Erica: Welcome to the Executive Function Brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.
Darius: And I'm Darius Nomdaran, and we're your hosts.
Erica: So I am really excited to be here today with Nancy Platt Dauwd, and she is my business partner. We are both executive functioning coaches and educational therapists, and we are out of New York, and this is the first time I've had Nancy on the podcast. And it's great to have you here.
Darius Namdaran: It's great to be here. Really happy to be here. This will be fun. It's going to be a blast. Yeah. We get to talk about some of our favorite things.
Erica: Yeah. And our favorite inspiration. Our students.
Darius Nomdaran: Indeed. As always.
Erica: So, today we want to talk about building executive functioning skills over the summer.
Darius Nomdaran: Yes. And it's appropriate because as it so happens, in this spring day in the Northeast, it is like a summer day.
Erica: So it is like a summer day. And this podcast will be released sometime in June.
Darius Nomdaran: So it's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfect. We're definitely channeling summer vibes.
Erica: So let's talk a little bit about the summer advantage, and disadvantage executive functioning skills.
Darius Nomdaran: Exactly. I mean, I think this conversation's going to be really, really geared towards a lot, towards parents, because planning, having an entire summer to plan for and think about, what are you going to do to keep the kids busy? It can be daunting. And so, like, what do families do?
Erica: Right. If they do nothing and there's no structure and there's no organization to it, it can be a little bit of, ah, an executive functioning problem. However, if it's highly organized, it could be advantageous to executive functioning. And if you let the kids, be involved in the planning and the time management and the organization of the whole thing, then it can be an even better executive functioning tool for training executive functioning skills.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, I just think yes to all of that because I think structure is one of those things that a lot of the kids that we work with, they thrive in those conditions. They need it. It makes them feel safer and certainly giving them a role in creating that structure, that ownership. You can get a lot of buy in. There's certainly a huge opportunity there. And at some point, I think we should also maybe touch on the value of how to appreciate the unstructured time, because that's something our kids don't get a lot of. So sometimes it can set them off the rails. But there's a huge value in, I think, in unstructured time and, dare I say it, the dirty word of boredom. Yeah.
Erica: Or even downtime. There are lots of different words we can use, right?
Darius Nomdaran: But I'm thinking to the word that kids use, right? I mean, boredom. mom, I'm bored. I'm so bored. That's. I mean, we hear that. We hear that frequently, I think especially certainly a lot more than we did when you and I were growing up. I mean, we're practically dinosaurs compared to the digital age that the kids are growing up in now, right? I mean, yeah, But I'm thinking back to that funny video that, that went sort of viral a couple years ago about you drank out of a hose where there are no sinks. When that comedian goes off on, on the shirtless beanie wearing guy.
Erica: I don't.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, it's. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. I can send that to you. It made the rounds a couple years ago.
Erica: Just describe what the essence of it is.
Darius Nomdaran: So there's this beanie wearing sort of. I don't even know what gen he is shirtless guy, he leans into the camera and it's his TikTok. And he says, so I hear that a while ago, some of you used to drink out of the hose. Were sinks not an option? And the woman that replies to him, who is probably around our age, she leans in and she's like, who wants to tell him? Do you want to tell him? I'll tell him. Okay, sir, no. Sinks were not an option. We were not allowed inside. We were the last of the feral children. We were sent outside in the morning, and we were not allowed back in the house until the lights went on at night. And she just goes through the whole thing. And I thought about it and I was like, yeah, that was my childhood. And, and it was pretty much unstructured, and we had to sort of make it up for ourselves. We had to figure out where we were going, what we were doing, what games we would play, whose yard we were going to play in, how annoyed their parents were going to get, and how would we know what time it was to leave that yard and skedaddle to another one so that we didn't wear out our welcome and so that we could always get like a drink of lemonade or at least drink out of the hose at the house that
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Darius Nomdaran: we were at? Right? And we would go, because I was not a camp kid, and we would go from, from home to home and yard to yard and we would map out our day and. But there were times where there was nothing to do and we legit were bored. We had nothing to do. And that the Opportunity that. That gave us to create and think of things to do and use our imaginations. I mean, that's where every fort I ever built in the woods came from. That's where every sort of plan to build a tree house with a hammer and no wood. Right. that's where that all came from. Making up games. And so there's, I guess I want to say yes to structure and also notice the benefits of helping kids just sort of sit and figure it out. And also, not for anything, boredom is great for developing that frustration tolerance, which, you know, I mean, it makes you sit in the uncomfortable, and a lot of kids can't. And there's. It's. Yes, it's hard. It's hard to be uncomfortable. It's also a skill that you develop, and it doesn't happen through magical fairy dust that comes sprinkled on at a certain age. So if parents want their kids to be more tolerant, they have to give them opportunities to practice tolerant.
