New School Year, New Executive Functioning Strategies
written by Dr. Liz Matheis, published on Psychology Today
The new school year has begun and is beginning to find its swing. Our kids are taking tests and quizzes, they’re assigned papers and projects. It’s happening! Summer is in the distance, and the fall crisp weather is officially here.
As parents, we often think about how to help our children who struggle with poor executive functioning skills such as time management, prioritization, starting a task, completing a task, and keeping school materials organized so they can find their assignments and completed work. Our kids have multiple classes, activities, and daily life tasks that can take a child with attention-deficit disorder/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or weaker executive functioning skills and make life feel like a hot mess, for both parent and child.
As an executive functioning coach, I offer many strategies to help our children and teens get their work done so that they can have their downtime to decompress at the end of each day. It’s unrealistic to believe that our children can go-go-go without a break—the same goes for adults. I often pose it as the following, which seems to resonate: “The goal is to get your work done so you can play and rest. You need to have that time so you are ready for the next day.”
With that said, I encourage parents to enroll their child in no more than one activity per child per season to find a balance among extracurricular activities, academics, and social and family life.