Nip in the Bud® Podcast - The children's mental health charity

Nip in the bud nuggets with Dr Bettina Hohnen: How can I use executive functioning frameworks to improve teaching and learning?

• Nip in the Bud Children's Mental Charity

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This clip is from my podcast with Dr Bettina Hohnan - Neurodiversity: how to parent and educate neurodiverse brains effectively.

In this clip we discuss the executive function framework and how, as teachers, we can understand a child’s behaviour as a response that may be a skills deficit rather than just bad behaviour. In this way we can learn how to develop children’s skills, setting them up for life in order to be more effective both as a learner and as a social being.

We also talk about Carol Dweck and her theory of the importance of teaching children about growth mindset. Bettina shares how an understanding of the executive function framework sits nicely with this theory and enables to teachers to adopt both as part of the way they work with and develop the children in their classes.

If you’ve heard of growth mindset versus fixed mindset,  you need to listen to this clip to hear how this simple but effective strategy will  help teach children to understand themselves as having the capacity to change and to learn the skills they  need to be successful in what ever they are doing.

Dr Bettina Hohnen is  also partnering with Nip in the Bud to do weekly vlogs answering your questions and sharing further advice.

Dr Bettina Hohnen website (including links to her books:
The Incredible Teenage Brain by Bettina Hohnen, Jane Gilmour and Tara Murphy
How to have incredible conversations with your child by Jane Gilmour and Bettina Hohnen
https://drbettinahohnen.com/

Smart but Scattered: The revolutionary "Executive Skills' approach to helping kids reach their potential by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare
https://www.smartbutscatteredkids.com/

Executive Function skills in the classroom: overcoming barriers, building strategies by Laurie Faith, Carol-Anne Bush 

Please follow Dr Bettina Hohnen on social media for tips and ideas about strengthening relationships with your kids
Instagram: drbettinahohnen
Twitter: bettinahohnen

Disclaimer: The content provided in the Nip in the Bud podcasts is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to replace or serve as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or mental health issue.

Nip in the Bud - Where to get help

https://nipinthebud.org/where-to-get-help/



SPEAKER_01:

