What Are Executive Functions and How Do They Impact Behaviour?

Someone recently told me that I don’t have a podcast or blog post on something I talk about all the time and my jaw just about hit the floor when I realized

Oh crap! They’re right!

Though I know you’ve likely heard me talk about executive functioning skills before, I haven’t “formally” discussed them outside of ParentAbility and I think it’s a great time to remedy that!

Because these skills quite literally dictate our ability to do just about everything.

You know that morning routine you have; stumbling to the coffee machine to turn it on so your coffee is ready by the time you’re done in the restroom? That’s executive functioning skills.

Calculating if you have enough time to do a U-turn and grab the form that needed to be turned in to your child’s teacher today? Execute functioning skills.

Choosing to take a deep breath and smile when a rude person shoves their way in front of you at the coffee shop instead of using colorful, potty words? 😤

Yup! You guessed it! 🥳 That’s you using executtive functioning skills!

These feel so everyday and run-of-the-mill to us as adults, that it’s easy to forget that these are learned and practiced skills. We didn’t just pop out already knowing how to problem solve and resist impulses.

The same goes for your child.

I use the analogy all the time: trying to function without strong EF skills is the equivalent of trying to cut down down a tree with a dull saw. Miserable and ineffective.

What’s often labled as misbehavior is usually just a deficit or lapse in a skill needing to be refined and practiced.

So, in this episode I’m going to share what those different executive functioning skills are and how it’s impacting your child’s behavior.

I’m also going to give you a sneak peak of the 3-step strategy I teach the parents inside of the paid membership ParentAbility. 👀

Grab the Scripts to Manage the Top 10 Crazy-Making Behaviours: prnt.link/scripts Watch the video recording here: Join the Parenting Posse: prnt.link/group the Mudroom is recorded live every Wednesday at 1:30pm ET/ 12:30pm CT/ 10:30am PT on Facebook: facebook.com/arfamilyservices