How to Boost Executive Function in Children & Why It’s Important to Helping Them Thrive

How to Boost Executive Function in Children & Help Them Thrive

Dear Parent – I see that you’re frustrated. And I see that your child is too. You wish your child would just listen, follow through and complete their schoolwork; stop getting so distracted and stop over-reacting when things don’t go their way.

What if I told you that what appears to be a behavior issue; something worthy of a time-out, lecture, loss of privilege or other such punishment, might actually be a cognitive issue, requiring quite a different response?

Perhaps you would feel more hopeful, rather than frustrated. That is my intention in sharing with you the importance of Executive Functioning, and how to boost Executive Function in children.

In my work as a psychologist, I love empowering parents to help their children thrive. The starting point is to gain a true picture of what is really going on for your child. To understand your child requires compassion, yes, but also correct information.

Executive Functioning is of vital importance to children’s success and happiness, yet most parents aren’t familiar with what Executive Functioning is, let alone how to help a child who has Executive Functioning issues.

Parents often come to me because their child is:

  • Easily distracted;
  • Doesn’t listen;
  • Acts out and is getting into trouble;
  • Won’t do what they’re told;
  • Appears vague, disruptive or defiant.

When children present such “behavioural problems” often what actually needs to be assessed and addressed relates to Executive Functioning.

Why is Executive Functioning so important?

Executive Functioning is the greatest indicator of your child’s success and happiness in the classroom, at home and beyond.

Studies have even proven that your child’s executive functions between age 3 and 11 are predictive of physical health and mental health (whether they are more likely to be overweight or have substance abuse problems), future earnings, and even marital harmony.

Bottom line: If you want your child to eventually find and keep a job, be a dependable and happy adult, then you need to care about their Executive Functions.

So what are Executive Functions?

Executive Functions are cognitive processes. They are a set of mental skills that help us accomplish tasks, stay calm and think creatively.

Therefore, Executive Functioning relates to our ability to reason and problem solve; to plan, get things done, display self-control; all the mental skills we need to thrive as adults, but that are still developing until age 25.

Fact #1:

It’s your child’s executive functions that are the greatest indicators of mental, emotional and physical health.

Fact #2:

Executive Function issues are overwhelmingly encountered as poor or disruptive behavior and responded to as such.

What are Core Executive Functions and what do they look like in children?

If we think of Executive Function as an umbrella term for important mental control processes; we can understand three components of it; Working Memory, Inhibitory Control and Mental Flexibility.

  1. Working Memory

    Working Memory allows us to hold bits and pieces of information in our mind and mentally figure things out. Working Memory helps us reason, solve problems and plan.

    What does this look like?

    You can imagine your child’s Working Memory visually as a post-it note. Depending on their stage of development, they will have a relatively small post-it-note (able to hold just a few bits of information) to quite large (able to mentally work with lots of pieces of information).

    If you ask your child to “get off the couch, go and get your reader, but first wash your hands, don’t forget the soap, and bring me a pen for your diary”, would their post-it-note be big enough to handle those instructions?

    What happens if you find them in the bathroom washing their hands, completely forgetting that they needed to go and get their reader and a pen (which were in two separate locations in your house)?

    While a natural response may be one of frustration, or a suspicion that your child hasn’t listened – or shouldn’t have gotten distracted, your best response comes from an awareness of your child’s Working Memory.

  2. Inhibitory Control

    While Working Memory allows us to hold information mentally; make and follow through on plans, this requires attention. And focused attention requires some Inhibitory Control.

    Inhibitory Control involves self-control, discipline; being able to manage interference and distractions while staying focused on a task.

    As core Executive Functions, our Inhibitory Control and Working Memory work together to help us stay focused on a goal or carry out a plan, as we block out internal and external distractions.

    IMPORTANT: Our kids live, as we do, in a digital smorgasbord, dominated by screens competing for attention. Understanding and enhancing Executive Functioning is crucial for your kids survival in our world today.

What does this look like?

Your child’s inhibitory control relates to whether they can stay seated in class; when their urge is to jump out and run around. In children (and adults) it relates to holding your tongue or saying something inappropriate, showing up to training sessions (when you’d rather stay on the couch), resisting temptations for the pursuit of a higher goal.

There are ways to improve inhibitory control, and it’s important that your child’s age and developmental stage is taken into account.

  1. Mental Flexibility

    Mental Flexibility, or Cognitive Flexibility, is linked to creativity and involves being able to think in different ways, see new possibilities and perspectives.

    Often children can feel frustrated because their original plan has failed and they are unable to conceive of an alternative way of solving the problem.

What does this look like?

Displaying a high level of mental flexibility looks like ‘out of the box’ thinking; new and novel ideas; noticing and taking advantage of opportunities.

