It's easy, however, for one to claim that they already have a growth mindset or that their executive functioning is great. But here's the catch, if you think you already have all the skills you need, you are leaning towards the fixed mindset! Did that blow your mind? Of course, it did.

Games for Executive Functioning

A lot of people would assume that learning these skills would be a boring or tiring task but here's the thing, executive functions can be built on fun activities such as sports and learning music. Although we associate games with leisure or health, it can also be useful in teaching life skills and lessons, especially to kids.

That is why if you search up activities to teach kids executive functioning, you would find that there are quite a number of games mentioned.

Take the board game "Battleship" for example. The game allows for players to carefully plan and direct their attention to different areas of their map in order to prevent their ships from getting destroyed. It also lets them develop selective attention as they need to keep track of where the enemy ships might be located.

It is not just board games that teach skills either. Sports is another great way to develop certain skills. To find out what games are best for which skills, I have put together a list for you here arranged based on the three age groups we are looking at - 5 to 7 years old, 7 to 12 years old, and adolescents. The skills that the games teach are shown by the very cool spider diagrams.

Games for 5 to 7 Years Old

At this age, a challenge can help children develop skills, so we choose games that are hard but not too difficult for each child.