Executive Functioning During Covid: What Can You Do?
If you have a student who struggles with their executive functioning skills, you might have noticed those struggles become more pronounced over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. For a more detailed breakdown of what the executive functioning skills are, check out our recent post, but here is a good working definition:
During the pandemic, you might have noticed your child struggling to “close the loop” on assignments, procrastinating more frequently, and having trouble managing their time effectively. These trends, all common signs of students with developing EF skills, are being noticed across the board as a result of Covid-19, and particularly the move to remote learning. Here’s why that is, and how we can help.
Disrupted Learning Routines
State-Dependent Learning refers to the scientifically observed phenomenon which has shown that memories are retained more effectively when the conditions are kept consistent. In other words, we as humans are more likely to remember something when we are in the same location, state of mind, and time of day as when we first learned it. Memory is one of the most important EF skills, and, like all executive functioning skills, all children struggle with it as their brains develop.
This phenomenon has profound implications for schoolwork. It means that to study most effectively, it is crucial to have a defined study location that is NOT a location in which you do many other things. Studying in your bedroom, the dining room, or a playroom, is not an effective way to study, because your brain associates them with relaxation. The routine-heavy structure of the in-person school is in part designed to promote state-dependent learning. When a student enters their classroom, their brain is clued in that it is time to learn.
So of course, remote learning is very troublesome for state-dependent learning, and disrupts the development of crucial EF skills! When students have to study in their bedrooms at home, their brain is forced to adapt to a new routine for learning, a skill that is still developing in young people. And, since they are obviously going to use that room for other things besides school (sleep, relaxing, socializing over Zoom,) it takes far longer for the brain to recognize them as learning spaces.
What Can You Do?
If possible, try to give your child a defined “remote learning space.” Perhaps a home office that can be free, or. a desk set up in the living room. Anything you can find that can give your child a place to do their work that ISN’T a place where they eat, play, sleep or talk to their friends. It is also a good idea to set up a school-Esque routine at home, to help their brain recognize that location as a place for learning. This will help the lessons stick, build their executive functioning skills, and also give them a sense of normalcy amid the chaos.
More Steps for Turning in Homework
As any parent whose child struggles with executive functioning knows, turning in homework can be very troublesome for those students. Task completion is an important EF skill, so these students often do their homework and forget to complete the task by turning the assignment in.
And, since so many schools are fully or partially remote, students don’t get the built-in reminder of the teacher collecting the homework. Instead, most schools require some form of online submission. It often involves:
Completing the assignment
Taking a picture of it
Emailing that picture to yourself
downloading that picture
Uploading the picture to the school’s online portal.
For an adult with fully developed executive functioning skills, this is not a huge deal. But for a child whose EF skills are still developing, this is a lot of steps, with so many chances to get distracted, and ultimately fail to complete the task. Teachers are seeing so much work right now going missing in the completion stage.
What Can You Do?
Since there are so many steps in this homework turn-in process, a checklist can be a very helpful tool. It could double as a fun arts and crafts style activity for you and your child: making the checklist of all the steps required to TURN IN an assignment, decorating it, and keeping it in their remote learning space from a few paragraphs ago.
An iCal alert can also be very helpful. We need to replicate the reminder their brain gets in school to complete the task. So setting an iCal alert for the end of the day to “turn in ______” can help jog their memory, and help them stay on track with their executive functioning development.
Stress and Anxiety
This is one that we are all VERY familiar with. The pandemic has affected everyone in different ways, but one major similarity is a huge increase in stress and anxiety. The CDC has seen a tremendous increase in depression, anxiety, and stress across all age groups throughout Covid-19.
Children are far from immune to this surge. In fact, some studies have the increase in symptoms of anxiety disorders among teens during Covid 19 is as high as 29%. Anxiety and stress have a tremendous impact on executive functioning. Anxiety is the brain's reaction to a perceived threat; it sees a tiger standing in the doorway. And when that tiger is in the doorway (whether it’s real or not) it sends signals on how to deal with it. Those signals are helpful for, say, running from a tiger, but not for multi-tasking, organizing, or completing tasks. And, with remote school and a constant cycle of uncertain and scary news, there have been many “tigers in the doorway” to keep our children’s brains from developing their executive functioning.
What Can You Do:
Take the pressure off. Many schools have done this with longer, less stringent deadlines for assignments, and lighter overall workloads. We need to find ways to make the tiger that the brain sees in the doorway smaller and smaller, so the brain can get back to the task of developing important executive functioning skills. Schedule breaks into your child’s day, where they get off their screens and read, play outside or do something creative. Make sure to check in on them about how they are feeling, not just their assignments. And above all, remind them that you are there for them by modeling healthy habits. This does not mean lying to them or pretending that everything is fine. It just means going about your day, thinking positively, and showing them healthy things to do like exercising, getting good sleep, and eating well. Doing these things will help keep your child’s executive functioning development on track, and help us ultimately get through this together.