In these short podcast clips, we offer nuggets of information from our longer podcasts that give advice and quick tips to help you as teachers recognise children's needs and respond more efficiently, empowering you to adapt teaching effectively. This clip is from my podcast with Dr. Bettina Honan. Bettina is a clinical psychologist, author and speaker working in the field of child mental health and neurodiversity. In this clip, we discuss the executive function framework and how, as teachers, we can understand a child's behaviour as a response that may be a skills deficit rather than just bad behaviour. In this way we can learn how to develop children's skills, setting them up for life in order to be more effective both as a learner and as a social being. If you've heard of gross mindset versus fixed mindset, then continue listening to hear how this can be used as a strategy to help teach children to understand themselves as having the capacity to change and to learn the skills they need to be successful. Can you tell us a little bit about what's meant by executive functions and why that's an important area to understand with regards to the work that you do?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So executive functions are housed in the frontal lobes of the brain. There are these silent skills that enable us to manage everyday life. So it's the analogy is they're like the conductor in the orchestra. They they tell the bit of the brain, the the rest of the brain, when to start, when to stop. Uh, you know, oh, it's not the right time to say that thing at the right m now, how to plan, how to organize, how to manage our emotions. And they are developing over these 25 years. And actually, that's the last bit of the brain to develop is these executive functions. The reason that I use this model and that I think it's so powerful is because I think often we are mislabeling behavior in children. And if we use this framework of executive functions, we understand that often it's a skill that a child is struggling with rather than it being to do with their character or their intelligence or their attitude. It's actually a skill problem. We identify what the skill is and then we can help to teach them this the skill. So, for example, if you have a child, there's a lot of behaviours that we can reframe using this model. Let's think about a child who um they're in a football game and they think you know the referee has blown a whistle against them or something, and they shout out at you know, they shout at the referee. Oh, I hate you, or whatever they say, something worse than that. Now we might say, That's a rude child, I have to tell my child that they can't do that. Or we might say, that's the child's response inhibition. Actually, the frontal lobes need to engage in that moment and say to the child, not now, no, don't say that. That's the wrong thing to say. So we say we can completely reframe it as a skills deficit rather than something intentional. Let's give another example. You say to your child, can you go upstairs and get ready? You know, I need you to get your, you know, your hat and get don't forget your gloves because it's cold and just clean your teeth before you come downstairs. And they come downstairs and they have forgotten their gloves. We might say, Oh my goodness, will you listen? Or we might say, that's a working memory difficulty. I think your working memory let you down there, and so you forgot one of the things that was happening. Now it always, um, as you can tell, assumes the best of the child, but it also gives the child a way of doing it next time. So rather than just getting cross and going, can you try harder? You say, ah, so when I give you three things to do, let's think about a way in which we can help you remember. Or next time you feel really upset by what the referee did, you know, sometimes referees do make a bad call. Next time, why don't we try this? And you give them a little strategy to do it. So it's building up these skills, it's setting them up for life, and it's keeping in this positive relationship and having the best intention for your child. And actually, it's so powerful. I even now work with a lot of adults who will be struggling somehow in their lives. And if you can reframe what's happening for them as an executive function problem, they think, oh, it's not that I'm bad, it's not that that I can't do this, it's a skill I just need to develop, or maybe I need a little strategy, maybe I need a bit of a help, bit of help with that. You know, this book that I'm writing, you know, I struggle a bit with the time management. So I've got somebody on board who's helping me with the time management. It doesn't mean I'm not I'm not intelligent, it just means that that's a skill that's a bit weaker for me and I'm still working on it, but I need a bit of a bit of extra help.

SPEAKER_01:

So again, as as adults who care for children, whether we're talking parents or educationalists, it's about again detaching the behaviours and seeing what's lying beneath it and thinking, okay, how can I teach, how can I support, how can I look at this differently so that they can learn a different way next time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly. And it's incredibly plow powerful. I mean, one thing that comes up a lot for me in my work is um kids who struggle with flexibility. So flexibility is one of the executive functions, and that means it's a kid who, when um something changes and they can't do what they want to do, they fall to the floor and they are all over the place, or you say, Okay, you know, we we've been this is one kid I've been working with who needs to take some vitamins, and she is really struggling with her flexibility because she'll take the pink one, but she won't take the green one, and so rather than saying just come on or getting cross or making a character interpretation of that, we're saying I think flexibility is getting in your way. Let's think about another time when you've been really flexible. So I noticed that yesterday when the new teacher came in uh and the teacher that you love wasn't there, you were able to be so flexible and just say, Okay, it's different, it's not what I was expecting, but but I managed it. So kids will be using these skills in some context, and then you can say, How can we help you in your flexibility with taking this other pill? It literally has changed this kid now. She's now she's able to do that. But she was also struggling with going to restaurants when she didn't know what the food was. So um those kinds of things which are so frustrating for everyday life, you reframe it and you have this new vocabulary, this new language to talk to a young person about what's happening. It's much more compassionate. It's a bit like I see you're struggling, and it's also building resilience for the future because it gives them a pathway for how I might do this, how might I get better at this?

SPEAKER_01:

It's uh like a finite list of executive functions.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's a great book called Smart but Scattered. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh which I would recommend that by by Peg Dawson. Okay, we'll put that in the show notes as well at the end. Tell tell us a bit about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, it is it's really about these, you know, kids. I mean, often kids who they might get a diagnosis of ADHD because the executive functions is the core difficulty underlying um in in ADHD, the core kind of cognitive difficulty. Um, but these kids who are super smart but they kind of leave this trail behind them, they're always forgetting things and losing things and they can't manage their time and that those all of the executive function skills. So um the book Smart But Scattered, I mean, just if you if you suggest that to a parent who've who's got a kid like that, they will smile and go, Oh, that's my kid. So it's really good. I mean, I'm also writing this is the project crazily work I'm writing a book about executive function skills and struggling with my executive function skills as I'm writing it. Um, but which is but uh you know, trying to write about it as well in a more in a way to embed this approach in family life. Um, there's a program called Activated Learning, where uh that's developed from Canada, which is embedding an executive function awareness in classrooms. So it's becoming more and more well known.

