Studies indicate that more than 1 in 5 children struggle with executive functioning, which affects their ability to plan, organize, focus on, and complete tasks – or more broadly speaking, to effectively navigate all the cognitive processes involved to “get things done”. 

Unfortunately, executive functioning challenges can show up as or be perceived as resistance, lack of effort and motivation, and laziness.

f we were to take inventory of our interactions with our children, tracking how much we tend to correct vs how much we connect with them, what might you notice?  What would your child/teen say from his/her perspective?  If you took out a sheet of paper and kept track for a few days, what would it look like? We want our children to succeed and provide them with helpful direction, but it can be easy to fall into a pattern where most of our interactions are corrective in nature.

When you gain more control over your thoughts, through awareness and intention – a process and skill that takes practice – you have the ability to impact your feelings and actions and how you experience and handle what you encounter.

While we all have our natural and learned ways of viewing the world and our circumstances, and there are varying degrees of and reasons that play into thinking styles and thought patterns, our thoughts and the attention that we give them have the power to impact our course.