A daily routine and structure are key to building skills children need for growth. As parents, we want to equip our children with the skills and resources to make them successful at home, school, and in social situations. Now that you have identified where your child is at in terms of executive functions, it’s time to strengthen those powers! If you haven’t, check out my article here.
A Key Secret: Daily Routine and Structure
A key secret to boosting executive function skills is simple: structure and routine. Imagine trying to build a puzzle without the picture on the box. That’s what life can feel like without a daily routine. A daily routine guides your child through the day. Knowing what to expect makes them feel more secure and confident. A daily routine can aid in developing healthy sleep patterns, feeding habits, and overall well-being.
Routine provides a structured framework for your child to develop and exercise their executive functioning skills. When activities follow a predictable pattern, your child’s brain becomes accustomed to planning, organizing, and transitioning smoothly. Over time, this practice strengthens their executive functioning abilities, allowing them to tackle more complex tasks as they grow.
Incorporating a Daily Routine and Structure
How should you start to incorporate structure and daily routine into their lives? For infants to toddlers, it’s important to start with establishing a morning routine, make sure to have a regular schedule for feeding and napping, provide structured time for playtime, and have a bedtime ritual. This structure can greatly affect your child’s overall mood, health, and development (cognitive, sensory, academic, and emotional).
While these routines are important, remember that flexibility is equally as important. Be responsive to your child’s cues – if they are tired or hungry earlier than usual, adjust your routine accordingly. Life happens! Teaching your child to adapt their routine enhances their problem-solving skills and resilience.
Tools to Enhance Routine and Executive Functioning Skills
Tools like timers, visual schedules, and reward systems are invaluable aids in building executive functioning skills within routines.
Timers
Use timers to allocate specific time blocks for tasks. This encourages your child to focus on one activity at a time and improves their time management and transitioning skills. For younger children, visual timers can be particularly helpful!
Visual Schedules
Create visual schedules with pictures or icons representing different activities in the routine. Visual cues help your child transition smoothly between tasks as they know what to expect and comprehend the sequence of events.
Reward Systems
Implement a reward system where your child earns small incentives for completing tasks and adhering to their routine. This encourages them to develop a sense of responsibility, task monitoring, and accomplishment.
Activities for Executive Function Skill Building
While creating this structure and routine is incredibly important, there are additional ways to foster growth in executive functions. See the table below for ways to enhance executive functioning based on where you believe your child’s current functioning falls. Remember, these are general guidelines, and children will develop their superpowers at their pace. Not every strategy will work for each child the same, and some trial and error is normal.
Infants 0-12 Months
| Executive Function Skill | Activities |
| Paying Attention: Limit Distractions | Play Peek-a-boo or hiding games to help remember who/what is hiding.
Help develop object permanence. |
| Managing Impulses: Model self-control and practice patience! | Recite predictable rhymes that excite your child at the end so they can practice waiting for and anticipating the surprise. Examples: Pat-a-Cake, This is the Way the Farmer Rides |
| Managing Feelings: Create a safe environment and build emotional vocabulary/understanding | Create a nurturing environment for all emotions by managing your own stress response and responding to the baby’s emotions with eye contact, physical affection, and comforting words. |
| Getting Started: Set expectations, break things down, and offer support along the way! | Name items your child appears to be focusing on, move items slightly within reach, and encourage reaching behavior. |
| Remembering Information: recalling and using the information at a later time. | Hide a toy under a blanket and encourage your child to look for it. |
Toddlers 12-24 Months
| Executive Function Skill | Activities |
| Paying Attention: Limit Distractions | Read aloud from interactive books can build attention while introducing new words/concepts; try to engage all senses (touching, seeing, hearing, taste) |
| Managing Impulses: Model self-control and practice patience! | Play games like hide-and-seek to help manage impulses to be noisy or allow you to find where they are located. |
| Adapting to Change: Encouraging new activities! | Model play using toys as real objects (i.e., feeding a baby doll or making a stuffed animal frog make ribbit noises and hop. |
| Managing Feelings: Create a safe environment and build emotional vocabulary/understanding | Take turns making gestures/modeling to describe how your child feels.
Read emotion-themed books with characters experiencing different emotions. Begin labeling their emotions “I see you’re feeling frustrated because xyz.” |
| Getting Started: Set expectations, break things down, and offer support along the way! | Provide access to items that they can use to help start tasks. For example, a mini vacuum or broom to help with cleaning tasks (place within reach)
Praise them for taking the initiative to start a task. Use sibling or peer to model behavior. |
| Remembering Information: recalling and using the information at a later time. | Repeat songs, stories, and rhymes; engage in sensory activities to expose them to different textures/scents/sights; when engaging in activities, describe what is happening. |
| Getting Organized: set and meeting goals to handle tasks happening now and in the future | Model organizing and sorting toys/objects a certain way and label the items as you do it (e.g., I am going to put the blue truck with the blue block because they are both blue)
Have clear storage bins or pictures on bins so children know where things go. Teach prepositions (in, on top of, behind). |
| Staying on Track: checking your own performance while completing a task | Break tasks into small steps using visual cues and reminders; |
| Managing Stuff: keeping track of materials/belongings | Place picture cards where certain items go so they can begin to associate places with things; use clean-up songs to help establish a routine |
Preschoolers 24-36 Months
| Executive Function Skill | Activities |
| Paying Attention: Limit Distractions | Provide simple choices (using tangible or visuals paired with verbals, when possible, to enhance communication) on which activity they would prefer to do to keep them engaged.
Ask comprehension questions at storytime to keep them engaged. Begin cooking/baking together. |
| Managing Impulses: Model self-control and practice patience! | Use visuals with behavior expectations and use positive language (i.e., use ‘walk inside’ instead of ‘no running inside’).
