In my private practice, I commonly see children and teens struggling with time management skills, whether they have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder or not. I encourage parents to put more thought into this area, not only for their children, but for themselves. We have all experiences at some point in life, either at work or at home that are more than we know how to handle. These essential life skills make managing your home, career and family a little easier. 

In the first installment of our 6-part series: Time Management Skills to Help You & Your Child Today, we discussed metacognition – ‘thinking about your thinking.’ This week, we’re going to explore flexibility and response inhibition. 

I know those sound like formal (and probably dull) terms, but bear with me, and you’ll see how integral they are to our everyday lives. 

One quick note before we begin: Different professionals define these skills and/or brain functions in different ways, and this is just how I have chosen to organize them. 

Now, when I say “flexibility”, I’m not talking about physical flexibility, though if you have stellar yoga skills, I envy you. 😉 I’m talking about mental flexibility.

Here are a few examples:

• When you’re working on a problem, and you’re not seeing the results you want, can you make adjustments?


• When you’re getting results but they’re not up to your standards, are you open to experimenting with your process to yield a better outcome?  


• When you’re working with another person, and you’re at a stalemate, are you willing to make compromises to complete the project?


• If plans change at the last minute, can you go with the flow and still make use of the newfound free time, or do you waste it? 
  

I’m sure, even as an adult, you can relate to at least one of these examples in your own life. Flexibility is not always innate; some students need to practice it. 

Some people prefer to be on a rigid, regimented schedule, where things happen at a certain time. But when they don’t happen at that pre-assigned time, in the pre-assigned way, it can be very difficult for them to manage that situation. It’s a very real, stressful situation for them. 

This is why working on our mental flexibility doesn’t just improve our ability to learn and grow, but it also aids our mental health. I recommend coming back to the breathing exercise we discussed in Part 1 when these situations occur (you can find a refresher here), to help calm chaotic thoughts, as well as support your child in making a clear decision on how to adapt to and move on from an uncomfortable situation.  

As parents, you can model this positive behavior for your child. Most parents are already pretty adept at flexibility because we know that most things don’t turn out the way we originally planned and often think of alternative plans ahead of time, just in case. 

So, if you are one of those people who can easily maneuver and pivot when plans change, demonstrate these skills for your child in a very explicit way. 

Here are the steps:

1. Acknowledge your child’s feelings of disappointment or frustration when plans change unexpectedly. 


2. Discuss how they can be flexible in their thinking to figure out how to move forward productively, such as rescheduling. 


3. Determine an alternative plan to use the time you now have.  Try to use the time wisely, but also in a way that makes it fun for your child, especially because they just had to do all that heavy lifting with mental flexibility.   
   

For example, let’s say a baseball game was canceled.  Here’s a potential way to help your child work through this disappointment:   

“Wow, we were supposed to have a baseball game today, but the other team didn’t show up. So, that game’s not happening. It’s being postponed to tomorrow though, so we don’t have to worry about it. 

We’ve got a couple of hours that would’ve been spent on this baseball game. What are we gonna do with that time? What can we do to feel good about the fact that the baseball game that we were really looking forward to is not going to happen? 

You know, you’ve got that science project you’re working on. Maybe you could take a half an hour of the time, and use it for your science project. And then you’ve got an hour and a half of free time tonight where we can play a game or read a book. How does that sound?”

This process teaches your child how to practice flexibility in the moment. When you explicitly bring their attention to how often you use the same skills on a regular basis, they will begin to understand that plans often change, and that’s okay (and sometimes a welcome gift!). In time, this practice can help soften their emotional distress in these situations, because they know it’s par for the course and that they have learned how to handle it. 

This leads straight into response inhibition, which, as you might guess, is very connected to flexibility. 

Let’s be real, often our initial response to a sudden change of plans or obstacle is, “Oh [expletive}! I was counting on this. Why isn’t it happening? Why isn’t the world working the way I expected it to today?” 

We all wish we could stomp our feet and throw a fit sometimes, but it’s not always appropriate to respond in that way, at least in the presence of other people. So, response inhibition is the ability to stay aware of our surroundings and understand which responses are appropriate when and where. This also means being able to hold back the responses that are not appropriate for the setting. 

Children often struggle with this skill in the classroom setting, and it can open them up to punishment from their teachers or judgments from other children. So, if your child is struggling in this area, it is important to keep modeling for them that in the school environment, when things don’t go the way they expect, they hold back certain responses. 

This involves finding alternative ways for them to manage those emotions. It may mean excusing themselves to get to the bathroom to release their emotions.  This, of course is a plan set up with the teacher in advance. Or maybe you offer your student a safe outlet like the counselor’s office or the nurse’s office as a place to just vent. 

The most important part is that the child is thoughtful about their triggers, and they know that they are in fact holding an inappropriate response back until they’re in a more appropriate setting. This skill is important to develop over time and it takes a great deal of practice. 

One final note, it’s unrealistic to expect the moon and the sun from a child who is young and still learning how to manage their emotions. However, conversations about our emotions and beginning to understand our responses can and should happen with very young children in age appropriate language. 

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Can you spot areas of flexibility and response inhibition with yourself or your child? What questions do you still have about how to better utilize these skills? 

Be sure to let me know by posting a comment in our online community, Education Alliance, on Facebook. You’ll also connect with other like-minded parents and educators who support children who struggle with learning.  And you can access helpful videos, share resources and participate live Q&As inside this group, all with the goal to support you as you work with your children. 

If you haven’t already, click here to request to join now. 

See you next week for another edition of this six-part series: Time Management Skills to Help You & Your Child Today.