Corner 01: Executive function at home
What executive function means at the kitchen table rather than in a textbook: working memory, time, starting, stopping and shifting, explained in plain words for parents, with the home systems that quietly support each one.
The corner guide
Working guides in this corner
Executive function at home Emotional Weather and Executive Function How tiredness, hunger, excitement and worry shrink the capacity a child has for remembering, waiting and shifting, and how families plan the day around the weather rather than against it. Executive function at home Flexible Thinking: When Plans Change Mid-Stream Why a changed plan can feel so large to a child who was holding the original plan tightly, and how Plan B scripts, early warnings and small practised changes make shifts easier to bear. Executive function at home From Prompts to Independence: Fading Support Gradually How to step support back in small, planned stages - from doing alongside, to pointing, to a check at the end - so independence grows without the cliff edge of support suddenly vanishing. Executive function at home Organisation Skills Grow Slowly: A Realistic View A realistic view of how organisation grows: one place for each thing, one habit at a time, measured over terms rather than weeks, with the home doing more of the sorting as skills build. Executive function at home Strengths First: Noticing What Your Child's Brain Does Well A practical habit of noticing and naming what your child does well - energy, ideas, humour, loyalty, hyperfocus on loved topics - and building home systems that use those strengths daily. Executive function at home Task Initiation: Why Starting Is the Hard Part Why the first two minutes of a task can be the hardest part of the whole job, and how a tiny, visible first step and a start ritual lower the hill your child has to climb. Executive function at home The Parent as External Memory: Scaffolding That Helps How parents already act as their child's external memory, and how to move that job onto charts, places and objects step by step, so support helps without exhausting the helper. Executive function at home The Pause Button: Helping a Child Stop and Think How a practised pause - a word, a place, a breath and a next step agreed in calm times - gives a child a way to stop mid-moment at home, without shame and without lectures. Executive function at home Time Blindness at Home: Why Five Minutes Means Nothing Why warnings like five more minutes often fail to land, and how visible timers, time checks and honest comparisons make passing time something a child can see and use. Executive function at home Why Consequences Alone Do Not Teach Planning Why forgetting, lateness and lost kit keep happening even when the consequences are real and felt, and what does teach planning at home: practised systems, rehearsal and repair routines. Executive function at home Working Memory at Home: Why Instructions Vanish Why a three-part instruction can vanish between the kitchen and the bedroom, and how short, written and one-at-a-time instructions let the home carry the remembering instead.