What Caregivers Think About Children’s Executive Functioning Skills and Self-Regulation Strategies
By Camellia Sanford-Dolly, Ashley Leon, Bryce Becker, Momo Hayakawa and Jennifer Borland
As young children grow, families play an important role in helping them develop the basic skills that support them in their everyday activities, learning, and relationships and set them up for future success. Such skills are often referred to as executive functioning skills and play a critical role in children’s cognitive growth (Carlson et al., 2013; Miyake et al., 2000). They include the following areas, condensed and simplified into child-friendly concepts:
- Focus: The ability to pay attention to something even when distractions happen around you
- Organize: The ability to keep track of different information and belongings, and put them in an order that makes sense to you
- Remember: The ability to hold new information in your mind to use when you need it
- Think Differently: The ability to try new things and find creative ways to solve a problem; learn from your mistakes and make changes
- Feel: The ability to check and show your emotions
To support these skills, individuals employ self-regulation strategies — tools and techniques that help a person achieve calmness and concentration to prime their brains to effectively use their executive functioning skills. These strategies can be things like counting to 10, breathing deeply, moving around, or thinking about something you are proud of or that makes you happy.
To better understand what caregivers think about their children’s executive functioning skills and self-regulation strategies, a team of researchers at Rockman et al Cooperative (REA) surveyed and interviewed caregivers with the following questions in mind:
- How do caregivers notice their young children using executive functioning skills in their daily lives?
- What behaviors related to executive functioning skills do caregivers think are easiest or hardest for their children to do?
- What kinds of self-regulation strategies do caregivers use most often with their children?
In Summer 2021, the REA research team surveyed 686 racially and socioeconomically diverse individuals who were parents or caregivers of a 5–8-year old child. We then interviewed 30 of these caregivers to gather more in-depth information around their perceptions of their children’s executive functioning skills and self-regulation strategies.
How do young children use executive functioning skills in their daily lives?
During their interviews, caregivers were asked to provide examples of ways that their children demonstrated these skills in everyday situations.
Focus. Caregivers mentioned physical signs that their children were concentrating on an activity, like staring intently or biting their lips. One caregiver observed that her daughter “sticks her tongue out when she is working on something like drawing or something she really needs to pay attention to.”
Organize. Caregivers noted that this skill showed up in two ways: 1) Children cleaning up after themselves or putting objects back in a specific location, and 2) placing objects or doing activities in a particular order. For example, one caregiver shared that her daughter “likes to keep her play kitchen organized. Starting to think ahead and plan out her day, so her schedule is organized. What are the plans after swim practice? What would be for dinner?”
Remember. Caregivers talked about remembering in terms of remembering facts for school, manners, and especially daily routines. For example, one caregiver noted that her daughter remembers “to brush her teeth, say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you,’ wash her hands, and get dressed in the morning.” Notably, these types of memory are different from the executive function skill known as working memory, which involves holding new information in your head and using it to perform a task (like when you remember a list of things to pick up at the grocery store without writing them down). The way that caregivers thought about remembering in their children’s lives shows the kinds of skills that they are working on and prioritizing at home with their 5–8-year-olds.
Think Differently. Caregivers talked about changing their children’s mindset from negative to positive when something did not happen as planned. For example, one caregiver shared that her daughter “had to re-do Kindergarten. I talked with her about having new friends and old friends and how she would still be able to see them on the playground.” Another caregiver thought that understanding her sibling’s lived experience helped her daughter to think differently: “Her brother has autism. Try to look at things through his perspective, and that helps her with empathy and understanding.”
Feel. Caregivers noted that controlling emotions, such as anxiety, was sometimes difficult for children to move towards a more positive mindset. One caregiver stated that difficult feelings sometimes come up for her son “when he has homework to do but also wants to do other things with his day. He feels overwhelmed and as if he cannot get it all done. He needs to calm down.”
What behaviors related to executive functioning skills do caregivers think are easiest or hardest for their children to do?
Caregivers reflected on behaviors that were easy for their children to do, just right for their child, or difficult for their child to do. Caregivers shared that “responding well to disappointments”, “self-correcting behavior,” and “managing emotions” were the most difficult skills for their children to master (50%, 38%, and 38% respectively).
What kinds of self-regulation strategies do caregivers use most often with their children?
