Executive Functioning Skills

By Kristen Powers
TPL Concierge Specialist
January 16, 2024

What are Executive Functioning Skills?

Executive Functioning Skills (EF skills) are the mental processes that enable us to complete daily life tasks and facilitate the behaviors necessary to plan and meet goals. Consider all the tasks you must complete on a given day. Perhaps you write out your to-do list, add them to notes into your phone, or put them into a calendar. This is an example of an executive functioning task that demonstrates your organizational and initiation skills. By keeping your tasks, priorities, and errands listed, you can move through your day with more ease knowing what comes next and planning accordingly. Just as adults need to manage our time and attention, children do as well. Executive functioning skills are necessary for a child’s school success and growth on their educational journey.

Having strong EF skills enables students to meet goals, keep up with academics, maintain appropriate social relationships, and achieve overall academic and school success.

Long-term Impacts

Ideally, our ultimate goal as parents and caregivers is to foster a sense of independence within our children and a gradual release of responsibilities to them over time. By honing EF skills under the tutelage of caregivers and educators, students are readily equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to help them grow into productive, contributing members of the community. Lacking these skills may result in difficulty with everyday life including home management, budgeting, cleaning, timeliness, reliability, and career success. It is imperative to support our children in developing executive functioning skills now in order to give them the best springboard for launching into life beyond high school graduation.