What Are Executive Functioning Skills?

“Executive function” (EF) is a set of mental skills that you need to get things done. Basically, they are any skills a person needs to know and perform to be successful in life. They are learned through modeling and repetition.

They are habits we create in our lives that serve us in positive ways.

EF life skills can be anything from making your bed to being able to make it to school or work on time. EF academic skills can studying for 50 minutes undistracted or keeping an agenda.  We all have executive functioning strengths and weaknesses. The EF weaknesses in nearly everyone can become strengths with enough time and attention. The key is to start with creating an effective strategy.

From my experience, I have found that any EF skill has two parts. The knowledge of the skill itself – how to do it – and the ability to do it automatically. Just knowing how to do something isn’t enough for it to be a “skill area” in your life. You can know how to make a bed but if you don’t have the habit of doing it every or nearly every morning, it doesn’t serve you – it isn’t a function or habit in your life that you have mastered. In order for us to have the skill we must have a significant degree of mastery in the task. Having a “term” helps us understand these areas of our lives better so that we can actively work on them.

We use the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” as guiding principles to help children strengthen their executive functioning weaknesses whether academic or life skill. For example, one of the private victory habits is “Be proactive” – this habit is the “antidote” to procrastination. We help your child examine their current behaviors that lead to the habit of procrastination and use reason to help your child internalize how and why those behaviors are detrimental to their life. Then we help your child develop their own plan to be proactive. Whatever the skill, our methodology is to work with you and the rest of your child’s team to hold them accountable to their plan and develop the new skill.

–Meg Patterson