Wednesday, January 13, 2021 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
GOAL — OBSTACLE — PLAN — DO — REVIEW
Executive skills and your child’s success
By Mitchell Luftig
Columnist
According to Center on the Developing
Child, Harvard University, “executive func-
tion and self-regulation skills are the mental
processes that enable us to plan, focus atten-
tion, remember instructions, and juggle mul-
tiple tasks successfully. … the brain needs
this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize
tasks, set and achieve goals, and control
impulses.”
Executive Skills enable your child/adoles-
cent to:
• Set meaningful goals.
• Develop a plan (roadmap) that lays out
the steps to take to complete a goal, materials
that will be needed, and how much time each
step should take.
• Recall directions.
• Start work right away.
• Organize resources (e.g., papers, assign-
ment sheets, books) that are needed to com-
plete assignments.
• Decide how much time and effort to allot
to each assignment.
• Complete work in a logical sequence.
• Monitor their work to ensure that they’ve
completed assignments correctly.
Referring to the following chart, are there
weaknesses you can spot in your child/ado-
lescent’s executive skills?
SMART GOAL:
Ask your child or adolescent to formulate a smart goal.
Is the goal they selected...
• specific? (I will improve my addition skills)
• measurable? (I will complete three math worksheets
each day)
• attainable? (I can complete worksheets independently)
• relevant? (addition facts will help me solve story
problems)
• time-bound? (I will practice addition skills for three
weeks)
Write Smart Goal here:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
IDENTIFY OBSTACLES:
EXECUTIVE SKILL POSSIBLE SIGNS OF EXECUTIVE WEAKNESSES
Goal Setting
Living in the moment, children/adolescents may be “blind” to the future and
the need to develop and complete short-term and long-term goals.
Plan
Children/adolescents may start a project without having gathered the
materials they will need, they may not be able to break goals into a series of
manageable steps, or they don’t give themselves sufficient time to complete
a project.
Children/adolescents may find it difficult to get started, leading parents and
teachers to conclude they are just being oppositional.
Initiate
13
Brainstorm with your child/adolescent what obstacles
might keep them from achieving their goal? (e.g., They
procrastinate on starting assignments, they get easily
distracted).
Write Obstacles Here:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
PLAN OF ATTACK
Organize
Children/adolescents may be disorganized, losing important papers, turning
in incomplete work, or creating unrealistic schedules.
Brainstorm with your child/adolescent,
Prioritize
Children/adolescents may spend too much time on small projects while
neglecting big projects. They may not be able to pick out “key ideas” when
note-taking.
Children/adolescents may “skip steps” in an assignment, may have difficulty
telling a story in chronological order, or they may “jump the gun” socially.
• What materials and resources will they need to achieve
their goal? __________________________________
___________________________________________
Sequence
Working Memory
Self-Monitor
Children/adolescents may find it difficult to recall instructions, juggle
multiple tasks, and retrieve relevant information from memory.
Children/adolescents may not check to see if they’ve completed each step
of an assignment, they may not pace themselves so they finish a project on
time, they may not check an assignment for accuracy before turning it in.
Adapted from “overview of executive dysfunction,” Leslie E. Packer, Ph.D.
The following table lays out a powerful
strategy that you can use to help your child/
adolescent strengthen their executive skills.
It follows the Goal—Obstacle—Plan—Do—
Review format.
Goal: Ask your child or adolescent to
think of a short-term or long-term goal
they would like to accomplish. The goal
may be academic (improving math skills,
writing a book report), social (asking
someone to a school dance, making a new
friend), or behavioral (sitting quietly while
the teacher is talking, raising a hand before
speaking).
The next step is to ask your child or ado-
lescent to rewrite their general goal as a smart
goal, so that it meets all of the following
criteria.
THE GOAL SHOULD BE:
• How will they deal with obstacles? ______________
___________________________________________
• Is there someone they might need help from? ______
___________________________________________
Break Goal into a Manageable Number of Steps:
Step #1 _______________________________________
Time Frame_____________
Step #2 _______________________________________
Time Frame_____________
Step #3 _______________________________________
Time Frame_____________
Step #4 _______________________________________
Time Frame_____________
DO
Your child or adolescent should cross out each step as
they complete it
SPECIFIC: Exactly what does your child or adolescent need to do?
MEASURABLE: How much needs to be completed
before the goal is achieved?
ATTAINABLE: The goal should be realistic.
RELEVANT: The goal should lead to an improvement
in academic, social, or behavioral skills.
TIME-BOUND: The goal should be accomplished
within a specified amount of time.
REVIEW
Ask your child,
Did you achieve your goal?
What did you find helpful?
What did you learn from your success?
Or
What didn’t work and why?
What would you do differently next time?
What did you learn from the experience?
MATH
SQUARES
Use the numbers 1 through 16
to complete the equations.
Use the numbers 1 through 25
to complete the equations.
Each number is only used once.
Each number is only used once.
Each row is a math equation.
Each column is a math
equation.
Each row is a math equation.
Each column is a math
equation.
Remember that multiplication
and division are performed
before addition and subtraction.
Remember that multiplication
and division are performed
before addition and subtraction.