Have you ever heard it said, “Attitude is everything”? Did you know you have a unique opportunity to teach your child how to handle stress by modeling it for them? Our job as parents and educators is to encourage children to develop a passion for learning and a desire to push through life’s challenges, both inside and outside of the classroom. This can be achieved by empowering students to take ownership of their attitudes towards learning and performance, seeing failures as learning opportunities through the development of a “growth mindset.”

Executive Functions are a collection of processes or interrelated functions responsible for guiding, directing, managing cognition, emotions, and behavior, particularly in novel problem solving situations¹. The fact that Executive Functions may be improved by means of cognitive training is of particular importance in childhood and adolescence, because Executive Functioning is a strong predictor for various life outcomes, such as academic attainment, socioeconomic status, and physical health². Read on to learn more about these crucial brain skills, how the brain develops, and what parents and teachers can do to help students strengthen their Executive Functioning skills.