Erica: And you're creative. You hit something.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, no, that's where creativity comes from. Figuring it out. Like, oh, I'm so bored. And that's when the mind wakes up because it doesn't like boredom. Our brains don't love boredom. They like to be calm. Yes. But they don't love to be under stimulated. And so when there is no outside stimulation, our brain's going to look for it inside. But if we're constantly feeding it to our kids, if we're constantly giving. Here's an iPad. Oh, here's a show. Why don't you watch a show? Oh, like, why don't you do this craft? Oh, well, let's send you. How about this? We'll schedule something after school every day to keep Johnny busy. It doesn't provide that sort of downtime that gives the child enough space, cognitive sort of space, to create on their own. And I think there's a huge value in that. Oops, I got to jump off my soapbox. I'm sorry about that.
Erica: No, it's a good soapbox to be on. And I was enjoying it and was reliving the same stuff when I was growing up. I mean, you and I met when we were about 13, and we absolutely continued that outside exploration. And we weren't in until the streetlights came on, so. But yeah, that started at a very young age. An imaginary play. And that's really the foundation to visualization. We really developed our visualization skills as children because we did a lot of imaginary play. I think some kids do, and some kids don't do enough of that anymore.
Erica: Because the imaginary play is kind of handed to them on a platter. On an iPhone platter, iPad platter.
Darius Nomdaran: Right.
Erica: Where the imagination is already there. And then they interact with that imagination. But they're not necessarily building their own.
Darius Nomdaran: Correct. Yeah.
Erica: There's something really magical about that. And that is building the foundation skills of executive functioning of, the working memory, the inhibitory control, the cognitive flexibility. But yeah, the creativity. You're right. I mean, it's funny. I can't imagine being bored. I'm never bored. Because if there's time, I'm like, oh my God, I could do this and I could do this and I could do this. Wow. And yeah, and I think that's largely because we grew up in that, that generation. I'd never thought about it quite that way. And I'm really glad. And I had not seen that video.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, I'll send it to you. It's funny.
Erica: Thank you. And I will post it in the show notes so other people can see it if they like. Well, but yeah, so let's get into what can we do? What can parents do? What can learning specialists do? Also, sometimes teachers are involved in the summer, and they might suggest things for students to do over the summer.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah.
Erica: So what are some things that we can recommend? I mean, I know you and I are big into games.
Darius Nomdaran: Love games. Absolutely. Love games. If you want to start talking about games, they're family games, card games, board games. Let's think about all the things people do in the summer. So if you're sitting home in the afternoon or in the evening with your family, with your kids, there are huge opportunities. Now we can go to Monopoly, the old standbys. Right. What board games are great for is a whole host of, of executive function and skill building. And there are just not enough, I have a ton of games, and I love them and I believe in them.
Erica: Well, it's interesting because yes, we do have board games and we have card games, but we even have like outside games. Right. And because so
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Erica: many kids are inside during the day; it's a wonderful opportunity to go outside. And kids can invent games or you can do. Oh, for me personally, when I was a kid, I loved nothing more than an obstacle course.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, fabulous.
Erica: You know, but if you design your own obstacle course in the backyard, forget about it. I mean, then you're working on timing, you're working on coordination, you're working on planning, and if you build something, I mean, it can be great fun.
Darius Nomdaran: Likewise, Ye old fashioned scavenger, huh? Hunt. There is nothing better than scavenger hunts for. And that's just tremendous for decoding to spatial awareness, to everything. I mean they're wonderful. They're wonderful.
Erica: Cognitive flexibility.
Darius Nomdaran: Cognitive flexibility. And getting kids to work in teams as well is very, very helpful because that then brings in the whole social emotional aspect, emotional regulation, turn taking, reading the room. So, so it brings in that whole social skill development as well. So very rich. Very rich. Any individual. There's a value for an individual one, but great in teams as well. How do you get along? So those are all sorts of fun. And your standard sports. Playing a game of Wiffle ball, playing a game of football, playing Frisbee, setting up an ultimate Frisbee horse and all of those sorts of things. Low sort of low barrier to entry. You don't need to send your kid off to the Yankees baseball camp to see value or skill building.
