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When my oldest was four years old, she spent the day with me in my office at the University of Delaware. At one point, she wandered into the office of a colleague who holds a Ph.D. in mathematics. My colleague asked her to arrange the books on the bottom shelf in size order.

It took my daughter a while to get started. Since she was my first child, I immediately panicked, pulled my colleague into the hallway, and whispered, “What’s wrong with her?”

My colleague smiled and said, “Just watch.”

So I did.

As my daughter worked, my colleague asked questions to guide her thinking. My daughter explained that she first had to decide if she wanted to go from smallest to biggest or biggest to smallest. Then she had to choose whether to sort by height, thickness, or weight. Then she had to figure out how to measure those conditions. Finally, she could organize the books.

🤯

Fast forward to my youngest. I thought, let me give her the same challenge. She looked at me and said, “I don’t want to do that right now,” before running off to play. Sigh.

What my oldest demonstrated was cognitive flexibility. My youngest? Probably avoidance. But avoidance often points to something more: for many children, cognitive flexibility is not yet a strength, and tasks that require it can feel monumental.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to hold multiple pieces of information in mind, shift between them, and make decisions based on changing rules or perspectives. F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” That’s cognitive flexibility in a nutshell.

A simple example? The game Uno. Players must switch between number and color, all while keeping track of cards in hand and remembering to shout “UNO!” at just the right time.

In school, cognitive flexibility shows up everywhere.

• Math: Students must switch between strategies, representations, and problem types.
• Reading: To decode, they toggle between letter shapes and letter sounds. To comprehend, they shift between decoding and meaning, and later, between layers of figurative and literal meaning. Skilled reading requires massive flexibility.
• Life skills: From organizing a messy backpack to navigating a group project, children who can shift perspectives, strategies, and priorities thrive.

Cognitive flexibility develops gradually across childhood and adolescence, and the good news is that research has found that practice can improve it! A few playful ways to practice:

• Games: Try Uno, Set, or other games that require quick switching.
• Sorting challenges: Ask your child to sort the same group of pictures or objects in two different ways (by color and by shape, for example).
• Rapid naming: Mix letters, numbers, and pictures on a list. Ask your child to read them as quickly as possible.
• Math switching: Count objects forward, but switch to counting backward when you hit a minus sign and then back up again when you hit a plus sign.
• Books with layers: Read the Amelia Bedelia books, In a Pickle and Other Funny Idioms, or joke and riddle books that rely on verbal ambiguity.

Cognitive flexibility is one of those foundational skills that helps children not only in academics, but also in life. Some days, your child may amaze you with their problem-solving; other days, they’ll run off to play instead of sorting the books. Both are perfectly normal. After all, parenting often requires just as much cognitive flexibility as childhood does.

And if your child refuses your carefully planned enrichment activity? Well, pour yourself a cup of coffee and remember: at least you didn’t have to re-shelve all the books.