Raising Resilient, Self-Driven Kids: Understanding Executive Function

On January 8th, families gathered for a conversation led by Michael McLeod, MA, CCC-SLP, focused on executive function and what children need to develop the internal skills that support long term success. The ideas shared are grounded in decades of research from neuroscience, psychology, and education, and they speak to challenges many children and families are navigating today.

What are executive function skills?

Executive function refers to a set of internal skills that allow humans to pause, reflect, and direct behavior toward future goals. These skills include self regulation, emotional control, motivation, planning, flexible thinking, and self awareness. Humans are unique in their ability to sustain behavior even in the absence of an immediate consequence. This ability to pause and think allows children to manage frustration, delay gratification, and persist through challenge.

Executive function skills develop gradually over time, continuing into young adulthood, and they become increasingly important as children move through the world with less direct adult support. Research consistently identifies these skills as foundational. The strongest predictors of long term success are not early academic outcomes, but the ability to manage emotions, form and maintain relationships, and solve problems independently.

A Changing Childhood

Many of the experiences that have traditionally supported executive function development are becoming less common in childhood. Children today spend less time in sustained, self directed play, less time outdoors, and fewer hours engaged in face to face social interaction. At the same time, screen use has increased dramatically.

Research links excessive screen exposure to challenges in attention, emotional regulation, motivation, and mental health. Constant stimulation and immediate rewards make it harder for children to tolerate boredom, persist through difficulty, or engage deeply with the world around them. As Mike put it, “We’re giving kids the world on a screen, but taking away the world they actually need.”

When executive function skills are lagging, behavior often communicates this clearly. Difficulty starting tasks, emotional reactivity, disengagement, or avoidance are not character flaws or motivation problems, they are signals that the developing brain needs different kinds of experiences.

Developing Executive Functioning

Executive function skills are not taught directly or acquired through instruction. They are built through experience. Children develop these skills through opportunities to explore, experiment, collaborate, and navigate real challenges. Play, movement, social interaction, and problem solving are essential developmental conditions, not optional extras. As Mike stated simply and powerfully, “Play is childhood. It’s how children learn, grow, and develop essential life skills.” Through play and hands-on engagement, children practice self regulation, persistence, decision making, and reflection in ways that no worksheet can replicate.

Executive function skills develop over time, but the foundation is laid early. During childhood, the brain is actively building the systems that support self regulation, motivation, and resilience. These systems are shaped not by acceleration or pressure, but by the quality of daily experiences. The elementary years are a period of rapid growth and integration, and there is no later window that fully replaces this developmental work. Skills that are built slowly and consistently during this time create the foundation for everything that follows.

Research from organizations such as the Harvard Center on the Developing Child consistently shows that executive function skills strengthen through varied experiences and supportive interpersonal relationships. Children benefit from environments that allow them to make choices, encounter manageable frustration, reflect on outcomes, and try again. Education that is experiential, emergent, and collaborative supports this process by positioning children as active participants in their learning and in the world around them.

Progressive Education: Research in Practice

This research articulates what progressive education has long understood about how children learn and develop. At The School in Rose Valley, our program has been grounded in these principles since 1929. Our program prioritizes hands-on exploration, sustained play, collaboration, and meaningful engagement because these experiences are how children build internal regulation, motivation, and confidence. Children are given time to wrestle with ideas, navigate social challenges, and persist through difficulty with the support of attentive adults. Learning is designed to be experiential and emergent, allowing children to take an active role in their education and engage deeply with the world around them. Rather than separating academic learning from social and emotional development, these capacities are intentionally woven together. Over time, children develop the executive function skills that allow them to manage themselves, relate to others, and approach increasingly complex challenges with resilience and independence.

About Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod, MA, CCC-SLP, is a nationally recognized speaker, educator, and clinician specializing in executive function development and ADHD. Through his work with children, families, schools, and educators, Mike focuses on helping adults better understand how executive function skills develop and how environments can either support or undermine that growth.

Mike is the founder of GrowNOW ADHD, an organization dedicated to education, training, and professional development around executive functioning and resilience. His work draws on decades of research from leaders in neuroscience, psychology, and child development, and emphasizes experiential learning, play, movement, and meaningful relationships as the foundation for lifelong success.

Families and educators can learn more about Mike’s work at GrowNOWADHD.com, follow him on Instagram @GrowNOWADHD, or explore his writing, trainings, and podcast focused on supporting children in today’s world.