Erica: and it doesn't have to be complicated. Just water and balloons. Yeah. Bubbles. Bubbles are fabulous balls like a beach ball. And you can put things on the beach ball. You can just. You can.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. I actually have in my office a couple of bubble wands because I use them to help kids practice mindful breathing. It's just the easiest way to sort of show them how their breath is different when they take their time and when they're huffing and puffing, blowing really hard and when they're blowing more softly and how the bubbles go out and, and I connect that with a feeling. So it's never a bad idea to have a bubble wand on hand for emotional regulation. It's a great, it's a great stealth tool to have in your toolbox.
Erica: Yeah. And it builds patience and creativity because you can even take wires and make big ones, pour it into a pan
Darius Nomdaran: and make your own bubbles.
Erica: Yeah. You can just do a plethora of stuff with.
Darius Nomdaran: For all that gross body movement. Right?
Erica: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah.
Erica: Yeah. So, yeah. So let's go inside. Let's go now it's evening. Everybody's chilling out. You get. You can have a time where everybody sits down to read and even creating a reading nook with like pillows and all sorts of comfort stuff so that everybody can pick up a book and read something that they enjoy together.
Darius Nomdaran: Absolutely, absolutely. And as a former librarian, I'm a big one for reading anything. So this will. I jump back up on my soapbox and I'll say graphic novels, I'm here to endorse them 100%. Reading is reading and I like graphic novels so much for the kind of readers who struggle with an entire page of text because the drawings, the illustrations give such rich context and they have to do so much work reading between the lines and decoding the unwritten, the unspoken action or subtext in the story. So I know that there are a lot of parents out there who don't like their kids’ reading comic books. And I am here to say please, let them please in anything they're going to read. Encourage that. Likewise audiobooks.
Erica: And I'm going to just, I'm going to say something on top of that, which I really appreciate you bringing up is that ah, there are multiple ways to read. Reading is not just looking at words and decoding. No, reading is also listening. Audiobooks is reading with the ears. Reading a book is reading with the eyes and ears. If you kind of speak to yourself and even a picture book, you're reading images, you're learning inference skills. I want to encourage parents to open up that aperture and realize that reading or reading a room, reading facial expressions, whatever your kid needs, adjust the reading to whatever their need is and then gamify it if you can. Because as soon as you gamify turns it into something fun and you can build skills very rapidly. I mean and that's something that you and I discovered very quickly in this field that we don't have to bribe kids with candy, we don't have to bribe
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Erica: kids with toys or even threats that can happen like if you don't do this, then you can't do this type thing. Just gamify it and then they will build the skills rapidly and not even realize it. And then everybody has fun. It just lightens the energy.
Darius Nomdaran: Indeed. Yeah, absolutely.
Erica: So I'm sorry I kind of interrupted you there, but it was.
Darius Nomdaran: No, no, you went exactly where I wanted to go. Because audiobooks, there's so much value in listening to audiobooks. So if you have a struggling reader, I've always recommended for readers for whom their fluency, their reading fluency is below where their sort of cognitive and understand their appreciation, their literature appreciation level is, let's say they have the vocabulary and the understanding of a much older student, but their decoding ability is lagging. A great way to sort of meet those two together is by pairing the audio with the paper book and using the finger, which I can't say that enough. Please use a pointer when you're reading, please. Because it really helps students follow the word and it helps with instant word sort of Decoding on a sort of very, very quick level. A lot of readers can have more words in their spoken vocabulary than they do in their reading vocabulary. And this really helps make that connection.
Erica: It also reduces the cognitive load. It takes an enormous amount of energy to keep track of where you are on a line. And then for many kids, they don't have the cognitive space to comprehend.
Darius Nomdaran: Yes, exactly right. So when they use their finger.
Erica: You are actually changing everything because now you're not using that cognitive space and it's available for something else. And teachers often say don't use your finger. I say use your finger for the rest of your life. And we know now that even for adults, we all read 25% faster when we use our finger.
Darius Nomdaran: Yep. It cuts down on those psychotic movements. Our eyes naturally don't. Our eyes don't follow things in a smooth progression. They're very. They jerk around a lot.
