Every parent has witnessed it: a child who forgets their homework for the third time that week, struggles to start their chores despite multiple reminders, can’t seem to plan ahead, or becomes overwhelmed when faced with a multi-step project. While these behaviours might seem like simple forgetfulness or a lack of motivation, they often point to something deeper: challenges with executive functioning skills.
What Is Executive Functioning?
Executive function refers to a group of cognitive abilities that help us manage multiple streams of information, monitor errors, make decisions, and resist impulsive actions. Often described as the brain’s “air traffic control system,” these skills enable us to plan, organize, and successfully navigate the complex demands of daily life.
Executive function encompasses multiple components, including attentional control, cognitive flexibility, self-regulation, inhibition, strategic planning, and impulse control. These interconnected abilities work together to help children stay focused during class, remember complex instructions, control emotional reactions, and persist through challenging tasks.
The core components of executive functioning include:
- Working memory: The ability to hold and manipulate information in mind while completing tasks
- Inhibitory control: The capacity to resist distractions and control impulsive behaviors
- Cognitive flexibility: The skill to adapt thinking and switch between different tasks or perspectives
Why Does Executive Functioning Matter?
The importance of executive functioning extends far beyond childhood. Executive function has been a stronger predictor of early academic achievement than IQ, and research consistently shows these skills influence success throughout life, from classroom performance to career achievement to physical and mental health outcomes.
Children with strong executive functioning can follow classroom rules, maintain friendships, manage homework independently, and adapt when plans change unexpectedly. Conversely, poor executive function skills put children at risk for ineffective interactions with the environment, leading to significant and lasting cognitive, academic, and social difficulties.
It’s important to understand that we aren’t born with executive function skills but with the potential to develop them through experiences during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. This developmental reality offers both challenge and hope—while some children naturally struggle more with these skills, targeted support can make a meaningful difference.
Recognizing Executive Function Challenges
Children with executive functioning deficits may display several characteristic patterns. They might have difficulty getting started on tasks or procrastinate frequently, require repeated prompting to move through activities, lose belongings regularly, or appear disorganized. These children may act impulsively, interrupt others, struggle with emotional regulation, or lose track of time consistently.
Children with executive functioning challenges often struggle with connecting actions with outcomes and may have difficulty waiting for delayed rewards. A child might spend hours on homework that peers complete in 30 minutes, not because they lack intelligence or effort, but because their executive functioning challenges make it difficult to initiate, sustain focus, and organize their approach.
Which Evidence-Based Strategies Should Parents Use?
The good news is that research demonstrates executive functioning can be improved with appropriate support and intervention. Here are evidence-based strategies parents can implement at home:
Break Tasks Into Manageable Steps
Children with poor executive function skills often don’t know how to start a project and can become overwhelmed before they begin. Breaking larger tasks into smaller, concrete steps makes them less daunting and more achievable. Use checklists for everything from homework assignments to morning routines, helping children visualize the path forward.
Make Information Visible
Children with working memory challenges benefit enormously from external supports. Use visual reminders like sticky notes, signs, whiteboards, and lists. When information is visible to them, rather than relying solely on memory, children can more successfully complete tasks and build skills over time.
Establish Consistent Routines
Predictable routines reduce the cognitive load required for decision-making. Establish set times and places for homework, consistent bedtime routines, and regular patterns for daily responsibilities. This structure provides scaffolding that supports executive function development.
Use Timers and Time Management Tools
Many children with executive functioning challenges experience “time blindness”—difficulty perceiving how much time has passed or remains. Use visual timers, countdown clocks, and apps to make time tangible and measurable. Have children estimate how long tasks will take, then track actual time to build time awareness.
Provide Immediate, Meaningful Rewards
Children with executive functioning deficits may need bigger and more frequent rewards to complete tasks. Create reward systems with immediate reinforcement when tasks are completed. The rewards should be genuinely motivating to the individual child and provided promptly.
Incorporate Regular Breaks
Children with executive functioning deficits benefit from frequent breaks, as this helps them regulate their mood, maintain focus, and persist on lengthy tasks. Build strategic breaks into homework time and complex projects rather than expecting sustained attention for extended periods.
Model Metacognitive Strategies
Talk aloud about your own thinking and problem-solving processes. Verbalize how you plan, organize, prioritize, and work through challenges. This modeling gives children insight into the internal processes that support executive functioning. Then ask questions about their strategies rather than simply directing them, fostering independent problem-solving.
Engage in Activities That Build Executive Functions
Diverse activities have been shown to improve children’s executive functions. The best evidence exists for computer-based training, traditional martial arts, and specific school curricula, with promising evidence for aerobics, yoga, and mindfulness meditation. These activities share common elements: they require repeated practice, progressively challenge executive functions as children improve, and often combine cognitive demands with emotional, social, or physical development.
Creating the Right Environment
Beyond specific strategies, consider the broader environment in which your child learns and grows. Programs that successfully improve executive functions often challenge these skills continually while also bringing children joy and pride, giving them feelings of social inclusion and belonging, and helping their bodies become strong, fit, and healthy.
Focus on identifying and building upon your child’s strengths and interests. A child who loves cooking can practice sequencing, planning, and time management through recipes. One fascinated by building can develop spatial reasoning and problem-solving through construction projects. When executive function practice connects to genuine interests, children are more motivated to persist.
When Should You Seek Additional Support?
While these home-based strategies can significantly help, some children may need additional professional support. If your child’s executive functioning challenges significantly impact their academic performance, social relationships, or emotional well-being despite consistent support at home, consider consulting with a psychologist, academic strategist, or coach who specializes in executive functioning.
Programs like cognitive behavioral therapy, skills training groups, and specialized educational interventions (such as Evoke’s executive function coaching and academic strategies) have strong research support for improving executive functioning in children who need more intensive help.
The Path Forward
Understanding executive functioning transforms how we view children’s struggles. What might appear as laziness, defiance, or lack of care often reflects genuine neurological challenges with planning, organizing, and self-regulation. With this understanding comes opportunity and the chance to provide targeted support that builds these critical life skills.
Remember that executive functioning develops over time and with practice. Your child is not defined by their current challenges but by their potential for growth. By implementing evidence-based strategies, creating supportive environments, and maintaining patient, consistent expectations, parents can help children strengthen these essential skills and build a foundation for lifelong success.
The development of executive functioning is a journey, not a destination. Celebrate small victories, adjust strategies as needed, and recognize that every child’s path will look different. With understanding, patience, and the right support, children can develop the executive functioning skills they need to thrive.
