Middle school in many school systems in the US encompasses grades 6-8, or from about the ages 11 to 13. This is a critical time for the building on foundational Executive Function skills that began in elementary grades, K-5.

These include:

• Self-regulation – managing strong emotions and inhibiting impulsive behaviors

• Attention – sustaining focus, especially for lengthy or challenging tasks that may have many components

• Task Initiation – starting a non-preferred task and overcoming a desire to procrastinate

• Organization – keeping track of materials at home and in school, organizing ideas and information for essays and research papers, managing digital data and files

• Planning and Prioritizing – mapping out multi-step tasks such as long-term class projects, and tackling assignments in order of importance

• Time Management – allocating time for schoolwork and other commitments such as sports, clubs, family, friends, part-time jobs, volunteer work, and other involvements

• Cognitive Flexibility – taking the perspective of teachers and peers and formulating different solutions to problems

• Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own learning and have the self-awareness that drives good choices

While some children seem to develop these skills seamlessly, many struggle and benefit from a level of direct 1:1 instruction and support that is often unavailable in most middle schools.

Parents often see signs of Executive Function challenges in their child in middle school, when students face increased demands for self-management.

Parents and teachers may notice:

Organizational challenges – the student has difficulties organizing class materials, keeping track of and turning in homework, or approaching writing assignments and long-term projects

Behavior or emotion management challenges – the student may have poor relationships with teachers, be unable to resist distractions, have difficulty settling down to do work, or give up easily on challenging or tedious tasks

Time management challenges – the student leaves work until the last minute, causing panic and stress at home, the child maybe over scheduled and stressed

Academic challenges – the student lacks persistence or often does not complete or even start assignments, may do poorly on tests due to ineffective study habits, may lose credit for late assignments, may not know how to take notes in class

Parents of middle school children who are struggling may wonder:

How can I get my child to start their homework earlier without constant reminders?

How can I help my child manage frustration?

How can I help my child increase self confidence?

My child is smart, but why does he/she receive low grades?

Middle school can be an awkward time for even the most “together” students. But for adolescents with Executive Function challenges, daily life in middle school can feel downright unmanageable without the proper supports. Consider below some common obstacles that seventh graders face.

Challenge #1: Getting to class on time and prepared

Put yourself in the sneakers of a 7th grader. You have eight class periods in the course of a six-hour day. You are expected to visit your locker before school, take out the books you’ll need until lunch, and leave the rest in your locker. You have two minutes from the moment one class ends until the next one starts in which to pack up your books and papers, and walk down the hall to your next class, all the while resisting the urge to chat with friends in the hallway.

When you have trouble with organizing materials and planning ahead, there’s a lot of stress in these rushed transitions between classes. And maybe you also get treated to an exasperated teacher when you need to pop back to your locker (again) for your pencil.

Challenge #2: Tracking homework assignments

You’re a sixth grader with four or five different teachers, each with a slightly different system of assigning and collecting the homework. Some teachers post assignments on a corner of the board, and some teachers provide handouts. Many teachers post the homework online. The trouble is, different teachers sometimes post assignments on different sites. On top of that inconsistency, some teachers want you to submit homework online, others want a hard copy (with the proper heading).

If you’re a kid with challenges in cognitive flexibility, organization, or emotion regulation, this variation between expectations in your classes can be frustrating. Unless you have a system for finding assignments, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. And that feeling of being overwhelmed can cause you to avoid the homework completely.

Challenge #3: Writing on demand

Classes in middle school sometimes begin with a “do-now” exercise. Starting from the moment class begins, you have five minutes to write down two to three ideas in response to a given prompt. Your working memory challenges or slower processing speed can make it hard to compose a thought in your head and rapidly transform it into grammatically correct language. Your attention challenges make it hard to keep your focus on writing when there are some really loud kids in the hallway or the student next to you keeps clicking his pen. Your struggles with organization result in a paragraph with no topic sentence and some unrelated details that seemed important when you thought of them.

Students with Executive Function challenges face extra stress in middle school when demands increase for flexibility, productivity, organization, and timeliness. While it’s frustrating for a parent (or teacher) when a student can’t “get it together” it’s even more overwhelming to actually be that student.

Lots of bright kids need to be explicitly taught how to manage themselves effectively – and we’ve found that once they know how to do that, all students can thrive…even in middle school!

In middle school, students must learn to adapt to the expectations of several different teachers who may schedule tests and due dates for projects on the same day. Pre-teens and teens need to be productive amidst the distractions of phones and computers, as well as the complexities of peer relationships.

Developmentally, parents see that middle school students may insist on managing their academics without parental oversight, yet they are often unequipped to do this independently. By 8th grade, Executive Function skills form the basis of a smooth transition to high school, where school demands compete with students’ social and extracurricular activities – and the academic stakes are higher.

A child’s challenges in middle school have increasing relevance as a child matures, ultimately playing a central role in shaping student achievement. Unaddressed, a deficit in the critical foundational area of Executive Function skills can have long-term effects on a student’s success and, consequently, their self-confidence as a learner.