Executive functions (EFs) in childhood predict important life outcomes. Thus, there is great interest in attempts to improve EFs early in life. Many interventions are led by trained adults, including structured training activities in the lab, and less-structured activities implemented in schools. Such programs have yielded gains in children's externally-driven executive functioning, where they are instructed on what goal-directed actions to carry out and when. However, it is less clear how children's experiences relate to their development of self-directed executive functioning, where they must determine on their own what goal-directed actions to carry out and when. We hypothesized that time spent in less-structured activities would give children opportunities to practice self-directed executive functioning, and lead to benefits. To investigate this possibility, we collected information from parents about their 6–7 year-old children's daily, annual, and typical schedules. We categorized children's activities as “structured” or “less-structured” based on categorization schemes from prior studies on child leisure time use. We assessed children's self-directed executive functioning using a well-established verbal fluency task, in which children generate members of a category and can decide on their own when to switch from one subcategory to another. The more time that children spent in less-structured activities, the better their self-directed executive functioning. The opposite was true of structured activities, which predicted poorer self-directed executive functioning. These relationships were robust (holding across increasingly strict classifications of structured and less-structured time) and specific (time use did not predict externally-driven executive functioning). We discuss implications, caveats, and ways in which potential interpretations can be distinguished in future work, to advance an understanding of this fundamental aspect of growing up.

Behavioral ecology is a field in which scientists try to predict behavioral choices, typically by estimating costs of behavioral alternatives even though those costs may involve different currencies. Researchers interested in motor behavior often have similar concerns, though the connections between these two fields have been largely unnoticed. The authors pursued a study of motor behaviors involving different currencies: walking over different distances and reaching over different distances. They found that the cost of reaching was much greater than the cost of walking. They also found that walking paths took into account hand preferences. The present study extends previous research on the neglected topic of the coordination of reaching and walking and provides a simple method that can be applied in other contexts.

Objectives This paper describes the emergence of the scientific study of mindfulness in schools; summarizes findings of experimental research on the impacts of school-based mindfulness programs (SBMPs) on student outcomes in prekindergarten, primary, and secondary school settings (ages 4–18 years); discusses scientific limitations and wider critiques of this work; and offers suggestions for future research. Methods Public data are used to describe the emergence of science on SBMPs, the foci of this research, and the academic disciplines contributing to it. A narrative summary of scientific findings regarding the impacts of SBMPs on students, and critiques of this work, is also presented. Results Research is increasing and is primarily psychological and prevention-oriented. Evidence shows SBMPs can enhance students’ self-regulation abilities, but SBMPs’ impacts on other student outcomes at different ages are equivocal. The current research has significant limitations, and these, alongside wider critiques of the work, suggest important directions for research. Conclusions In the next generation of science, we suggest (a) improving the experimental research; (b) expanding developmental research; and (c) re-envisioning assumptions, theories, and methods in research to go “beyond all splits” towards a non-dualistic and relationally, culturally, contextually, ethically, and developmentally grounded science on mindfulness and compassion for students in schools.

In order to address the deleterious effects of poverty and toxic stress on the development of children’s executive function (EF) skills, it is important for researchers to consider interventions that address multiple overlapping family systems. Interventions should consider influences on children’s developing EF skills, including parent stress, household chaos, and the quality of parent-child interactions. One particularly important component of successful EF intervention is the promotion of cognitive reflection. However, common methods of promoting reflection in children (e.g., mindfulness meditation) might not be appropriate in all contexts. This paper outlines a framework for considering the promotion of cognitive reflection within daily family routines. This integration of practices has the potential to improve children’s EF skills as well as other important family outcomes.

Although an explicit Theory of Mind (ToM) has been found to develop around 4 years of age in Western societies, recent work showing that 4- and 5-year-olds fail modified versions of False Belief tasks as well as seemingly easier True Belief tasks calls into question the robustness of preschoolers’ belief understanding. Some have argued these findings illustrate children’s conceptual limitations in their understanding of belief that are masked by standard False Belief tasks. However, others claim these examples of children’s failure can be explained by pragmatics of the testing situation, rather than conceptual limitations. Given the documented relation between ToM and executive function, an unexamined possibility is that children’s failure can be explained by certain executive demands. In the current study, we examined the relation between typically developing 4- ( n = 43) and 5-year-olds’ ( n = 42) performance on traditional and modified False Belief tasks, True Belief tasks, and one component of executive functioning - working memory. We found that children performed worse on modified False Belief tasks and True Belief tasks compared to standard 2-option False Belief tasks, and that working memory was related to modified 3-option contents False Belief performance. These results suggest that a fully representational ToM, one that is stable in the context of increased conceptual, executive, and pragmatic demands, may develop later than traditional accounts have assumed.