practice orally saying the facts in a timed environment to gauge how well they know their facts.

Written by: Laine J.

5 Parent (and Kid) Approved Ways to Make Homework Bearable

Written by Emily Graham at Mighty Moms 

There’s no denying it, homework simply isn’t fun. Kids were meant to run, jump and play, not to be tied down to a desk for eight to 12 hours per day. While there are many outspoken advocates that claim excessive homework is a health hazard, even young children continue to receive three times the amount of recommended homework.

 It doesn’t appear that homework is going away anytime soon, however. As a parent, you can make this unpleasant task less of a chore and give your children a positive experience that may help overcome the negative impact of an after-hours academic load. Here are five ways to make homework a less painful part of your family’s routine:

1. Make learning fun. Some students naturally gravitate toward any learning experience. Others may need some convincing. Help your children identify ways their least favorite topics – often math and/or reading – can be used for recreational purposes. Play games that require counting, spelling, or a combination of the two. Scrabble, chess and Yahtzee can reinforce the skills. You can apply scientific principles to playtime, too. EarthScienceJr.com lists several outdoor learning activities and fun science experiments including creating Rainbow Magic Milk that are appropriate for kids of all ages.

2. Reward minute for minute. If your child struggles to find the focus needed to get their homework done, consider offering a reward for each minute of time spent actively engaged in the homework process. Avoid the temptation to use video games as a reward and instead focus on family-oriented activities that get the kids off the couch. Camping, hosting a backyard treasure hunt and even bird watching are ways your kids can create positive memories that they’ll associate with homework. If your child spends 30 minutes each afternoon on the books, then you should spend 30 minutes outdoors together as a family. You can wrap up a particularly stressful week with a backyard campout complete with ghost stories and s’mores.

3. Take a break. Oxford Learning suggests taking regular breaks to increase homework productivity. This will help to boost focus, reduce stress and help kids retain more information. But there is a right way and a wrong way to step away from the pencil. Students should be allowed to take 5- to 10-minute breaks every half hour. These breaks should involve some form of physical activity and possibly, a drink or snack. 

4. Do your own homework. You may have gotten away from mandatory homework when you graduated college but, no matter your age, learning is never a bad thing. Whether you want to advance your career or simply broaden your horizons of knowledge, sit down with your child and do your own “homework” by their side. Not only will this reduce the feelings of isolation your child might feel but will also give them an opportunity to see their parents working toward a goal. And if you find yourself struggling to master a new skill or understand newly introduced concepts, let them see the struggle. MIT recommends letting your kids watch you overcome obstacles will help them embrace a growth mindset.

5. Reward a job well done. The kids have been at school all day and sometimes they need a little extra motivation to keep going. Whether you choose to use positive feedback or a more tangible reward is a personal choice and depends on your child. While experts disagree over the use of stickers and trinkets as motivation, setting up a rewards system is a great way to encourage positive behaviors until they become routine.

Despite the many naysayers, the vast majority of educators believe that reasonable amount of homework, even for students as young as first grade, offers numerous benefits. Scholastic points out that homework offers parents an opportunity to engage a child’s education, allows students to make a connection between classroom learning and the real world and promotes self-discipline and independence. Whether you agree or not, it still has to get done, you may as well make the best of it.

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/

EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING SKILLS SERIES - PART 2

In our first Executive Skills blog, EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING SKILLS SERIES - PART 1, we met Sally, who possessed average or above average cognitive and academic skills and was highly motivated to succeed. She was organized and goal-driven. At the same time, her social life and grades suffered because she spent hours per night on homework that she didn’t turn in the next day. Like Sally, most of us demonstrate areas of strength and weakness in various skills that allow us to plan and execute projects, prioritize activities and input, identify the steps necessary for a task and monitor progress, understand how time passes and use it to reach our goals, and control emotions and responses to situations.

Research tells us that a number of biological and environmental factors determine how executive skills develop. While response inhibition (impulse control), working memory, emotional control, and attention all tend to develop during the first month of life; metacognition generally emerges closer to 10 or 11 years of age, while the brain is not fully mature until the mid- or late 20’s.

Drs. Dawson and Guare, in their Smart but Scattered books, explain how the number of nerve cells in the brain and connections between them grow rapidly in early childhood. However, this growth, from about 2,500 synapses in a newborn, to around 15,000 over the next three years, slows around age five. A process of pruning ensues, during which skills that are used and practiced are strengthened while others fall away. It is vital that we provide support and instruction to develop lacking skills and maintain those we value, during this time. This process occurs not once during childhood, but rather, “…recent research has demonstrated that there is another major surge in growth of neurons and synapses just before adolescence, followed by a process of pruning that extends throughout adolescence,” according to Dawson and Guare.

The authors of the Smart but Scattered further explain the role of myelination in the development of habits and skills. Myelin is the fatty sheath that forms around axons in the brain. It provides insulation for the paths of the nerve impulses, allowing for more efficient and quicker communication between the parts of the brain. Practice increases myelin, as coaches know. This is why athletes practice the same moves over and over in order to achieve high levels of performance.

To further compound the challenge for middle school and high school students, teenagers are inherently driven to establish their own identities. Often, the skills and experience necessary to accurately judge risk, follow through with tasks independently, and plan and organize materials and projects do not maintain pace with young people’s drive for independence. Of course, this occurs just when academic expectations, homework loads, and social demands increase exponentially in a young person’s life. To support students in this situation, the adults in their lives can collaborate to arrange environments, explicitly teach skills, provide consistent practice during routine activities, and help young people to implement the skills they have learned.

