Executive Functioning Skills

Social Emotional Learning or Academic Management?

Executive functions are a broad set of skills that occur in the frontal lobe of the brain and take nearly all of adolescence to develop. Children, teens and young adults develop at different rates so you may observe a child appear mature in one area, only to struggle in another.  The list of executive functioning skills is diverse but can be categorized into two primary groups, Social & Emotional Learning (SEL skills) and Academic Management Skills.  When you consider what your student needs, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

• Does my child struggle with response inhibition, emotional control, perspective taking and flexibility.  If so, you might be interested in the social emotional components of executive functioning.
• Does my child struggle with sustained attention, task initiation, planning & prioritizing, organization, time management, goal directed persistence, metacognition or working memory? If so, you may be interested in the academic management skills of executive functioning.

Summer is a great time to work on these skills. To help your student build their executive functioning muscles this summer, see the list of offerings below.  Parenting is not for the feint of heart but rest assured, with the right support, we can help you through it!