Chat GPT generates an extensive list of the sub skills included in the executive functioning skills umbrella term. These include, but aren’t limited to: Attention, Planning, Prioritization, Organization, Time Management, Working Memory, Self-Control, Flexibility, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Goal Setting, Task Initiation, Task Completion, Emotional Control, Impulse Control , Self-Monitoring, Task Switching

Stuart Brown, M.D. studies the importance of play in human development.

Getting ready for Kindergarten starts at birth! So many necessary human skill sets are practiced for YEARS before they are fine-tuned and we are ready to move on to the next step. Help your children get ready for school by understanding the layering of developmental steps required before they can learn to print their own names on their beautiful works of art!

What are the long term benefits of Imaginative Play? How does it affect Executive Functioning skills and Self-Regulation? Long story short, no matter what you hope for your children, they will NEED strong Executive Functioning skills. The ability to prioritize, organize, and problem-solve (to name a few!) cross every job and life situation you could possibly imagine. Help set them up for success.

Most children’s activities are beneficial in one way or another. Music lessons, sports teams, and art classes all teach essential skills. However, some types of play have become ‘lost’ over the last few decades. Children need to play freely and independently in an unstructured environment as well. This is where they learn to be creative, self-regulate, and independent.

Among many other things, play itself has changed drastically over the past few decades. Kids went from being outside in the backyard making mud pies and playing hide and seek to being inside in a lesson or on a screen. This shift has caused an observable change in the strength of kids Executive Functioning skill sets - namely their self-regulation, organization, and attention. Free imaginative play is key to helping them establish those types of skills.

Sand is an example of a toy that is more like a tool. It is multi-functional and infinite in its possibilities. Sprinkles on a mud cake? Walls for an intricate waterway? A hole to bury your dad in? You name it, sand can do it. It fosters imaginative play, which is essential practice for the development of Executive Functioning Skills.