Play's the Thing (to Build Executive Function Skills)
I know! I know! But it really is fascinating stuff!
Executive Function Skills — it sounds so . . . corporate. Could there be a more boring term for a more vital topic?
I made it through a B.S. in Education and a M.A. in Counseling Psych without a single course dedicated to what these skills are or how kids acquire them.
But I know better now and want other parents to know better, too.
Executive function skills affect . . . well, everything: our ability to self-regulate, manage information, make decisions, adapt to changes, plan ahead.
The folks at Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child use this wonderful metaphor.
Executive function skills “are like an air traffic control system in the brain.”
We need these skills at every stage of life, and while no one is born with them, we are all born with the potential to develop them.
EF skills basically boil down to these five:
Focused Attention
Working Memory
Flexible Thinking
Impulse Control
Task Persistence
Try this:
Imagine a kid focusing on writing their name, or following two-step directions to build a structure, or making a plan for a leprechaun trap, or sorting their legos or stuffies, or waiting their turn at the ice cream truck, or sticking with a difficult task, or resisting an impulse to knock down their sibling’s block tower.
In each instance, they are using executive function skills.
And remember: “children aren’t born with these skills — they are born with the potential to develop them.” That’s good news.
Here’s more good news:
Children don’t develop these skills from worksheets. One of the best ways for young children to build executive function skills is through play and hands-on activities.
Play is the work of childhood because it builds the skills they need for adulthood.
Send kids outside, leave out the dress-up clothes and building materials, decorate cupcakes, tell bedtime stories, host family game nights, and let them get bored and then figure out how to get un-bored.
Here’s a deeper look at five activities that build kids’ executive function skills:
Cheers,
Deborah Farmer Kris
www.parenthood365.com