PARENTS

Talking to Kids About Executive Functions and Digital Technologies

Once you, as parent or teacher, have educated yourself about executive functions, it becomes easy for you to see how these skills are used across all aspects of life. LearningWorks for Kids provides a lengthy list of home- and school-based situations which require the skilled use of executive functions.  (See Real Life Skills.)  With this knowledge, you are better prepared to communicate with your children about how they can apply executive skills in many settings as well as how they might transfer the executive skills used in digital technology to use in the real world. 

Parents are able to encourage their children to use executive functions in almost any situation.  Structuring the environment in such a way that it forces children to make the use of executive functions automatic will be helpful. For example, storing their backpacks next to where they complete homework might help them to put their completed homework directly into their backpacks.  For younger children, this may require higher levels of structure, visual reminders, or rituals; older children may simply need to be cued or prompted.

Other strategies such as developing checklists to insure a child has materials for school, sports, or sleepovers may be helpful. Developing checklists or schedules with the child’s active involvement is a key for internalization of executive functions.

While LearningWorks focuses on using digital technologies to enhance executive functions, many other daily social, recreational, home-based, and educational activities require the use of executive functions. Parents can ask questions that help children with:

• Getting started on whatever they choose to do.  Have them ask themselves, “What do I need to get started?”
•  Self observation and understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses.  This will help children identify whether a goal is realistic, whether they have experience to do it or need help, or to think back on previous efforts at similar actions.
• Organization and planning.  This can help children to determine the steps they need to take, if they need certain materials, if there is a sequence that is necessary, and to develop an estimated time of how long a task might take.
• Flexibility.  Children will often run into some type of difficulty.  Providing them with coaching and assistance as to how to avoid frustration and deal with impediments to achieving their goals would be helpful.
• Self-monitoring.  Helping children to check how well they have done, assess their accomplishments, and think about how they might improve upon their activity.

Talking About Digital Technologies and Learning

It is helpful to talk to children about how they might learn from their game play and digital technology use. Introduce the concept that there is a lot to be learned while playing a video game, organizing their iPod, or creating their home page on My Space. The process of communication and later introspection on the part of your child is likely to help him/her in thinking about problem-solving skills. 


Other Topics to Talk About Include:

General Interests - Ask the child to identify the type of game or digital technology that he/she particularly enjoys. 

Limits on Game Play - Discuss the limitations of video games for learning. Set appropriate limits for time spent on game play and the types of games you allow at home.. And plan ways to balance digital play with other activities such as physical exercise and social interaction.

Learning from Game Play – It is important to help your child to step back and identify the process of learning featured in game play. It is also useful to talk about finding games that develop specific skills such as taking turns, creative opportunities, or developing a particular expertise.

The Challenges of Game Play – Talk to your child about choosing games that have multiple levels of difficulty in order to encourage exploration, chances to make decisions, and the development of mastery. Offer help to find games that have the right level of challenge so that your child strives towards mastery and avoids high levels of frustration.

Self-evaluation – Children often like talking about their game playing and digital technology experiences. Ask your children how they know if they’ve gotten better or how they solved problems when they were stuck.  Encourage them to articulate how their game play shows ways they like to learn and experience things. And to reinforce “making the connections”, help them to articulate the types of skills, such as planning, flexibility, or organization that are required in a game.