It is now well known that the executive functioning component of our brains is a more important indicator than IQ when it comes to success in school, in work and in life. This video is a must for teachers, social workers, child-serving professionals, and parents to understand what they can do to build their own executive function skills and those of the children, adolescents, and young adults with whom they interact and care for. Learn with us as we take a closer look at the “Emotion” or feeling skills and talk about the what, why and how of these critical brain functions. These specific skills include the brain’s emotional control and stress management functions, essential skills to manage emotions to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behavior, and the ability to thrive in a stressful situation and cope with uncertainty, change and performance demands. These skills are essential to everyone’s well-being! Read more The presenter goes into depth on how the stress that professionals, children, adolescents, and young adults encounter in life can result in symptoms that make them very difficult to deal with at times because they are interested in fixing problems rather than solving them. Before you label a behavior, consider the symptom, the reason, and the executive function skill needed to be successful, keeping in mind that executive functioning skills are frequently associated with completing a task. However, they also relate to how we regulate our emotions and behavior which is critical to understand for behavior management. This session also helps professionals and parents understand brain chemistry in simple terms and the impact it plays in relation to challenging behavior; strategies and tips are offered on how to address and deal with it effectively through understanding its cause, its triggers and what keeps it going. But the presenter does more than leave her audience with understanding. Her experience in working with difficult children and adolescents provides her audience with the tools to build the skills needed to help a student, client or child develop and strengthen these executive function skills to be able to control their emotions and manage the everyday stress they encounter in life, to succeed in the classroom, the workplace, and life.

Presenter:

  Kelly Spanoghe, Ed.S.