Erica: And so this really exhausting for some kids.
Darius Nomdaran: It's exhausting for almost all brains on some level because it, you know, let's not go into the science and what
Erica: it is because some people may not know that. But when you read, your eyes tend to do this.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, they tend to jerk back and forth across the page. And that's why it's so easy for people to lose their place if they're reading. You might notice that you've reread the same thing twice or three times or you've skipped a line and you don't even notice it until a little bit later. And that's psychotic movements. And that's what our eyes do normally and naturally. And that developed over tens of thousands of years of evolution because we're scanning the environment for threats and there's. Unless you're reading a really good thriller, there shouldn't be too much threat in reading a book. So let's make it easy for ourselves. And that or a color overlay or works for your brain. And there are, I think what we're talking about is, is strategies that work for most people. And also people are going to have to figure out what works well for them too.
Erica: And then there are apps which will allow you to listen to it and then it highlights the word that it's on, which I love, love that voice. Dream Reader, which is an app, has a feature that's one of my favorites. They call it the Pac man mode. I love that the words disappear as soon as they're said. So you can't. You have to read in a fluid manner.
Darius Nomdaran: It's a forced progression. I Love it.
Erica: It's so brilliant. It is so brilliant. Yeah.
Darius Nomdaran: What a fabulous strategy. And baked right into voice. Dream reader. So love that. So, of course, we have reading as a relaxing evening activity for our families. Additionally, like you probably, you know this about me, I love to use games in my practice, and I tell all my families that I'm going to be gamifying it as much as possible. And in addition to using games that we create and we invent; it's a lot of fun. It has been a lot of fun for me to go shopping and really discover games that I can bring into the office and use with students. And you've been doing this forever and ever. So what are some of your favorites? Your old standbys?
Erica: Well, let's go with card games first. Great for young kids. Blink. Love blink, because you have. It develops a lot of cognitive flexibility. They're having to change between color, number, and shape.
Darius Nomdaran: Rapid automatic naming.
Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Darius Nomdaran: Pattern recognition.
Erica: Processing speed.
Darius Nomdaran: Processing speed. The. All of it.
Erica: Yeah, yeah. And then also the social aspect of what if you win or you lose? And how do you handle that?
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erica: You know, well, that's with all games, right?
Darius Nomdaran: Well, you introduced me to Rat a Tat Cat. I can't believe I got to. I can't believe I got to say that first. But that
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Darius Nomdaran: is such a stealth game. And I've worked with kids for years and years. And, I had a college kid come back to me over the winter break, and he wanted to play Rat of Dead Cat. That was his first ask. I thought, oh, this is great.
Erica: That's really awesome. Yeah, yeah.
Darius Nomdaran: Because he remembered it.
Erica: And Quitch. We both love Quitch. It's not easy to find, so sometimes you have to go to eBay to get a used game.
Darius Nomdaran: Right?
Erica: Oh, my God, it is so good in developing executive functioning skills. I mean, all aspects of executive functioning skills, as well as sequencing and backward sequencing and switching and working memory.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, yeah.
Erica: So it's a fantastic one.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, that is great.
Erica: And you're dealing with numbers and letters, so it's really doing a lot of. If you want to do some brain integration. Hemisphere integration.
Darius Nomdaran: Hemisphere integration.
Erica: That's a great game to do for hemisphere integration.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. Cognitive flexibility. Beautiful right there. There's a game you might not know about that I found maybe a year ago called Deducto. And yeah, it's a great card game and it's really easy to play and it's all pictures, so you can play it with the littles. But it's deductive. Reasoning. And so that really works on deductive reasoning and logic. Obviously emotional, emotional control. But a ton of working memory. A ton of working memory.
Erica: Oh, nice.
Darius Nomdaran: And it's all animals and it's. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Wonderful game, Great card game.
Erica: And you also told me about taco cat goat cheese pizza, but I haven't played that yet.
Darius Nomdaran: That's a really popular game. A lot of families are going to be very familiar with that game. It's great in response inhibition. It's great in working memory. It's sort of, it's a variation on a Stroop test sort of thing. I want to say, it's great though. It's great fun and it involves slapping cards and yeah, you have to really pay attention. So a lot of kids are going to be familiar with that game already. Ready? That's become very popular in the past couple of years. So.
