Tuesday Tips: Making Planning Visible

Yesterday we dug into the myths of planning. Today we’re zooming in on one of the biggest truths:

If planning lives only in your child’s head, it’s draining their working memory and setting them up to struggle.

Our goal? Move planning out of the head and into the world—where it’s visible, repeatable, and scaffolded.

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Why Planning Can’t Stay in Their Head

When we give kids a list of steps and expect them to “just remember,” we’re actually asking for a whole Cirque du Soleil routine inside their brain:

• Turn our words into mental images

• Hold those images in the right order

• Store them long enough to finish the task

• Flex when things go awry, not if

• Retrieve them at the right moment

That’s a lot of executive functioning skill for one simple set of directions! No wonder kids peter out, forget midstream, or melt down. The solution isn’t more reminders (or nagging) — it’s making the plan visible, tangible and something they can access independently... eventually.