Developing Children and Teenagers’ Executive Functioning Skills

Executive functioning skills are responsible for skills such as organizing and planning, staying on task, listening to other people’s perspectives, regulating emotion, time management, and self-control. According to Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, “Executive function and self-regulation skills depend on three types of brain function: memory, mental flexibility, and self-control.” But people are not born with executive functioning skills; they need regular, daily practice from childhood through adulthood to develop them.

Recreational and team gymnastics, also called participation and performance gymnastics, can develop children and teenagers’ executive functioning skills. Gymnastics give children and teenagers the opportunity to practice and refine their executive functioning skills, such as staying on task during a lesson, receiving feedback from their coaches and peers, regulating their emotions throughout the lesson, and blocking out distractions in the gym.

For parents who are new to gymnastics or want to get their children or teenagers started with gymnastics, start with the beginning participation class at our gym!

Try This At Home:

• Develop a regular practice where the entire family learns and refines their executive functioning skills, such as organizing a room to help with organizational skills or planning a party to help with planning skills. Give children and teenagers specific age-appropropriate tasks and deadlines to develop their time management and memory skills.

• Regularly talk about emotional coping skills as a family. Perhaps around a favorite meal time, have a discussion about a time when each family member felt the most disappointed and how they learned to cope with their feelings of disappointment.

• Develop a list of age-appropriate coping skills for different emotions–anger, resentment, sadness, jealousy, etc.–that the family can practice together and reflect upon.

Want to Learn More? Read This!

• Ellen Galinsky’s Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

• Peg Dawson and Richard Guare’s Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention

• Richard Guare, Peg Dawson, and Colin Guare’s Smart but Scattered Teens: The “Executive Skills” Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential

Works Cited

Dawson, Peg, and Richard Guare. Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention. The Guilford Press, 2010.

Center on the Developing Child. “Executive Function and Self-Regulation.” Harvard University. 2022. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/executive-function/