DEVELOPING FLEXIBILITY (NO, NOT THAT KIND!)

Students are used to seeing emails, reminders, and blog posts from ATYP regarding executive function. Usually we are talking to students about things like time management, organization, and task initiation because these are areas where middle schoolers are still developing and, hence, where they frequently struggle. But today we’re going to visit the issue of flexibility, an area where many people – adults, teens, and children – could use some help, and give a very specific example of how we came up with this topic.

First, I want to acknowledge Amy Sippl at lifeskillsadvocate.com, who has some great ways to contemplate and talk about flexibility and flexible thinking. Why is flexibility important? According to Amy, flexibility is “our ability to change our behavior to different contexts or stimuli in our world.” What happens if we don’t have this ability? We do the same things repeatedly (sometimes making the same mistakes), we can’t change direction, transition between tasks, or even hear different opinions. In other words, we get stuck.

How can parents and teachers help teach flexibility as a skill?

• Model listening to different sides of an argument.
• Discuss different strategies for solving problems, be they math problems or life problems.
• Read stories or books with characters who show flexible thinking/behaviors (or discuss how a character is inflexible and how that might be having a negative impact).
• Play games, especially strategy-based games like “Risk” or “Ticket to Ride,” where the ability to change direction or adapt quickly helps you win.
• Go on adventures that are new for the whole family or class; everyone having to be flexible at once levels the playing field.
• Try deep breathing or other mindfulness activities if the need for flexibility creates some anxious moments!

                                            foothillsacademy.org/community/articles/cognitive-flexibility

Why the focus on flexibility this week? As some of you may or may not have heard, WMU has been dealing with an episode of hacking in its computer systems, forcing many of the data and digital storage systems that Dr. Kelly and I typically use to become, well, unusable. In other words, it has been very hard for us to do our jobs. We have had to re-think old systems, recreate files, and select new projects that do not involve the computer. In some ways, this is similar to what we had to do during the pandemic shutdown, when there was a lot of reinventing the wheel on an almost daily basis. And this reminded us of a simple fact: flexible thinking can be hard. It’s tiring. Occasionally it invokes, if not temper tantrums, grumpiness. But…not being flexible these last couple of weeks would have meant a complete inability to run the office and help students in all the important ways that we do.

So when you’re analyzing your executive function skills and thinking about which skills you might want to focus on developing, don’t leave flexibility off your list because you think it doesn’t matter. Flexibility can be a critical skill in school, work, and life. Take time to practice, learn to go with the flow, and get unstuck!

Until next time,

Ms. Nan