Survey respondents were asked what strategies they used to encourage their children to calm down when upset, and their answers were categorized into common themes. Among the 674 caregivers who answered this question, the top five self-regulation strategies included:
- Breathing exercises (56% of survey respondents)
- Taking a break or removing themselves from the situation (27%)
- Talking about what happened (23%)
- Asking the child to articulate their feelings or describe why they are upset (20%)
- Spending time by themselves (16%)
Most caregivers use a combination of strategies with their children. For example, one caregiver shared that they encourage their child to “take a deep breath, remove themselves from the situation, come back and talk.” Similarly, another caregiver uses a multi-pronged approach of breathing techniques and talking about what happened: “First, I encourage her to explain what has her upset. This allows her to rethink the situation. I then ask her to take 10 big, deep breaths. After her breaths, if she is ready, we talk about ways to change what made them upset or ways of dealing with it without getting upset.”
During interviews, caregivers revealed self-regulation strategies that their children use specifically when engaging in one of the five executive functioning skills.
Strategies that families use to help children FOCUS: Some caregivers said that finding a quiet place helped their children to focus better. Other strategies include making lists or taking notes, thinking about the objective of a task, and pausing, regrouping, or redirecting to complete an activity:
“I leave her alone when she needs to be focused. I do not talk too loud. I come over when she calls and needs help with something.”
“She likes to go to a quiet place, so she can work in silence with no interruptions.”
“I tell my daughter to step back and remind her of the directions of what she needs to be doing.”
Strategies that children use while trying to ORGANIZE: Caregivers said their children will often clean or put things away in a pre-designated location in an effort to be more organized. Additionally, they said their children will plan ahead or engage in routines where they do activities in a certain order:
“She matches up her shoes and puts them in order.”
“He has like a spot for his shoes, a spot for his backpack…At school, he has like a routine of what he has to do when he gets to class, and then he has a similar routine when he gets home…And I think that helps him stay organized.”
Strategies that children use while trying to REMEMBER: According to caregivers, children have many strategies to remember things, such as utilizing schedules, images, singing, movement, writing things down, repeating things, and planning ahead:
“[She] writes things down and takes pictures of things on the tablet that she wants to remember.”
“Repetition. Singing. She puts things she wants to remember into a song. Movement to reinforce a task.”
Strategies that children use while trying to THINK DIFFERENTLY: Caregivers noted that their children will communicate with the rest of their family and tell them when they have chosen to think differently about something. Caregivers also said their child tend to be less irritable when something doesn’t go as expected (e.g., no temper tantrums), will change their mind about a previously held belief or perspective, and/or take the time to change their responses to a situation to indicate that they are thinking differently about something:
“When she accidentally upsets someone and needs to be reminded to step back and reflect on what she did not upset the other person, what happened, and how it could have been avoided.”
“She’ll actually articulate it. She’ll come back and say, ‘Oh, I was, you know, I was wrong,’ or, ‘Thank you. I was really upset at that time,’ and like let us know that she’s past that moment and she sees it differently.”
Strategies that families use to help children FEEL: Children had several strategies to identify, regulate, and express their emotions. Caregivers shared that their children often take deep breaths, count, close their eyes, sit or lie down, walk away from the situation or go somewhere to be alone, play, do art, read, use technology to distract themselves, talk to themselves or to others, cry or let the emotions out, or receive comfort from their caregiver:
“We make eye contact, breathe, talk about something enjoyable or something that she is excited about to help her get out of the moment and look forward to something else.”
“Breathing, holding a deep breath for five seconds and breathing slowly. I give him space, remind him where he can go in the house to calm down (e.g., bedroom & stairs).”
Summary and Implications
Overall, caregivers are noticing that their children are engaging in skills that support their cognitive development. Young children are focusing, organizing, remembering, thinking differently, and feeling in everyday situations. They are also utilizing strategies to help them better hone those skills, including talking about their feelings and things going on in their lives, stepping back when things get overwhelming, and taking deep breaths or doing activities that bring them back to a positive and relaxed mental state. Caregivers are supporting their children’s efforts and, by doing so, are helping them to develop into confident people who will make their unique contributions in the world.
The contents of this program were developed under the Ready to Learn grant grant from the U.S. Department of Education (PR S295A200002) awarded to Twin Cities PBS. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
To learn more about Rockman et al Cooperative visit: rockman.com.
