When a Child Knows What to Do, but Can't Start: Laziness or Difficulty in Executive Functions?

"You already know what you need to do. So why haven't you started yet?"

This question appears frequently in homes and classrooms. The child received guidance, understood the content and was even able to explain what he or she should do. However, he remains in front of his open notebook, gets up several times, looks for other material, complains about the activity or simply doesn't start.

For those who observe, the interpretation seems evident: laziness, disinterest, lack of responsibility or attempt to escape the task. In some situations, there may actually be little willingness to do something considered tiring or unpleasant. After all, children also put off what they don't like. The problem is using this explanation for all cases.

Between knowing what to do and being able to put that knowledge into action there is a complex set of mental skills. These are called executive functions.

What are executive functions?

Executive functions are cognitive processes that help us direct thoughts, emotions and behaviors to achieve a goal. They come into operation when we need to organize a sequence of actions, resist distractions, remember instructions, change strategies or persist until completing a task.

Although there are different theoretical models, three components are often presented as central:

• inhibitory control: ability to contain impulses and avoid automatic responses;
• working memory: ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate information while carrying out an activity;
• cognitive flexibility: possibility of changing strategy, adapting to a new rule or considering another path.

More complex skills, such as planning, problem solving, decision making and monitoring one's own performance, develop from the articulation of these processes. Researcher Adele Diamond highlights that executive functions are particularly necessary in situations in which acting automatically is not enough and we need to concentrate efforts to achieve a certain objective. (Diamond, 2013)

This means that the child can know the subject and still have difficulty transforming this knowledge into an organized sequence of actions.

Knowing is not the same as being able to execute

Imagine a seemingly simple activity: answering five questions about a text. To carry it out, the child needs to read the command, identify what is being requested, locate information, formulate a response, write it and check whether they have answered the question.

In addition to knowledge about the content, she needs:

• keep the objective of the activity in mind;
• select the necessary materials;
• decide where to start;
• ignore competing stimuli;
• control the desire to abandon the task;
• notice errors;
• correct yourself when necessary;
• manage the time available.

When part of this process is not working well, the child may appear stuck, disinterested, or disorganized. However, the obstacle is not necessarily in understanding the subject. It may be in the passage between intention and action.

It's like having all the necessary parts, but not being able to organize them in the proper order to start assembly.

Why getting started can be the hardest part?

For some children, starting a task requires more effort than continuing it. Once they manage to take the first step, they move forward with relative ease. Before that, however, they seem blocked.

This can happen when the activity is long, poorly structured or presented using very broad commands. An orientation like “do the science work” requires the child to transform a generic goal into several smaller decisions: choosing the topic, finding information, selecting what will be used, writing, revising, and organizing the presentation.

There may also be difficulties when:

• there are many materials or stimuli in the environment;
• the child does not know which step to perform first;
• the instructions were presented all at once;
• the activity seems too big;
• there is fear of making mistakes or the need to do everything perfectly;
• the task requires prolonged effort;
• the child is tired, anxious or emotionally overwhelmed;
• there were repeated experiences of failure in that type of activity.

Stress, for example, can impair working memory and cognitive flexibility, making it more difficult to organize responses to a demand. (Shields et al., 2016) Therefore, increasing pressure does not always produce more action. In certain situations, it produces even more downtime.

So, there is no such thing as laziness?

There is resistance, lack of interest, preference for more pleasurable activities and attempts to avoid responsibilities. We do not need to replace every charge with a cognitive explanation.

However, “laziness” is a word that superficially describes what we see, but rarely explains why it is happening. As we saw in the article Maybe it's not tantrums: what is the child's behavior trying to communicate?, when the adult ends the analysis with this label, they fail to observe important information.

Some questions help to differentiate the situations:

• Does the difficulty only occur in one activity or does it appear in several tasks?
• Does the child get a better start when they receive individual guidance?
• Can she continue after someone helps her with the first step?
• Does the problem increase when the task is extensive or poorly structured?
• Does she get lost when given multiple instructions at once?
• Do you show shame, anxiety or fear of making mistakes?
• Can you start activities of interest, but have difficulty facing school demands?
• Does the behavior occur both at home and at school?
• Is there persistent impairment in learning, autonomy or routine?

The ability to initiate tasks that arouse great interest does not exclude executive difficulties. Pleasurable, immediate or stimulating activities require a different type of effort than that required to begin a long, repetitive task or whose results will only be perceived later.

Therefore, the point is not to remove responsibility from the child, but to understand what support they need to be able to take it on progressively.

