The Herald-Zeitung

Betty Taylor

Herald-Zeitung

Correspondent

Some families have already been shopping the store aisles for school supplies and back-to-school clothes. Some may have cleaned out the closets and given away pants that were too short or shirts that were outgrown during a summer growth spurt. Parents wanting to give their children a good head start in school and in life may also want to help them improve their executive skills, child development experts say.

In “Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary ‘Executive Skills’ Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential” (The Guilford Press, Jan. 2, 2009, $15.95), authors Peg Dawson and Dr. Richard Guare explain the importance of developing good executive skills—not the kind that come to mind when thinking of business management as in financial management, strategic planning and the like—but cognitive skills that are required to execute or perform a task.

According to a recent Parenting Press Ezine article, the book uses research into child brain development to help adults understand core cognitive habits used to prioritize, get organized, stay focused and control emotions. Scientists who study child development and neurology have discovered that children who are “smart but scattered” simply lack certain habits called executive skills. These are the fundamental skills required to execute tasks: getting organized, planning, initiating work and staying on task.

It’s important to know that we cannot control anyone’s biological capacity to execute tasks. That groundwork develops in the brain before birth, so each of us has different innate brain-based organizational skills.

Whatever our capacity, however, these skills develop during the first two decades of life, and we adults can boost a child’s ability. What we do will vary depending on the age and developmental level of the child, our own strengths and weaknesses, and the issues which trouble us most. What is key is starting as soon as possible. Rather than assuming your child is a later bloomer, begin work to develop executive skills now, even if your child is only in preschool.

“Smart but Scattered” points out that many researchers now believe ADHD is fundamentally a disorder of executive skills. Many children experience delays in development of the ability to inhibit their responses, though most do not have ADHD.

Other children are emotionally scattered: Their emotions send them off on tangents and make it difficult for them to effectively problem-solve. Some children react instantaneously to what’s happening so that they cannot stay on task. Weaknesses are often clustered: Poor emotional control might come with weak inhibition response.

To help improve executive skills, Dawson and Guare suggest:

• helping children manage the tasks that are challenging right now;

• helping children improve obviously weak skills; and

• encouraging children to practice the skills that will increase their potential.

They suggest following 10 principles:

1) Teach skills. Most children don’t acquire them through observation.

2) Match the demands of the task to the child’s actual developmental level in this area.

3) Physically guide your child until the rule has been internalized.

4) Change the environment, the task or the way you interact with your child.

5) Take advantage of the child’s desire for control.

6) Match tasks to your child’s capacity and interest.

7) Provide incentives.

8) Provide just enough support to ensure success.

9) Provide support and supervision until a task is mastered.

10) Decrease support, supervision and rewards gradually.

By changing the way you interact with your child, you can promote the development of executive skills. Reviewing what may happen at an event and rehearsing how to handle it is useful with any weakness, especially helpful when children are inflexible, or have difficulties with their emotions or impulses.

Response inhibition is the capacity to think before you act. If you jump to conclusions, you act before you have all the facts, or blurt out whatever comes to mind. That’s a weakness in response inhibition. Developing this skill is important because it is fundamental to the development of all other executive skills, and to eventual academic and life success. Response inhibition may also be the most challenging skill to develop, especially during adolescence, when kids are likely to make rash decisions based on emotions and the actions of peers.

Working memory, the capacity to keep information in mind while performing other tasks, is something kids often need help developing. If you have a kindergartner who can’t follow a routine with one prompt per step, or a fourth-grader who can’t remember a routine chore after school without a reminder, it’s time for emphasis on working memory.

Finally, Dawson and Guare point out that children are likely to demonstrate the same weaknesses as their parents. If we or our children have a weakness with certain executive skills, we have to work to overcome or compensate for that weakness. (Reprinted with permission from Parenting Press News for Parents, copyright © 2009. For a free subscription, see www.ParentingPress.com/signup.html).

Laying the Groundwork

In a recent e-mail interview, Dawson said some parents may describe their children as lazy or unmotivated when the problem was actually weak executive skills.

“Once we explain that the problems their kids are having are brain-based skills that develop slowly throughout childhood – and more slowly in some children than in others – then they catch on and realize that they have to think of their kids as having skill deficits rather than motivational deficits,” Dawson said. “Once we point this out to them and make the point that the mismatch between their own skill set and that of their kids can sometimes cause problems, it makes sense to them.”

Professional organizers have recognized this link and have worked with families in the area of “getting organized” because it is one of the fundamental skills required to execute a task.

“I have two clients that I am working with right now who know they are not being good role models for their children,” said Karen Meade, owner of Let’s Get Organizing of San Antonio. “What a wonderful gift for those parents to realize that and to be working on those skills, so they can give those lifelong skills to their children.”

In fact, “Smart but Scattered” opens with a scenario in which an 8-year-old girl is told to go clean her room. She begins picking up Barbie dolls, but quickly gets sidetracked when she decides she doesn’t care for the way one of her dolls is dressed.

“You need to set realistic goals for your child,” said Meade, a former teacher. “Break down large tasks, or it will be overwhelming. Perhaps ask your child to clean up two areas of her room by noon and then offer a reward such as going for an ice cream or going for a bike ride. This will even work for ‘tweens or teenagers, who might enjoy going out to get a CD or going bowling.”

Cherry Patterson, owner of Organizing with a Personal Touch in New Braunfels, agreed.

“Set up a system in the room that is easy for the child to clean up and set up clean-up in bite-size pieces, maybe clean off your dresser top. Setting a timer makes it fun, and makes it feel like they have achieved something,” Patterson said.

“I set up zones in the room – a reading zone, a music zone – and bins with labels,” she said. “So everything has a home. Parents need to be organized themselves and be good role models. You need to minimize the distractions – especially where the child is going to be working.”

This last tip would help children stay on task when it comes to homework, the professional organizer and speaker said.

Ten-year-old quadruplets Santiago, Pedro, Andres and Jose Pablo Uribe each have their own desk, but they don’t have an abundance of “stuff” in their rooms.

“I think if you have too much, it is too much trouble to try to keep it organized,” said their mother, Pauline Uribe.

The boys paired up to share two rooms.

“They chose their own roommates,” Pauline said. “They know each other so well that they chose the roommate who had similar characteristics.”

Early on, when it would come time for the brothers to clean up their rooms, there would sometimes be disagreements. But now, each boy has his own desk and own “space”, and the four have developed their own “system” of organization.

“And they each have their own week for chores,” Pauline said.

Having an assigned week of chores teaches another important skill that sets the groundwork for executive skills, Patterson said.

“All children can benefit from having a routine,” she said. “Routines are very important.”