29/09/2026
Predictability – a great Executive Function support
If you live with a chronic illness, you are probably highly familiar with those days when your memory feels even worse than usual. And your anxiety has gone whoosh although you can’t work out why – or possibly even what it is you’re actually worried about.
Emotional regulation? Er, today it’s going to be spelled 'wobbly'.
And organising things? These are the days you could burn water, because you can’t keep track of time, where things are, what you’ve done, or where you’ve put things.
The thing is – if you’re neurodivergent, you might relate too, on your days when you’re tired, overwhelmed, overstimulated, or unwell. And if you’re stressed at work and feeling overwhelmed, the same patterns can appear. If you're parenting a child who lives with additional needs, or supporting them in your early years setting, you may know very well there are days when they have a cold, or a tooth coming, or a routine's changed, or they don't feel like themselves, and their whole day to them feels so much harder.
Some of it can be to do with executive function. When your pain increases, when you’re more tired than usual, when your body is burning energy holding itself together and carrying on, and trying to keep track of managing each demand and what comes next? That energy has to come from somewhere. So your executive function skills begin to run on lower than usual. And if you already live with executive function strain? Then lower than usual can mean a real challenge.
So what can you do? Particularly when you or your child are already feeling like you’re doing more than you can manage and you can’t organise putting your socks on, never mind any clever plans or charts?
Try coming at it the other way. Lift a little of the strain off your nervous system, and reduce the drain on your executive function. A really simple way is to add predictability. Predictability is great. You know what’s coming next; your memory gets a rest. Your body doesn’t have to brace for surprises. You can relax. The mental effort lowers.
Two of my favourite ways to add predictability to my day?
The first - exchanging my every day TV diet for a binge box set of something I know well and like, with familiar characters and stories, with low emotional demand. And I freeze the ads; they throw too many fast shifts and demands.
The second - setting myself a particular, soothing piece of music on my phone to play at a set point in my routine that cues my body “and now we change gear”. It anchors the day. and the more I do it the more my body goes “yes, I know this”.
For children - Try making the day smaller by reducing the transitions and choices for now. Use your 'now and next' language to help prepare for necessary transitions. Soften the sensory demands of the environment and try white noise that gives predictability without a processing demand. Go with the really familiar and simple for dinner. And the quiet consistent music cue for a transition can help too.
A little EF support can make that little incremental difference, and those little incremental differences? They add up.
If you would like to learn more about supporting children in your care with predictability and other gentle supports to help with regulation, wellbeing, comfort and access to all the lovely things you offer in your setting, even on the days your child finds harder? I offer training to preschools and nurseries both by Zoom and in person. Twilights and evenings are available.
If you're an adult who is wondering whether you yourself would benefit from a little 1:1 support to find plans like this that might fit into your day and make things easier? Maybe some Executive Function coaching might support you.
Find me at [email protected] or on my website at www.earlyyearssen.com
or on https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellie-collar-964613435/