A beautiful quote that reflects the reality of poor mental flexibility comes from Alexander Graham Bell:

“When one door closes, another door opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

Wouldn’t you love to help your child see the doors that open; to be able to conceptualise problems and ideas in lots of ways? Life is so much happier when children develop mental flexibility. Kids with mental flexibility usually roll with the punches, get along better with others, and recover from setbacks.

How to boost Executive Function in children.

 Studies show that music, martial arts, singing, dancing and sports improve our Executive Functions.

Specifically, the strongest evidence for improving Executive Function includes:

  1. Cogmed

    A computerised brain-training program is proven to boost children’s Executive Functions.

  2. Mindfulness + Meditation

    The results of a school-based program based on mindful awareness practices (MAPS) found that children with poor executive functions benefited the most from mindfulness and meditation practices.

  3. Martial Arts 

    Traditional martial arts, such as Tae-Kwon-Do, are proven to increase executive function in children.

What other activities can boost Executive Function?

 Harvard University has compiled a downloadable resource for enhancing Executive Function based on age. (Access here.)

What can you do to boost your child’s executive functioning?

 The short answer: plenty.

The biggest block to supporting your child’s executive functions is simply: not knowing what executive functions are.

Now that you’ve read this article, you know exactly what executive functions are and the important role they play. Which means you’re in an empowered position to truly help your child thrive.


Dr Nicole Carvill
About the Author: 
Dr Nicole Carvill (BA(Hons) PhD MAPS) 

Nicole is a psychologist, presenter, author and mother, passionate about helping children/adults to understand how they learn best and to assist them to gain the skills they need to thrive. 

Here is a snapshot of her professional highlights:

+   Presenter for the Pearson Academy on understanding the impact of working memory and attention on learning and life.

+   Awarded PhD scholarship to research how to support people caring for a child, parent or partner with additional needs as a result of an intellectual disability, mental illness or age. I’ve met many amazing and inspiring people so far.

+   Researched the impact of pregnancy on memory skills (and after two pregnancies I know all about the brain drain during pregnancy!).

+   Worked within a Multi-disciplinary Autism Assessment Team under guidance of Dr Richard Eisenmajer at Gateway Support Services.

+   Worked with Preschool children with developmental delays while supporting their families, Specialist Children’s Services.

+   Worked as a Clinician within the Behaviour Intervention Support Team, Disability Services [DHS].

+   Regional Co-Ordinator (Barwon South Western region of Victoria) for Program for Students with Disabilities, Lewis & Lewis Psychological Consultancy.

You can find Nicole and more of her work on her website, http://thinknicolecarvill.com or Facebook.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join our newsletter

We would love you to follow us on Social Media to stay up to date with the latest Hey Sigmund news and upcoming events.

Follow Hey Sigmund on Instagram

We don’t need to protect kids from the discomfort of anxiety.

We’ll want to, but as long as they’re safe (including in their bodies with sensory and physiological needs met), we don’t need to - any more than we need to protect them from the discomfort of seatbelts, bike helmets, boundaries, brushing their teeth.

Courage isn’t an absence of anxiety. It’s the anxiety that makes something brave. Courage is about handling the discomfort of anxiety.

When we hold them back from anxiety, we hold them back - from growth, from discovery, and from building their bravery muscles.

The distress and discomfort that come with anxiety won’t hurt them. What hurts them is the same thing that hurts all of us - feeling alone in distress. So this is what we will protect them from - not the anxiety, but feeling alone in it.

To do this, speak to the anxiety AND the courage. 

This will also help them feel safer with their anxiety. It puts a story of brave to it rather than a story of deficiency (‘I feel like this because there’s something wrong with me,’) or a story of disaster (‘I feel like this because something bad is about to happen.’).

Normalise, see them, and let them feel you with them. This might sound something like:

‘This feels big doesn’t it. Of course you feel anxious. You’re doing something big/ brave/ important, and that’s how brave feels. It feels scary, stressful, big. It feels like anxiety. It feels like you feel right now. I know you can handle this. We’ll handle it together.’

It doesn’t matter how well they handle it and it doesn’t matter how big the brave thing is. The edges are where the edges are, and anxiety means they are expanding those edges.

We don’t get strong by lifting toothpicks. We get strong by lifting as much as we can, and then a little bit more for a little bit longer. And we do this again and again, until that feels okay. Then we go a little bit further. Brave builds the same way - one brave step after another.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes and it doesn’t matter how big the steps are. If they’ve handled the discomfort of anxiety for a teeny while today, then they’ve been brave today. And tomorrow we’ll go again again.♥️
Feeling seen, safe, and cared for is a biological need. It’s not a choice and it’s not pandering. It’s a biological need.

Children - all of us - will prioritise relational safety over everything. 

When children feel seen, safe, and a sense of belonging they will spend less resources in fight, flight, or withdrawal, and will be free to divert those resources into learning, making thoughtful choices, engaging in ways that can grow them.