Provide physical outlets like running, jumping, or dancing to release excess energy. Practice sharing and turn-taking. |
| Adapting to Change: Encouraging new activities! | Provide verbal warning before transitions/changes in activities.
Create transition activities to help them shift from one activity to another (i.e., coloring before naptime). |
| Managing Feelings: Create a safe environment and build emotional vocabulary/understanding | Hold a mirror in front of your face and practice facial expression and labeling different emotions; provide validation of emotions and comfort.
Use a feeling chart with different facial expressions to help identify feelings. |
| Getting Started: Set expectations, break things down, and offer support along the way! | Use “first, then” statements to help prioritize directions (i.e., “first brush teeth, then change for bed”).
Provide visual schedule cards with steps broken down. Begin teaching them how to plan outfits. |
| Remembering Information: recalling and using the information at a later time. | Play simple memory card games and sequencing activities (i.e., building blocks, stacking cups, creating a story)
Involve in simple cooking tasks; play games like “I Spy” Label places in the house to help them remember where items belong |
| Getting Organized: set and meeting goals to handle tasks happening now and in the future | Model planning an activity. For example, “I am going to put all these blue blocks over here so I can build the first floor of my house to be blue, then I am going to use the red blocks as my second floor. But first, I need to make sure I have enough blocks to build my house.”
Help children take things apart and put them back together |
| Staying on Track: checking your own performance while completing a task. | Observe and respond to frustrations or distractions, “I noticed that you stopped building your tower when this piece fell over; what could we do to help it stay?” |
| Managing Stuff: keeping track of materials/belongings | Allocate time to put toys away and provide immediate corrective feedback if the item is placed in the wrong spot. |
Preschool Kids 36-48 Months
| Executive Function Skill | Activities |
| Paying Attention: Limit Distractions | Create challenges for them to accomplish (i.e., the tallest tower possible using only 15 blocks).
Introduce games with rules and instructions in which they need to play cooperatively and sustain attention. |
| Managing Impulses: Model self-control and practice patience! | Reflect on impulsive incidents and what could be done differently.
Use a reward system like an “Impulse Jar” where they earn a token for controlling impulses. |
| Adapting to Change: Encouraging new activities! | Explore new places together.
Use stuffed animals/dolls to act out emotions related to change; begin to engage in collaborative problem-solving to brainstorm solutions to changes. |
| Managing Feelings: Create a safe environment and build emotional vocabulary/understanding | Begin to talk about how different emotions make our body feel (i.e., heart race, sweat).
Use a calm-down corner to calm down when feeling overwhelmed (make sure this is a safe/comfortable space and not punitive) |
| Getting Started: Set expectations, break things down, and offer support along the way! | Use a visual schedule and timer to help them understand what and when things are expected. Clearly communicate what is expected of them and let them know what it will look like when they have completed the task. |
| Remembering Information: recalling and using the information at a later time. | Encourage role-playing to recount events like play dates.
Ask them about their favorite activities/parts of last week. Engage in jigsaw puzzles and memory-matching games. |
| Getting Organized: set and meeting goals to handle tasks happening now and in the future | Encourage your child to point out similarities and differences between objects.
Ask questions like “What do we need to do this?” or “Where should we start?” |
| Staying on Track: Check your own performance while completing the task. | Encourage your child to review their work and look for ways to improve or think about things differently.
Did they do their best? What could they do better next time? |
| Managing Stuff: keeping track of materials/belongings | Provide a simple routine/chore chart for your child to follow. |
Pre-K Kids 48-60 Months
| Executive Function Skill | Activities |
| Paying Attention: Limit Distractions | Encourage your child to tell you stories with a beginning, middle, and end and prompt for additional details.
Plan structured activities where they explore topics/places/animals, gather information, and provide a report. |
| Managing Impulses: Model self-control and practice patience! | Model and practice expressing desires and feelings in more assertive and constructive ways to minimize impulsivity. |
| Adapting to Change: Encouraging new activities! | Practice flexibility games where rules change midway.
Visit places that are currently in transition (i.e., houses being built) to teach about growth and transformation. |
| Managing Feelings: Create a safe environment and build emotional vocabulary/understanding | Discuss different viewpoints to encourage understanding of perspective-taking and empathy.
Teach coping strategies (movement, distraction, relaxation, thought). |
| Getting Started: Set expectations, break things down, and offer support along the way! | Encourage creativity and independence! Allow them to choose and prioritize tasks; “What do you think we should begin with.”
Explain the purpose of the task or the WHY to help them understand its importance. |
| Remembering Information: recalling and using the information at a later time. | Teach a simple recipe and encourage them to cook from memory.
Introduce new vocabulary words and encourage them to use them in a sentence throughout the week. Discuss plots/characters/ideas of books, movies, and TV shows they have watched. |
| Getting Organized: set and meeting goals to handle tasks happening now and in the future | Help your child make a plan to complete a task with at least five steps.
Ask questions like “Why do we need to do this before this?” |
| Staying on Track: checking your own performance while completing tasks. | Discuss strategies to stay on task and have your child explain the steps they took to create or complete an activity or a task.
Encourage independent decision-making and discuss potential consequences of choices. Ask, “What did you learn?” |
| Managing Stuff: keeping track of materials/belongings | Use a reward chart to encourage cleaning up and assisting with chores. |
Final Thoughts
Lastly, remember that children learn most when parents model the behavior, use simple and clear instructions, and when they receive positive praise for their efforts! With your help, their executive functioning superpowers will strengthen and continue to grow and flourish as they enter school.
