Nurturing a Child’s Executive Function: Beyond Academic and Emotional Intelligence

It is every parent’s joy to see their children excel, not just in their school exams, but also in developing a more advanced set of skills that they can use to manage and succeed in practical tasks such as making plans, adapting to new situations, solving problems, and regulating thoughts and emotions. This set of brain skills is called EXECUTIVE FUNCTION. Nurturing these at an early stage is important to help your child develop academic, emotional, and cognitive intelligence.

Here are the 3 Main executive functions and questions to guide you if your child needs help in these areas:

Simply put, EQ is the ability to understand one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others and react appropriately to them. This includes a person’s ability to handle conflicts, negotiate, and communicate.

Inhibitory Control. The ability to maintain focus, stop distractions, and behave as needed.

• Can your child maintain focus even in a noisy environment?
• Is your child easily distracted?
• Does your child have difficulty waiting for his or her turn?

Working Memory. The ability to plan, prioritize, hold rules and relate facts together.

• Can your child pack his or her own school bag? 

• Can your child keep track of his or her daily routine? 

• Does your child often lose belongings? 

Mental Flexibility. The ability to shift attention, adapt, use multiple solutions, and process information with ease.

• Does your child often start tasks but not finish them?
• Does your child have difficulty following complex instructions?
• Does your child struggle to transition between activities smoothly?

There are several ways you can help your child develop executive function. One way is to nourish higher intelligence by making sure you give them the nutrients designed to support cognitive functions. MFGM (milk fat globule membrane) is a breakthrough ingredient that has been clinically proven to help develop academic and emotional intelligence. DHA is a known nutrient clinically proven to help nourish higher intelligence.

Enfagrow A+ Four Nurapro is the only staged milk with MFGM that has the highest level of DHA (among formula milks), especially designed to give 2x brain power to help support higher intelligence (vs formula without MFGM, with early supplementation of MFGM, with proper nutrition and stimulation).

For an A+ child that’s future-ready, give them Enfagrow A+ Four (with early supplementation of MFGM, with proper nutrition and stimulation).