Let Kids Make Their Own Choices: Autonomy-Supportive Care for Cognitive Growth

Aug 02, 2024

The development of executive function (EF) skills is critical in a child's development. These brain skills help children remember goals, control impulses, and think flexibly to solve problems, make informed decisions, and achieve goals. As parents and caregivers, understanding how to support and promote the development of your child's EF skills will not only help them succeed academically and socially, but also prevent behavioral problems and legal disputes that may arise in the future. This article will delve into the importance of EF skills, the significance of early development, and how parents and caregivers can help their children build strong EF skills through self-directed supportive caregiving behaviors.

Key takeaways for caregivers

• Executive function (EF) skills: EF skills are brain-based processes that allow us to remember goals, resist impulses, and think flexibly.
• Early EF skills matter: Developing EF skills early in life is crucial for various outcomes like social competence, emotion regulation, academic achievement, and keeping out of legal trouble.
• Parental and caregiver influence is significant: Parents play a vital role in promoting positive development of EF skills, especially during early childhood when children spend a lot of time with their caregivers.
• Autonomy-supportive care: In studies, caregivers’ autonomy-supportive care behaviors – including adapting assistance to the child’s needs, using positive communication, recognizing the child’s perspective, and offering choices – are consistently related to children’s EF skills.
• Choices and EF skills: Providing children with age-appropriate choices appears to have an especially powerful relation to their development of EF skills.
• Research: Ongoing studies are exploring whether children’s behaviors around choice (e.g., how many options they prefer) predict their EF skills. The findings will improve our understanding of how children make decisions and how caregivers can provide optimal choices that support children’s EF skills and overall well-being.

What are EF skills and why do they matter?

The skills children learn when they are young can make a big difference in their achievements and relationships as they grow up. Skills like getting along with others, controlling emotions, and being ready to learn new information are all important for children’s development.

Scientists have been studying how to help children improve these skills, which we call executive function (EF) skills. These are the brain-based processes used to hold information in mind, resist impulses, and think flexibly. Together, they allow individuals to solve problems, make good decisions, and accomplish goals.

EF skills predict more positive outcomes later in life

More and more, researchers are identifying the importance of EF skills for later life outcomes. The evidence has come primarily from Western cultures and from families across a wide range of socioeconomic statuses. It suggests that children with stronger EF skills are more likely than their peers with weaker EF skills to be socially competent, emotionally regulated, and ready for kindergarten, and that they are more likely to meet standards in math and reading throughout school and to be financially secure later in life.

Strong EF skills reduce likelihood of substance abuse, criminal activity and premature aging

In addition, children with stronger EF skills are less likely to have substance abuse and a criminal conviction, and they even are less likely to age prematurely. These findings have not been explained by children’s intelligence or family background alone – EF in childhood was a key factor.

Given that this foundation for lifetime skills is built during childhood, caregivers have a very important role to play in helping their children develop these skills.

What specific caregiver behaviors help children develop EF?

Researchers have discovered that caregivers can take many steps to help children as young as 2 years old improve their EF skills. When caregivers are warm and sensitive, and when they encourage children to think, it can make a big difference.

But a particular aspect of caregiving caught researchers’ attention: autonomy-supportive care. Supporting children’s autonomy means structuring their lives in ways that let children feel like they are in charge of what they do and that their actions matter. This includes using positive words to cheer them on, giving them age-appropriate choices, and helping them when they need it, without taking over.

Studies in my lab at the University of Minnesota and other research conducted in Western societies have found that when parents and caregivers provide autonomy-supportive care more frequently, their preschool-age children tend to have stronger EF skills.

Exploring specific autonomy-supportive caregiver behaviors in action

Supporting children’s autonomy means structuring their lives in ways that let children feel like they are in charge of what they do and that their actions matter.