When we provide familiar routines we help our children to use systems of organization and practice strategies. One pitfall that many of us encounter is the tendency to provide initial instruction or support without sufficient monitoring before allowing independent endeavors. Even after independence is achieved with a particular task or skill, periodic check-ins are vital to ensure continued success.

One way to increase a child’s ability to perform a task with accuracy or to follow through with an action, is to utilize mental rehearsal. A practical application is the S.T.O.P method, proposed by Sarah Ward, which supports students like Sally, who complete homework while lacking the follow through to submit it on time. Dawson and Guare suggest various ways to use lists and calendars to support planning, organization, and completion of homework as well.

Keep in mind that it’s natural for adolescents seeking autonomy and developing their individual identities to resist direction from adults, especially parents. Parenting at this stage requires a fine balance of providing choices, setting limits, explicit teaching, gradual release of authority, and use of resources outside ourselves.

Collaboration between school, parents, and other providers such as tutors or coaches can provide consistent reinforcement of strategies and skills, while trained professionals and well-informed parents directly teach executive skills and move young people toward the independence they crave.

Amethyst Shaber teaches us about executive functioning and self-monitoring.

Sarah Ward shares strategies for homework completion and time management.

Smart but Scattered provides homework strategies.

Written by Kerrilee W.

Executive Functioning Skills Series - Part 1

Sally is a bright student, reading fluently, completing mental math with ease, and spewing articulate and detailed summaries of science and history facts. She invests significant effort into her work and enjoys school. She is so concerned with accuracy that she spends an inordinate amount of time on her homework. However, perfectionism isn’t the only obstacle to Sally completing her work and enjoying family time. She also takes at least 20 minutes to begin her homework, going back and forth between her immaculate desk and well-ordered backpack and her parents’ office to get the supplies for each assignment. During this zig-zag activity, she tells her little brother to stop touching her belongings, pets the dog, gets a snack. Even when her mom or dad check her homework and help her put it into color-coded folders in her backpack, Sally frequently receives only partial credit because it was submitted several days late. Sally’s parents are confused by these inconsistencies and frustrated that Sally’s grades don’t reflect her true ability and knowledge, or the long hours she spends studying. Sally is feeling dejected and the demands of middle school are increasing the time she devotes to school work so much, she may have to quit the volleyball team in order to keep up.

Sally is not unmotivated, nor academically or cognitively challenged. Sally is exhibiting a pattern of strengths and weaknesses in the skills necessary to accomplish tasks of which she is entirely capable.

The brain-based skills required to accomplish goals, manage emotions, and interact socially are called by various names, including executive functioning skills, executive skills, essential life skills, and soft skills. They are the practices and skills required to begin, follow-through with, and complete tasks; to manage time, emotions, and responses; and to solve problems.

Amanda Morin names eight executive skills: impulse control, emotional control, flexibility, working memory, self-monitoring, planning and prioritizing, task initiation, and organization. To Morin’s list, Peg Dawson and Richard Guare add time management, sustained attention, goal-directed persistence, and metacognition.

As with language, the potential for executive skills is part of human biology. As with language, the way these skills actually develop varies among individuals. We all exhibit strengths with certain executive skills, while others are weaker and create challenges for us in everyday situations. Drs. Dawson and Guare have created a questionnaire to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses, and they encourage parents to compare their own patterns of skills with those of their children. It is not uncommon for children to mirror their parents’ patterns of development. Since most adults have either developed their weaker skills sufficiently or found compensatory strategies by capitalizing on their strengths, we can share our own experiences to support the young people in our lives. Likewise, if your child struggles in an area that is a natural strength for you, it is vital to appreciate the individual patters we each possess without assuming that certain habits or tasks are equally easy or accessible for everyone.

When Sally took the executive skills questionnaire, it was clear that her ability to hold information in mind while manipulating it was a strength for her, evidenced by her strong reading and math problem-solving skills. Because her metacognition is also strong, she can clearly see that her continued dedication despite feeling chastised for late assignments, and her ability to maintain a tidy work space and use folders effectively coincide with her strengths in emotional control and organization.

It also became clear to both Sally and her parents that task initiation, planning and prioritizing, response inhibition, and goal-directed persistence were areas where Sally needs some support.

The tutors at Peak Academics are trained to help students capitalize on their strengths, make adjustments to the environment to compensate for weaknesses, and further develop executive skills that are lacking or lagging. Through collaboration with parents, we can use coaching, mental rehearsal, and other techniques to address challenges. Everyday routines can be used as a way to teach executive skills, even as we provide support to set goals and develop plans to reach them; monitor performance; help with problem-solving along the way; and gradually develop independence.

The Peak blog next quarter on executive skills will further explore the brain development that contributes to these skills and provide specific strategies for support. To start supporting your child now, check out these resources and contact Peak to learn how we can help!

Understood, where you can find articles about executive skills, learning differences, dyslexia, and attention issues, including articles by Amanda Morin, cited above.

Jason Gots’ article about the Seven Essential Life Skills, provided by bigthink. The article includes a video of Ellen Galinsky explaining executive function life skills and discussing her book, Mind in the Making.

The work of Dr. Peg Dawson and Dr. Richard Guare, including Smart but Scattered and Smart but Scattered Teens.

Drs. Dawson and Guare’s Executive Skills Questionnaire for kids, teens, and adults.

By Kerrilee W.