Does Your Teen Struggle with Executive Function?

5 Executive Function Tips

Are you seeing that your teen consistently struggles in the same areas: task initiation, time management, prioritization, and organization? Like any other subject in school, these are [core] skills that need to be taught. By putting executive functioning strategies into practice your teen can become a better student.

Here are five things you can try

1.Create a comprehensive list of assignments: When your teen has multiple assignments it could help to list them to be able to plan and prioritize.

2.Break down big assignments into small, manageable ones: If your teen has a big project, and feels overwhelmed, try prioritizing tasks and setting incremental deadlines for doing research. The graphic organizers tool is also great for brainstorming a plan before writing.

3.Track results and acknowledge good work: Assignments and tests come and go but at the end of the semester, why did your teen get that grade? By tracking grades, your teen can see what areas they need to have more focus on and you can celebrate the areas he/she is thriving in.

4.Open communication lines: It’s important that your teen knows that they are not alone in their education journey. By touching base on areas of struggle you can share ideas together about how to make things better.

5.Set a routine but be flexible: Just like setting a meeting at work, your teen can set a time to complete tasks and assignments – 12:00 finish research – 1:00 science project with dad – 3:00 study flash cards with mom. Let your teen be in charge of their own schedule and allow rescheduling. “Putting the ball in their court” might help them feel empowered.

Learning is a process. If you’re feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, here are a few things that might help:

• Recognize when you need outside help.
• Invest the time to reinforce the skills and routines learned.
• Don’t strive for perfection. Source: Harvard.edu

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This post originally appeared on our November/December 2021 Magazine