Executive Functioning Skill: Flexibility

This week the executive function skill I’m focusing on is flexibility. Each week I typically pick a topic that seems to be relevant to what is going on with my students at this time as a way to highlight one of many pieces to an intricate puzzle. This week seems to highlight this. Flexibility in relation to executive functioning is the ability to switch between tasks and demands in the environment. The lack of this is something that gets particularly noticed in students with an Autism or an OCD diagnosis. Honestly anyone with an anxiety disorder typically has problems with flexibility. This is also the skill that gets highlighted the most when talking about choosing a life or marriage partner being linked to happiness. Here’s the thing though everyone has things they are flexible about and things that they struggle to maintain flexibility. This skill also waxes and wanes depending on the level of stress someone is experiencing in their life. This is also the skill that younger people across the broad are significantly struggling with more recently (yes you can blame the pandemic but this has been a trend long before that). We also see this in the modern political arena so adults have also become less flexible as well. There are multiple ways to approach this. The first and perhaps most critical is not catastrophizing things that are not a big deal. The grade a student gets on a single quiz or test or a missed homework assignment is not the end of the world. It is a problem if it’s a larger part of a bigger pattern but if these incidents are occuring once a marking period there’s usually an explanation (a breakup with a boyfriend/girlfriend, death of a beloved pet, or honestly take your pick their adolescents their brains are wired to catastrophize). The first thing to do is put things in context namely that it’s not the end of the world. What matters is what you do after the bad thing has happened. This prevents severe emotional reactions which actually enhances the ability to be flexible. (There’s a good chance after I finish up the executive functioning skills the next topic will be emotion regulation because that is a skill that if you teach it to your kids young it pays dividends for the rest of their life but I digress). I like to tell my students to let go of the outcome because sometimes you will do everything exactly the right way and how you should and you won’t get the result you want. It’s an unfortunate side effect of life. Letting go of the outcome also oddly enough increases your chances of getting the result you want. The focus always needs to be on the process. The ability to think logically is not always an innate skill. Flexibility in thinking is also something that needs to be taught (this is where playing Devil’s Advocate comes in handy). Students need to be able to look at things from multiple sides and the best way to start building that skill is to teach them how to stand in other people’s shoes. The byproduct of this is that it also builds empathy. This means having kids read fiction is of vital importance but of people who aren’t like them but have problems that they have to deal with that might be similar. Beware of the person who doesn’t understand why that’s relevant to them because that’s someone lacking flexibility in their thinking at the very least. Adults should also work on this particular skill because as we move out of the school system our worlds and viewpoints tend to narrow. If you are not a reader (which you really should give it a try even if that’s listening to audiobooks instead of traditional reading), then the shortcut (ok it’s not a shortcut but reading is so vitally important) would be to travel to a completely different area (a lot of churches do Service Learning projects in the Appalachian area for staying in the USA or in the Latin American countries) or volunteer. Honestly exposing kids to people from different walks of life is actually a good thing. It builds character and character and flexibility often go hand in hand. Not everyone lives the way you do and that is ok. Open up your mind to that and different ways of thinking will start to flow. Double down on being right all the time and your way being the only way and this skill will elude you. So stay open and use your ears and listen to how other people handle problems. You might just learn something.