4 min read

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Jun 10, 2022

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by Nisaa Kirtman, Kara Harris, Camellia Sanford-Dolly, and Jennifer Borland (Rockman et al Cooperative)

How children manage their emotions, perceive themselves, and engage with others can play a key role in academic readiness and success, improved attitudes and school involvement, and grade retention and dropout rates.

In order to better understand informal (out-of-school) educators’ programming experiences and perceptions related to children’s executive functioning skills, a team of researchers at Rockman et al Cooperative (REA) sought answers to the following questions:

To answer these questions, the REA research team conducted interviews with a racially diverse group of 23 informal educators based in community organizations, museums, and other out-of-school settings. The interview questions allowed the research team to learn more about each organization, the families they served, and their approaches for supporting children’s development of important everyday skills and behaviors.

Interviews revealed that educators are using a range of strategies related to executive function, including ways to help children calm down, cope with conflict, manage stress, talk about their emotions, and employ healthy ways to disengage from situations that are causing a child to be upset.

Collectively, educators identified five methods that they use to assist in children’s development of executive functioning skills and coping strategies:

Trust-building by providing a safe space for children to open up

Empathy and teaching children to view experiences from other perspectives

Acknowledging individual differences and that each child has their own story, may not be as quick to label their emotions, and may need a distinct approach or form of support

Proactive communication, and involving children in co-creating guidelines and guiding principles for classrooms or other learning settings and spaces (e.g., a “Code of Conduct” or asking youth to be Class Assistants) and rewarding positive behaviors

Addressing emotions directly, including communicating that mistakes and failures are okay, and checking in with children daily to see if they need help or support

Most educators mentioned teaching self-awareness and empathy as strategies for building and supporting children’s executive functioning as well as children’s broader social and emotional learning needs. Educators work to create spaces where all children can thrive and proposed games to build specific social and emotional skills. They felt it was critical to establish relationships with youth in order to build trust and intentionally support the development of cognitive and social and emotional skills, mindsets, and habits.

Because many of the educators we interviewed were serving diverse audiences and communities of color, educators also highlighted the importance of considering the needs of each individual child and their unique background — including family and household environments as well as educational background and experiences.

Several educators discussed challenges related to COVID-19, including children being more isolated during stay-at-home orders, the difficulties of transitioning back to in-person learning, and the pandemic’s effects on children’s executive functioning. The following quote illustrates this finding

“Before the pandemic, the kids were more group-focused, more empathetic, and better at supporting one another and reminding others. After the pandemic, the kids were isolated and were more individually centered. They lacked socialization because they were isolated…We have a lot of work to do as a group.”

Educators also struggled with getting kids back on track and getting them to be more group-oriented and empathetic. For example, one educator described not only how kids were not only less kind to one another once businesses and schools started to open back up, but also that group-level activities and group regulation were overshadowed by individually focused behaviors. She assumed that kids would be more excited about group activities and seeing their peers again. However, she was surprised when she observed an increase in tattling — saying things like, “Someone did this to me” or “That’s not fair!”

In response to these trends, educators said they are seeking to create activities that require group-level cooperation to get things done, such as a work line to organize their supplies. Educators are also incorporating more discussion and questions that encourage empathy such as, “How would you feel if this happened to you, your friend, or your family member?”

Interviews with informal educators provided insights on the types of strategies that they are using to develop and support children’s executive functioning skills and gave us a deeper understanding of the unique challenges and needs that have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. Approaches to social and emotional learning and everyday skills — especially those related to executive functioning— varied by site. Consistent across all sites was the need to establish trust between informal educators and youth program participants.