SPEAKER_01:

Talks a little bit about mindset. Could you let us know how this plays a role in how you support parents and how parents and teachers can can support children through through mindset, through um internal motivation, through getting children to to see the world and themselves within the world in a in a more positive light?

SPEAKER_00:

So there's a lot of research about the importance of our beliefs about things and its impact on our behaviour, even on how our body functions. Growth mindset and fixed mindset is an idea that is quite well known. This idea that uh if we have a fixed mindset, we have this idea that I am intelligent or I'm not intelligent, and it's very fixed and it affects our behaviour. But if we can have an idea about a growth mindset, which is the idea that the more I do something, the better I will become at it. Um, you know, if I keep going with something that I'm struggling with, I will get better.

SPEAKER_01:

Even if we're talking about an executive function like flexibility.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that is how the brain works. The way we get good at things is by doing them again and again and again. So it really fits with the with the neuroscience, but it has a really big impact on um a person's engagement with a task, obviously. If you think, oh, I just tried this thing, you know, I went and gave a public speak for the first speech for the first time, I was rubbish, I'm not good at public speaking. You're not going to try again. If you think that was the first time I did it, obviously, yeah, there were a few things that I was struggling with. I need to just do it again, and then I'll get better and better and better. So that's been brilliant. That it came from Carol Dweck in the States, it's been very, very powerful. In a way, the executive function approach really adds on to that because I think one of the downsides to the growth mindset was that kids would be told, you can do it, just try harder. Go on, do a bit more, you you can do it, just try harder. But it became a bit of a pressure for kids. Well, I'm trying, I'm trying, and I'm sitting in my room and I'm revising and I'm still not doing well. So the executive function approach puts a bit of meat behind it and says, I know that you're trying, but I wonder what strategies you're using. I wonder if the strategies you're using are uh the best ones for you. So um that I think is really a really it it's not written about much at the moment, to be honest with you, but I think you know it will be. It it's a it's a growing thing.

SPEAKER_01:

We look forward to your book coming out so we can find out more to write about that.

SPEAKER_00:

The the other thing, actually, and there was a young person that I'm working with, um, she's 17, a brilliant young girl who recently got diagnosed with ADHD, and she said this thing to me the other day because she's really struggled with stress all her life, and she said, I read the other day that actually a little bit of stress can be good for you, and if you have too much stress, you go over the edge. And uh it was really quite powerful for her because there is this research about stress mindset. So the idea of stress, well, the word stress, has a bad name. We think about stress and we think don't do it anymore, it's bad for you, it's gonna cause physical health difficulties, we need to stop it. But actually, that's not true. In order to do anything well, we need a little bit of stress to get us to the point where we're energized. But if we have too much stress, we fall off the other end, and then it's impossible for us to do anything. So, again, this is a very important area of research because what they've done is work with young people and said, you know, stress about this stress mindset idea. A little bit of stress is good, too much is is over the top, and that helps young people to say, okay, actually that feeling in my tummy, those butterflies, a little bit of it is a good thing. I'm actually going to give my peak performance when I've got a bit of stress. So that's the mindset, the way in which we see and understand what's going on inside us, our beliefs about that, is very powerful in helping us to keep engaged and to use that energy in a positive way.

SPEAKER_01:

I hope you enjoyed that nip in the bud nugget. If you want more, why not go back and listen to the whole episode with my guest? If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with others and visit our website for more information, advice, and resources.