My favorite part of Fall is shopping for the new school year. As I go down the aisles of school supplies, I can feel the palpable excitement for the beginning of the school year. This year, I want to recommend a few things to help set your child up for success in school.
With each new year one thing stands out to as the most essential skills for student success: executive functioning skills. If your child has these skills, success in school and life will come easily for them. And the best way to equip your child with these, is to practice these and model them at home.
So what are executive functioning skills?
According to Harvard University’s, Center on the Developing Child, executive functioning skills are “the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircraft on multiple runways, the brain needs this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals, and control impulses.”
Executive functioning skills are not something we are born with, but ones that we must learn over time. Children can develop these skills when we establish routines, model healthy social behavior, create and maintain supportive and reliable relationships. Set up a routine at home. Help your child to stick to the routine independently and effectively.
Create an inviting and organized study area for your child at home. Make a checklist of things they need to remember to pack in their backpacks to bring to school each day.
Maintain a home calendar to manage all of your families various activities. Time management is evermore crucial with increased extracurricular activities for children. All the activities that your child participates in are equally important. They need to make time to complete all the activities with dedication and integrity. Be careful not to overload your child’s calendar with too many activities. You can work with your child to manage your time on these activities meaningfully.
Teach your child to make to-do lists. Help them to figure out which tasks and activities need to be prioritized when. Break down bigger projects into smaller more manageable parts. Backwards plan major projects and set mini deadlines to finish all the smaller tasks leading up to the big project. Don’t forget to have your child check off tasks as they finish them. This will keep them motivated to continue on the bigger project.
Get your child a planner to maintain their academic tasks. Monitor this planner and help them to met their goals. Maintaining a planner for yourself will also go a long way to show your children the importance of managing your time and tasks.
Set a day aside every week, to clean and organize your child’s backpack. Invite them to clean and organize their room and study area at home. Keeping their study area clean and inviting will help them to consistently engage in study at home.
It is easier to set this up at the beginning of the year. The novelty of a new year will help them to build good routines. But as with any routine, set up is only one half of the battle, help them to maintain those routines by consistently checking in. Scaffold these to a point where eventually, your child can independently manage this on their own.
Harvard University, Center on the Developing Child, further states, “It is also important for children to exercise their developing skills through activities that foster creative play and social connection, teach them how to cope with stress, involve vigorous exercise, and over time, provide opportunities for directing their own actions with decreasing adult supervision.” All of our courses at Little Loudspeakers Academy can help your child to develop their executive functioning skills.
We hope that with these few practices your child will have a great new school year. To learn more tips and skills for success at school, enroll your child in our classes at, Little Loudspeakers Academy.
– Prof. Anju Vriksha