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Erica: we could go on and on and on and I know I can think of probably another dozen card games, but let's move on to board games.
Darius Nomdaran: Board games. Okay, so there are a couple of really interesting board games that I've found in the past couple of years. Dog crimes and cat crimes are a couple of them. Those are logic games, deductive reasoning. They're great for developing sequential organization, working memory. But great logic games. Really fun logic games. What else can I think of?
Erica: Scattergories is one of those.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, Scattergories is great for creative vocabulary building. That's a lot of fun. Pictionary is fun for non-verbal communication.
Erica: Of course. The classic chess and checkers.
Darius Nomdaran: No and yes. Chess and checkers are fabulous for strategic organization, planning, prioritization, facial skills. And Mastermind, the old Mastermind, which is just such a great, great game. And I know that people who are our age and younger will certainly remember Mastermind. I play it a lot online. We've found a copy of that online. I think it's in Games for the Brain. That website. Yeah.
Erica: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Darius Nomdaran: Called Guess the Colors. Yeah. And I love using that game online. It's quick too. It's so fast and easy. There are no take backs though. So if you put a color down that you didn't intend to click on. Unfortunately it won't go through. But that's wonderful. Are you familiar with Genius Square?
Erica: I am not.
Darius Nomdaran: Okay, Genius Square. I love Genius Square also. It's got, it's a block game and it's a two-person game and it relies on spatial organization, but it integrates a little bit of some, some math skills. Because it's on a grid, you roll D dice. The dice tell you where to put pegs to block off spaces. And then you have different shaped blocks that you must fit into the remaining spaces. And there is always a solution, at least one. Very often there's more than one solution. So you and your competitor will have completely different solutions to the exact same puzzle. It's wonderful, wonderful for spatial organization. Logic. Yeah.
Erica: Ah, makes me think of Blokus. I don't know if it's locus or Blokus.
Darius Nomdaran: I don't know.
Erica: Nobody seems
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Erica: to know. I've asked so many people that we need to know from the manufacturer.
Darius Nomdaran: Cubits, Qubits. Love qubits. So great for fine motor, first of all. But also pattern recognition and spatial and fabulous. Great game. Great game.
Erica: I was looking over to the left because I was looking at my games. Logic links.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, I love Logic links. Love that game. Really fun.
Erica: Yeah. Yeah. I mean you're just taking colored little round markers, but it's amazing what you could do with logic that you have to figure out what the sequence is of colors based on directions that you have to follow. It's really amazing.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, agreed. We are forgetting and we're not mentioning like the gold standard. Rush Hour.
Erica: Yeah. You like that one? I haven't used it that much.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh gosh, I love it. I love it. I do. It's such a great way for me to sort of, evaluate a variety of executive functions. Like it's planning, prioritization, it's goal directed persistence, it's spatial organization, it's rule following, it's emotional control, it's working memory. And it's great to see, to watch kids maneuver their way through the different levels and see where they get stuck and then how they manage it. Because it's addictive. Every kid I play with wants to go straight to. As soon as they get to a certain level, they all want to go to expert. But Rush Hour has a junior as well, which instead of using, uses an ice cream truck instead of a red jalopy or a red speed car to get out of the traffic jam, there's an ice cream truck and you got to get that ice cream truck out of traffic before the ice cream melts. Super important.
Erica: That's really fun.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah.
Erica: well, what I want to do now is because we could go again on and on about board games and we're just trigger one after the next.
Darius Nomdaran: Yes.
Erica: Clue. Oh, my God. Clue. there's so many good ones. Anyway, let's go on to real life activities like cooking.
Darius Nomdaran: So easy. Such a great go to. And a lot of parents don't think about this. A lot of families don't think about this. But there are so many executive functioning skills that we develop in a simple cooking activity. So you're talking about following directions, which is huge. So there's the sequencing being exact, about
Erica: the measurements being exact.
Darius Nomdaran: Especially in baking, you don't want to sort of make things up when you're baking. Cooking is a little bit more forgiving, but then there's heat involved, so typically so. But yeah, organizing things, putting things in
Erica: order, cleaning up, remembering not to leave something out.
Darius Nomdaran: Right.
Erica: Which is again, working memory.
Darius Nomdaran: Working memory. Right.
Erica: And so, I mean, cook with your kids. Let your kids cook. Teach your kids to cook.
