The development of a child relies on a set of skills that go beyond academic learning. Recent work in developmental psychology distinguishes three interdependent pillars: cognitive skills (attention, working memory, planning), emotional regulation, and social skills. Supporting a child’s education means acting simultaneously on these three axes, both at home and outside.
Executive skills: the foundation of child development
Before discussing reading, educational games, or school results, one point deserves the full attention of parents: executive skills. This term encompasses selective attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning ability. These functions, located in the prefrontal cortex, develop significantly between the ages of three and twelve.
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A child who struggles to stay focused on a task or to adapt when instructions change is not necessarily lacking motivation. They may simply need targeted training in these functions. Everyday activities contribute to this: following a recipe step by step, organizing a room by categorizing objects, or finishing a puzzle before starting another.
To delve deeper into these topics and find resources suitable for each age group, visiting astuces-parents.com for children helps identify concrete pathways categorized by theme.
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A common trap is to multiply extracurricular activities in the hope of stimulating these skills. Overloading has the opposite effect: a saturated schedule prevents the child from planning and prioritizing, two fundamental executive functions. It is better to have two regular activities than a fragmented agenda across five different slots.
Co-regulation of emotions: learning to manage emotions before learning anything else
Research from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard, updated in 2024, places emotional co-regulation as a prerequisite for learning. The principle is straightforward: a child overwhelmed by an emotion (frustration, anger, anxiety) cannot mobilize their attention or working memory. Learning then becomes physiologically impossible.
Co-regulation involves supporting the child in recognizing and managing their emotions, without denying them or resolving them on their behalf. This involves simple but regular gestures.
- Naming the emotion out loud (“you seem frustrated because the tower fell down”) to help the child associate a word with a bodily sensation
- Proposing an age-appropriate calm-down strategy: slow breathing for older children, a hug or a change of activity for younger ones
- Avoiding minimizing the emotion (“it’s nothing”) as this short-circuits the emotional learning process
This approach, called “serve and return” in the scientific literature, relies on reciprocal exchange: the child expresses, the adult responds appropriately, and the child gradually integrates this regulation. The repetition of these micro-interactions builds the capacity for self-regulation over the long term.
Screens and digital hygiene: an underestimated educational lever by parents
The issue of screens goes far beyond simply counting the minutes spent in front of a tablet. Recent recommendations emphasize three parameters that many families overlook: the timing of exposure, the type of content, and the presence or absence of an adult during use.
A screen used in the hour before bedtime disrupts melatonin production and degrades sleep quality. Sleep plays a direct role in consolidating memory and learning from the day. Protecting sleep is protecting the ability to learn.
Passive content and interactive content
Watching a video on repeat does not engage the same brain circuits as an educational game that requires choices, responses, or manipulation. Passive content (continuous video streams, scrolling through short content) maintains attention without strengthening it. Interactive content, on the other hand, mobilizes the executive skills mentioned earlier.
Parental involvement makes a difference: commenting on what the child sees on the screen, asking questions about the content, or participating in the game transforms solitary screen time into a shared learning situation. The presence of the adult converts a passive moment into a “serve and return” exchange.
Parental stress and the quality of family interactions
A rarely addressed angle in educational guides concerns the emotional state of the parents themselves. Chronic parental stress reduces availability for quality interactions with the child. An exhausted or anxious parent is likely to respond in a more directive, less adjusted manner, and to reduce moments of free play or open conversation.
Taking care of one’s own emotional regulation is not a luxury. It is a condition for co-regulation with the child to work. A few concrete levers deserve to be identified:
- Delegating certain household or educational tasks to preserve real availability (not just physical, but mental)
- Identifying times of day when patience is lowest and avoiding placing demanding educational activities (homework, guided reading) during those times
- Differentiating situations that require immediate intervention from those that can wait, to reduce daily decision-making burden
A less stressed parent interacts better, and the child directly benefits in their learning as well as in their emotional security.
The role of predictable routines
Routines serve not only to organize the day. They provide the child with a predictable framework that reduces anxiety and frees cognitive resources for learning. A child who knows what comes after dinner (bath, story, bedtime) expends less mental energy anticipating and more enjoying each moment.
Routines also benefit parents: they automate transitions and decrease the number of daily negotiations, which mechanically reduces decision fatigue.
Supporting a child’s development is not just about choosing the right educational games or the right reading method. Executive skills, emotional regulation, digital hygiene, and family stress levels form a system where each element influences the others. Acting on only one of these axes produces limited results. The most sustainable progress occurs when these four dimensions advance together.