They will also be more likely to spend resources seeking out those people (their trusted adults at school) or places (school) that make them feel good about themselves, rather than avoiding the people of spaces that make them feel rubbish or inadequate.

Behaviour support and learning support is about felt safety support first. 

The schools and educators who know this and practice it are making a profound difference, not just for young people but for all of us. They are actively engaging in crime prevention, mental illness prevention, and nurturing strong, beautiful little people into strong, beautiful big ones.♥️
Emotion is e-motion. Energy in motion.

When emotions happen, we have two options: express or depress. That’s it. They’re the options.

When your young person (or you) is being swamped by big feelings, let the feelings come.

Hold the boundary around behaviour - keep them physically safe and let them feel their relationship with you is safe, but you don’t need to fix their feelings.

They aren’t a sign of breakage. They’re a sign your child is catalysing the energy. Our job over the next many years is to help them do this respectfully.

When emotional energy is shut down, it doesn’t disappear. It gets held in the body and will come out sideways in response to seemingly benign things, or it will drive distraction behaviours (such as addiction, numbness).

Sometimes there’ll be a need for them to control that energy so they can do what they need to do - go to school, take the sports field, do the exam - but the more we can make way for expression either in the moment or later, the safer and softer they’ll feel in their minds and bodies.

Expression is the most important part of moving through any feeling. This might look like talking, moving, crying, writing, yelling.

This is why you might see big feelings after school. It’s often a sign that they’ve been controlling themselves all day - through the feelings that come with learning new things, being quiet and still, trying to get along with everyone, not having the power and influence they need (that we all need). When they get into the car at pickup, finally those feelings they’ve been holding on to have a safe place to show up and move through them and out of them.

It can be so messy! It takes time to learn how to lasso feelings and words into something unmessy.

In the meantime, our job is to hold a tender, strong, safe place for that emotional energy to move out of them.

Hold the boundary around behaviour where you can, add warmth where you can, and when they are calm talk about what happened and how they might do things differently next time. And be patient. Just because someone tells us how to swing a racket, doesn’t mean we’ll win Wimbledon tomorrow. Good things take time, and loads of practice.♥️
Thank you Adelaide! Thank you for your stories, your warmth, for laughing with me, spaghetti bodying with me (when you know, you know), for letting me scribble on your books, and most of all, for letting me be a part of your world today.

So proud to share the stage with Steve Biddulph, @matt.runnalls ,
@michellemitchell.author, and @nathandubsywant. To @sharonwittauthor - thank you for creating this beautiful, brave space for families to come together and grow stronger.

And to the parents, carers, grandparents - you are extraordinary and it’s a privilege to share the space with you. 

Parenting is big work. Tender, gritty, beautiful, hard. It asks everything of us - our strength, our softness, our growth. We’re raising beautiful little people into beautiful big people, and at the same time, we’re growing ourselves. 

Sometimes that growth feels impatient and demanding - like we’re being wrenched forward before we’re ready, before our feet have found the ground. 

But that’s the nature of growth isn’t it. It rarely waits for permission. It asks only that we keep moving.

And that’s okay. 

There’s no rush. You have time. We have time.

In the meantime they will keep growing us, these little humans of ours. Quietly, daily, deeply. They will grow us in the most profound ways if we let them. And we must let them - for their sake, for our own, and for the ancestral threads that tie us to the generations that came before us, and those that will come because of us. We will grow for them and because of them.♥️
Their words might be messy, angry, sad. They might sound bigger than the issue, or as though they aren’t about the issue at all. 

The words are the warning lights on the dashboard. They’re the signal that something is wrong, but they won’t always tell us exactly what that ‘something’ is. Responding only to the words is like noticing the light without noticing the problem.

Our job isn’t to respond to their words, but to respond to the feelings and the need behind the words.

First though, we need to understand what the words are signalling. This won’t always be obvious and it certainly won’t always be easy. 

At first the signal might be blurry, or too bright, or too loud, or not obvious.

Unless we really understand the problem behind signal - the why behind words - we might inadvertently respond to what we think the problem is, not what the problem actually is. 

Words can be hard and messy, and when they are fuelled by big feelings that can jet from us with full force. It is this way for all of us. 

Talking helps catalyse the emotion, and (eventually) bring the problem into a clearer view.

But someone needs to listen to the talking. You won’t always be able to do this - you’re human too - but when you can, it will be one of the most powerful ways to love them through their storms.

If the words are disrespectful, try:

‘I want to hear you but I love you too much to let you think it’s okay to speak like that. Do you want to try it a different way?’ 

Expectations, with support. Leadership, with warmth. Then, let them talk.

Our job isn’t to fix them - they aren’t broken. Our job is to understand them so we can help them feel seen, safe, and supported through the big of it all. When we do this, we give them what they need to find their way through.♥️

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This