Darius Nomdaran: Sure.
Erica: Let them cook one meal every week.
Darius Nomdaran: Measuring things is a math skill they need anyway, so you might as well just lean into it and give them ownership of that. Fractions. A lot of kids struggle with fractions. So pizza night is like a perfect opportunity to teach your kid fractions over and over.
Erica: Right, right. I mean, and you could say, all right, let's figure out what fraction of the pizza everybody ate.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. And so it's, yeah, just even in cutting the pizza. Give them ownership in cutting the pizza. As long as it's. There are lots of safe ways to cut pizza, and it makes it really fun and interactive for them. They take ownership of that, and it's very important. I think a lot of kids really care that the pizza slices are equal, which leans heavily into fractions. Right?
Erica: It does. It does. It's really funny.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah.
Erica: travel prep.
Darius Nomdaran: Oh, my gosh. The best executive functioning hack ever. Just to plan. Let kids plan their suitcase. Let them think about it. If they want to draw it out, have them draw it out. If they want to make a list, make a list. But they have to use that, that, perspective memory. They have to think ahead. They have to visualize where they're going to be, what they're going to be doing. What will they wear in the morning, what will they wear in the evening, what will they sleep in at night?
Erica: If they're stuck, they can go to Goblin Tools. Ah. and Goblin Tools is a; it's an AI online. You can go to goblintools.com and you can put in the top and say, help me make a list of. We're traveling to Paris in June and I want to know what to bring with me. And then it makes all sorts of suggestions, and you either take it or leave it. But sometimes kids might not think of some things, and they can use AI to help them say, oh, that's right. Oh, I would have forgotten that. I mean, I use it for traveling because I have my lists, but every now and then I'll go on and I'll be like, oh, that's a good idea.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to recommend that we let the kids make their list first and then check with a tool like that to see if they've forgotten anything. Because I love that suggestion
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Darius Nomdaran: because it's the safety net that most of the kids that we work with need in order to succeed. Right. you don't know what you don't know. And expecting a 10-year-old to make a perfect packing list is how many times have we left the house without our toothbrush? Right. So this is why hotels have toothbrushes in them so often these days. And we have nothing like the excuse of being 10.
Erica: So.
Darius Nomdaran: So have a little compassion and live with grace. That's really important.
Erica: I got another good one. Camping. Oh, yeah, camping. Whether they're camping in the backyard or you're going on a camping trip, planning for that, making sure you have everything you need, you don't want to leave the sunscreen behind if that's important to
Darius Nomdaran: you, you don't want to leave the bug screen behind, bug stuff behind either. Anything you can use to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Nothing like, nothing like scratching ankles to ruin a camping trip.
Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree.
Darius Nomdaran: And before we even get there, I mean, if you're talking about road trips, getting in the car and going to a camping site, getting in the car and going to another city, even driving, let's say the kids are going to camp. A lot of families these days do send their kids to camp. And we can talk about that. I suppose that's a whole lot of structured play. But just the getting there is. I mean, look, even adults, we've been living with GPS now for what, 20 plus years? Wow. so many people, not even kids really struggle with directionality. They struggle to know where they are in space, even on a macro level. And it's it was alarming to me. It was alarming to me how many high school kids I was working with a couple of years ago. And I would say to them, so, like, where in this town do you live? Are you close to this town? Closer to this town or to that town? And I understood the geographical borders of the area. It's because I've lived here and they had no clue. And so, yeah, yeah, there are no roadmaps anymore, no paper roadmaps. So I've gotten some, I've acquired some paper roadmaps and reached out to the local, to the county planner and I got a map of the county, and I work with kids on this so that they know where they are because they literally have no clue.
Erica: So that's really important.
Darius Nomdaran: That's really important.
Erica: Yeah.
Darius Nomdaran: So one thing I used to do with my son when he was young and we would go on these trips all over, I would give him the map in the back, he would sit in the back seat and he would look for the signs and to see, to follow on, the highways, the exits, the towns. And he was always thrilled when he's like, oh, we just passed that. Oh, oh, wow, this is great. So it gives a lot of ownership, and it really helps them develop that sequence, the attention, the awareness. It's fun and it gives them something to do.
