My EF Coach summer tip. Today’s tip is about organization and if you are like me, having your kids home during the summer can be a little overwhelming in terms of just the amount of stuff that’s laying around the house. Because more people are home for more hours in a day while your kids aren’t in school, it can feel like a bit of a nightmare to try to keep on top of everything.
You might find yourself asking, gently persuading, or maybe even yelling and screaming about all of the things that are everywhere all over the house. So if that’s the case, today’s tip is for you, and hopefully this can be helpful. The skill is called “Match the Picture” and I want start by giving a little bit of background on the way our brains work, we are actually wired very naturally from the beginning when we are first born and the way we were created to be able to read picture.
Video Transcript:
I want to start by giving a little bit of background that the way our brains work, we are actually wired very naturally from the beginning when we are first born and the way we were created to be able to read picture. And so from the time that your mom held you in her arms and looked and smiled at your face, you were able to read or understand some type of a message from that smile.
Our ability to read pictures and understand pictures or images is so much greater than that to read the written word or even to understand verbal language. Because both of those types of language are not something that innately we knew. And so it requires a process to take place in the brain for us to understand language. And that process for some people is actually like a pretty simple process. And for others, it’s really complex, especially if there’s any type of language barriers, whether it’s dyslexia or reading disability, or even someone who has slow auditory processing or has had any problems with speech during their life. There’s usually some type of a different channel that language is processed through.
So when that is the case, every time that you are trying to give instruction via a note that you wrote to your kid or, you know, the sticky notes that you posted asking them to please get these things done, those things are going to be easily overlooked or not fully processed versus a picture, which is going to be stronger. And so this is the way max picture works. You have to first clean the space. So this was the space, I would have to clean this space into what I deem is acceptable, that it’s the way I want it to look. And then I’m going to take a picture of that space. And once I have that picture, here’s an example. I’m going to put it in for me, I like to put it in these little protective sleeves and post it in a place that is in the vicinity of the area that it is for. So in my home, I might have some of these protective sheets on the backside of a door hanging there in the inside of the bathroom door so that when you close it, you can easily see what a clean bathroom looks like. And then all you have to say to your child is, I wonder if you can match the picture. Or I noticed that the living room isn’t quite matching the picture.
Please let’s match the picture. And it does require a little bit of training to show your kids how you look at the picture and you look at the space and you say, what doesn’t fit? If you remember back in the day, if you’re in my generation, we had a lot of these like workbook pages that were done in school where it was like, which of these do not belong? And it’s the same kind of idea. And hopefully we spark in our kids or those living with us, the desire to see what does not fit. And then it’s easier to make it fit. One thing I will tell you about match the picture that is really great.
If you have those in your home who have ADHD or really struggle with executive functioning related tasks, when you have a picture to match, all of a sudden it creates urgency in the brain naturally. Remember the big challenge with ADHD is that there has to be urgency sometimes to get enough go-go juice to do something. But we also sometimes have way too much of a speed bump or a hurdle to get over in order to do something because there’s just enough resistance in our brain to not do things that we don’t want to do.
It’s the reason why I love time timers and my last video post, I talked about time timers and how important they are. When you have a time timer, it tells you, you only have this much time to do this. And so it creates urgency. I have to do this. I have 15 minutes. I have this segment of time, but it also lowers resistance because it also says you only have to do this thing for this much time. So if it’s something you don’t like to do, it’s a great thing for lowering resistance and increasing urgency, which are the two things that we have to work on in that ADHD brain in order to do something. So if you were to use a time timer for match the picture, you could set a timer and say, hey, we’re going to spend this much time trying to match the picture. Here’s the picture of our space.
Let’s see if we can get it looking more like the picture in this much time. If you were to combine a time timer and match the picture, you are guaranteed to see yourself living in a much more happy and restored site in which whatever room it is that’s bothering you is more to your liking. So I hope this tip was helpful. Please like it if it was a tip that was helpful. And if you want more videos like this, please subscribe so that you can get more of our content and have a great day. (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
Executive function skills for the summer. Match the picture. If you have questions about this video or anything else related to executive functioning, please contact us.
