Executive Function Holiday Gift Guide

Needing ideas for holiday gifts? This is a great time to find games and activities that support executive function skill development. Many games support a number of different executive function skills. Games that are for multiple players help with the skills of:

• Emotional Regulation- When the game is not going your way you have to learn to check your emotions to be a good participant.
• Response Inhibition- It can’t always be your turn and sometimes you have to wait for someone else to make a decision or take their turn.
• Sustained Attention- Paying attention and keeping focus on the game to know when it is your turn or are people playing by the rules
• Working Memory- Remembering what are the rules, if there is strategy involved you use your working memory to hold onto information until it is your turn.

Not into group games or don’t have someone around to play with? Independent activities are another way you can have fun while working on executive function skills:

• Emotional Regulation- Many games take strategy and that can be frustrating at times but also when you stick with it and don’t give up you learn and improve in your ability. Working on something that is hard for you and not giving up actually builds new pathways in your brain. The Harvard Business Review states, “If you get a reward, the brain remembers what it did right. Failure has no impact.”
• Response Inhibition- Depending on what the activity is you may have to slow down and take your time to get to the next step or complete the task.
• Sustained Attention- Keeping your focus and not depending on others to entertain you will help support development of this skill.
• Working Memory- While there may not be rules in the same way as games with multiple players, individual activities will still require you to hold information and thoughts in your brain while you do something else. You also may have to change your perspective of how you are viewing something to make it work.

Reference

Success Gets into Your Head—and Changes It. (n.d.). Hbr.Org. Retrieved November 15, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2010/01/success-gets-into-your-head-and-changes-it