Erica: Yeah. It's interesting how technology has, has weakened our brains when it comes to spatial skills. And also for. Do you remember when we were kids, we remembered everybody's phone number, everybody's phone number. I still remember my phone number, the boy across the street, your phone number, everybody's phone numbers. But now I don't remember anybody's phone numbers because we've, we don't have to. That skill. You don't have to. So it's not a bad idea to exercise that skill. Get your kids to memorize their address and their phone number and their best friends and their parents. That's a very important skill to do it. And, and it's exercising working memory.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, exactly. Super important.
Erica: And some tools that can help you to do kind of the higher-level executive functioning skills. If you're into technology, of course you can use Google Calendar, you can get a skylight, which is basically like a giant computer that you can put in your living room where you can schedule everything, wire race calendars. They're allowing the kids to be able to see the organization because if you are going to be organizing them, you've got to show them how you're doing it.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah, they can't read what's in your mind. They're not mind readers. And I can't remember who said it, but I've been repeating it so I should probably look it up. It's really important for so many of the kids that we work with to make the invisible visible. So this is why picture schedules work for really young kids. And I do that in the summer with the kids that I work with to help them because the mornings and the evenings are historically the most difficult time for a lot of kids. The bookends of the day, I call them creating a picture schedule for the tasks that the kids have to do, even if they're getting ready, just getting ready to go off to camp. I do it also with kids in m, younger kids in the school year creating that picture schedule and then graduating to an actual timeline so that they can just check the clock. And that analog is so important. Using an analog clock is something I really
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Darius Nomdaran: encourage all of the families that I work with to do. So if you've got a kid who's really hard to move in the mornings, if you've got a kid who's always running late and it's making you crazy to say you're late, you're late, why are you so late? What are you doing? We've got to leave. It's not helpful, honestly. It just raises their cortisol and their stress level. But having an analog clock in the places in which they need to carry out their morning tasks. So like the kitchen and maybe near their bedroom with a schedule, a time schedule that says in digital the time that they need to be doing the thing. And also the analog clock, there are websites you can go to, just google it. 710 analog. And I cut and paste and I put that right in the picture schedule so that they know what the clock is supposed to look like at the time they're supposed to be say eating breakfast. So you've got breakfast, 7, 10. And then the clock and it says 7:10. And it's right underneath the clock so they can check it and see am m I where I'm supposed to be? And so that just turns and I'm
Erica: going to play off of that. Sometimes when you tell your kids clean your room, they don't necessarily what you mean, know what you mean. So again, give them a picture to take a picture of when the room is looking just the way you like it and say, can you make it look like this? That a picture says a thousand words, right?
Darius Nomdaran: And it's simple Indeed, it gives us some. Gives them something to shoot for. And to riff off of that again, a lot of the kids get overwhelmed. A lot of kids we work with just. It's too much. So it's so important for parents to remember that younger brains can get really flooded, really overwhelmed. And that's when we see a lot of emotional irregularity and big behaviors. And so if you're seeing big behaviors around things like that, it's so important to chunk it down for your kids to say something along the lines of, wow, I've noticed your room is getting a little out of control. We've decided, and of course, you have to have this conversation we've all talked about and decided what your room should look like when it's clean. And it doesn't look like that now. What one thing can you do to help clean your room up? That won't take too long. Maybe one song. Put on your favorite song and clean your room to that. What one thing can you do? And so it might just be, clearing off the desk, if they have a desk, or putting the toys in the toy box or getting all of the clothes off of the floor. And that one thing in three minutes is moving them towards their goal. And it doesn't feel too big, and it doesn't feel overwhelming, and they get a piece of it done. And then you give them praise for that and say, hey, that's really. Look at how much different it looks.
Erica: I like that. And I often teach my students the three-thing rule. So every time you walk into your room, put three things away. That's it. And when you leave a place, take something with you that goes in that place. So if you're leaving the living room and you're going to your bedroom, you can look around the living room, say, can I take anything with me that goes in my bedroom? And then it never really takes any time or any effort. But kids walk in and out of their room many times, and if they always get in the habit of the three-thing rule. And it's funny because you give them the three-thing rule, and if that three thing is too much, give them m the two-thing rule. Because more times than not, they'll put another thing away, too.
Darius Nomdaran: It's building that awareness. I love this, Eric. This is really great. This is really great.
Erica: It's fantastic. It works. In fact, I use it on myself. Whenever I walk into my bedroom, I put three things away. And then it really never gets messy. Or in the kitchen, wash one dish every time you walk into the kitchen. Whatever's difficult for you.