My colleagues and I study the relation between autonomy-supportive caregiving and children’s EF by observing a parent and child working on puzzles that are a bit too hard for children to solve on their own, so they need some help. In our work, we look for four types of autonomy-supportive caregiver behaviors:

1. Adapting assistance to the child’s needs (e.g., “How about if we start by finding the edge pieces?”)
2. Using encouraging words (e.g., “I think you’ve got this part, but let me know if you want my help.”)
3. Considering the child’s perspective (e.g., “This is a tricky one!”)
4. Offering choices and following the child’s pace (e.g., “Which corner would you like to start on?” then giving the child time to take their turn.)

The children also spend time with a researcher doing activities designed to assess their EF skills. These include having to wait for a reward, remembering where stickers are hidden, and playing a digital game we developed called the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS).

We used this method in a series of studies of more than 350 families living in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, in Evansville, Indiana, and in Montreal, Canada. The parents were mothers and fathers, and the families were of high, middle, and low socioeconomic status from a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds; the children ranged from 1 to 5 years old.

The better the autonomy-supportive behaviors, the stronger the EF skills

Across the board, we found that the more caregivers engaged in autonomy-supportive behaviors, the stronger their children’s EF skills, independent of the children’s general intelligence. This made us wonder: Are all parts of autonomy-supportive care equally important for helping children with their EF skills?

To dig deeper into the data from the series of studies, my students and colleagues and I directly compared the different forms of autonomy supportive care demonstrated by the participating caregivers.

We found that letting children make choices was the strongest predictor of EF: Children whose caregivers gave them more choices had stronger EF skills than children whose caregivers gave them fewer choices. For instance, some parents were more likely than others to let their children choose which puzzle to begin with and which corner to work on, and to limit the problem space by offering a finite task (e.g., “Which of these pieces – a red one or a blue one – should we try next?”).

Why would letting children choose improve thinking skills?

EF skills help individuals control themselves and stop acting impulsively, and instead take steps that help them reach their goals. To accomplish these goals, individuals need to believe that they have control over what they do and that their actions matter.

When caregivers provide children with opportunities to make their own choices, it helps children reflect on their goals rather than just do whatever feels good in the moment. This reflection supports the conscious control needed for EF. I like to summarize it this way: Before children can control how they act, think, or feel, they must have a sense of choice in how to act, think, or feel.

Since this research is correlational, might the process also work the other way around? Indeed, I predict that children with stronger EF skills are more reflective, and have a stronger sense of agency and preference for choice, leading them to shape their caregivers to offer more choice. Like most concepts in psychology, this is very likely a transactional, bidirectional process.

How can caregivers provide choices to children?

To put this research into action, caregivers can try to become more conscious of opportunities to let their children make choices. Consider these examples:

• Instead of laying out clothes for your child, ask them to choose their outfit. If you are worried they will dress inappropriately, limit their options, such as by asking which school outfit they would like to wear.
• If your child is procrastinating on a chore or homework, instead of saying, “Do your homework” or “Why haven’t you done your homework?” try asking, “Do you want to start with English or math homework?”

These small twists of language can make a big difference in the way children feel agency and take responsibility for their own decisions. In turn, children are more likely to follow through on their goals.

Although it might seem counterintuitive at first blush, research suggests that caregivers might actually help children get better at controlling their behavior by giving them more freedom of choice, not less, as part of autonomy-supportive care.

Next steps in research

Our research has focused on how parents give children choices, but there is more to explore. My students are now looking at the notion of choice itself. For example, do children prefer to select a sticker from a sheet with only one type of sticker or from a sheet with multiple options?

We want to figure out how children respond when faced with choices, how many options to provide at different ages, and what reasonable limits on choice are – after all, having ice cream for breakfast might not be a realistic option! As we uncover more research results, we will learn even more about how children’s choices and their thinking skills go hand in hand.

In the meantime, giving children more choices is a promising way to help them learn to control their behavior

In summary, although it might seem counterintuitive at first blush, research suggests that caregivers might actually help children get better at controlling their behavior by giving them more freedom of choice, not less, as part of autonomy-supportive care.

Studies show that this approach is related to stronger EF – the thinking skills children need to succeed in school and relationships. By understanding and applying these findings, caregivers can actively support the development of their children’s cognitive growth, independence, and overall success.

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