Executive Difficulty Does Not Automatically Mean ADHD

Changes in executive functions may be present in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but they do not belong exclusively to it. They can also appear associated with learning difficulties, developmental disorders, anxiety, sleep disorders, stressful situations and other factors.

Additionally, executive functions are developing during childhood and adolescence. A small child should not be expected to have the same planning, control and autonomy as an adult.

Isolated behavior does not allow us to conclude that there is a disorder. It is necessary to consider frequency, intensity, duration, context, age, environmental conditions and the damage caused. The assessment should seek to understand the child's functioning, and not just quickly confirm a label.

How can the family help without doing it for the child?

Helping does not mean taking on the task. The objective is to offer a temporary structure so that children can learn to build their own organization.

1. Make the first step very clear

Instead of saying “begin your lesson,” try:

“Open the notebook in the Mathematics activity and read the first question.”

A concrete first step reduces the effort required to decide where to start.

2. Divide large tasks

A large activity can be organized into small steps:

1. read the command;
2. separate materials;
3. answer the first two questions;
4. take a short break;
5. complete the others;
6. review.

Division does not necessarily reduce content. It makes the path more visible.

3. Use external organizational resources

Lists, calendars, routine charts, alarms and visual markers work as supports for skills that are still being developed. They should not be seen as undue shortcuts, but as instruments for learning autonomy.

4. Avoid repeating increasingly louder commands

When the child does not initiate, repeating “will do” can increase tension without clarifying the action. Getting closer, checking what she understands, and helping her identify the first move is often more productive.

5. Remove support gradually

At the beginning, the adult can help organize all the steps. Then, ask: “What is the first step?” Later, the child himself prepares his list. Effective support must move towards autonomy.

What can the school observe and modify?

The school occupies an important position because it allows the child's performance to be compared in different activities, schedules and forms of instruction.

Some strategies can favor execution:

• present short and objective commands;
• ask the student to explain what they will do first;
• divide long projects into intermediate deliverables;
• offer models on how to get started;
• record steps on the board;
• reduce unnecessary stimuli near the workplace;
• establish a defined time for each part of the activity;
• alternate moments of explanation and execution;
• recognize progress, and not just the end result;
• avoid public displays that associate the child with laziness or irresponsibility.

A systematic review of interactions between teachers and students found positive, although generally small, effects of school-based interventions on self-regulation and executive functions. The study also indicates that the quality of the context and interactions participates in this development, dispelling the idea that executive functioning depends only on the child's internal characteristics. (Sankalaite et al., 2021)

The role of psychopedagogical assessment

In the psychopedagogical assessment, it is important to understand how the child approaches the task, and not just how many items they manage to get right.

It is important to note:

• how it receives and interprets commands;
• if you plan before acting;
• how much support you need to get started;
• how you organize materials and information;
• whether the objective is maintained during the activity;
• how you react when faced with an error;
• whether you can change strategy;
• how long the effort sustains;
• you review what you produced;
• under which conditions it performs best.

These observations must be combined with information from the family, school and, when necessary, other professionals. No single test is capable of representing the full complexity of executive functions, especially because performance can vary depending on the environment, motivation, familiarity with the task and emotional state.

The purpose is not to find an excuse for the behavior, but to identify the obstacles that prevent the child from demonstrating what they know.

Between charging and supporting there is an educational path

Demand without understanding can produce guilt, conflicts and a feeling of incapacity. Support without expectation of development, on the other hand, can maintain dependence and reduce opportunities for autonomy.

The most educational path combines clarity, structure, follow-through, and progressive accountability.

A child who still needs help to start a task should not be abandoned in the face of difficulty, but they also do not need to have everything solved by an adult. She can be taught to recognize the objective, find the first step, monitor her own progress and complete what she started.

Before saying that a child doesn't do it because they don't want to, it's worth checking whether they really know how to start. Sometimes what seems like a lack of will is a skill that still needs to be taught, exercised and strengthened.

When we change the question from “why are you so lazy?” to “what’s making your first step difficult?”, we don’t eliminate responsibility. We create better conditions for it to be built.

References

DIAMOND, Adele. Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 64, p. 135–168, 2013. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750.

SANKALAITE, Simona et al. Strengthening executive function and self-regulation through teacher-student interaction in preschool and primary school children: a systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, art. 718262, 2021. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.718262.

SHIELDS, Grant S.; Sazma, Matthew A.; YONELINAS, Andrew P. The effects of acute stress on core executive functions: a meta-analysis and comparison with cortisol. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, vol. 68, p. 651–668, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.06.038.