Darius Nomdaran: Right, exactly.
Erica: It's that starting. It's just that one little thing and then it taps the unspent.
Darius Nomdaran: It usually snowballs. And I think what we're, I think what's interesting about what we've been talking about is like all of these different aspects of executive function that we use in our daily lives.
Erica: Yes.
Darius Nomdaran: How we get anything done is executive function. And so the opportunity to build the skills really are everywhere at any given time.
Erica: They are. And there are a few things we want to avoid. Yeah. We want to avoid over scheduling. Over scheduling. Too much structure can really burn out kids, and it makes them too passive. Just like we've become passive with the gps.
Darius Nomdaran: Right.
Erica: Let them be involved in the scheduling and let them have that as you said, boredom time so that we can build creativity. Under supporting, giving them support. Too little
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Erica: structure.
Darius Nomdaran: Right. So there's this, this idea of just. Right. The fit is so important. Making sure that the task fits the child, the student and, and it's where they are, not where they quote unquote should be. So when we're talking and a lot of the students you and I work with are neurodivergent, when we're talking about neurodivergence, it's very easy to look at the spectrum of skills as a deficit. Like he or she can't do this or why can't they? There almost universally there are skills that our students excel at that these strengths that they have. And every kid is different, every student that we work with is different. Taking those strengths to help build the areas of challenge or noticing that and keeping it developmentally appropriate as opposed to quote unquote age expectation appropriate, that's worth
Erica: making it fit the child because developmentally appropriate for one isn't for another.
Darius Nomdaran: Exactly. And so noticing that knowing where your kids skills skill set, where do they shine, where are they crushing it and how ask them.
Erica: And when they're struggling, sometimes you have to let them struggle. Just like a baby bird. If you help them out of the shell, they don't make it.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah.
Erica: Don't do too much for your child so that they're not developing the skills that they need. It's a very fine line.
Darius Nomdaran: It is. And I'm thinking immediately back to a line from a television show that I watched and loved, TED Lasso. And I use this; I use this quote all the time. There's a wonderful scene in TED Lasso and unfortunately, it's in a bar. So I tend to only use this to bring up the video when I'm working with high school students. But Ted says be curious, not judgmental. And when you open up space for that curiosity, so many things can happen. You give the child the opportunity to grow and reflect and change. And so, not doing for your kids and maybe getting curious and saying, I wonder what it would look like if this felt easy for you. What are some things that do feel easy for you? What comes easily to you and notice those skills. That's why I encourage parents to really lean into their kids strengths and really get curious about how their kids are doing that, because that's a strength. So process exactly. Like how do they do what they're good at? And have them really think about that. That's involving the metacognitive skill that they might not necessarily have because it's the last executive functioning skill to develop. But really thinking about their thinking and how do they succeed and how can they take those strengths that they have and apply them to an area of challenge to shore them up? It's problem solving. It's creative problem solving.
Erica: and parents need to understand that what their child's strengths are may not be their strengths and vice versa usually aren't, actually.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. And that hits hard for a lot of parents because they just don't get it. And that's okay. That's okay.
Erica: Yeah, it is. Yeah. But you can get it by getting your children to explain it to you.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. Get curious. Yeah.
Erica: That doesn't work for me, Mom. But this does.
Darius Nomdaran: Right, right, right. Yeah.
Erica: Well, thank you, Nancy. This was such a fabulous conversation. I think there are going to be so many gems for so many families in this discussion. This was fun and I hope, I hope you all have a wonderful summer.
Darius Nomdaran: Yeah. Enjoy your summers.
Erica: And instead of the summer slide sliding back, let's slide forward and help our kids really mature over the summer through fun.
Darius Nomdaran: The work of childhood play through fun
Erica: and play and creativity and imagination.
Darius Nomdaran: Indeed. Well, it's been great.
Erica: It has. Let's do it again.
Darius Nomdaran: Let's do it again. Take care. All righty.
Erica: Bye for now.
Darius Nomdaran: Bye.
Erica: Sponsored by learningspecialistcourses.com Courses and resources that support educators and coaches. Sponsored by ivvi. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. Well, try ivvi for free now at ivvi App. that's ivvi App. thank you for joining us at the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast. Check out our show notes for links and resources and follow us on social media.