The struggles of children who haven't yet developed 'executive skills' - and therefore are prone to being impulsive, chaotic, forgetful and inattentive - can exasperate parents and lead to dysfunction in a family. People need to identify this lack for what it is - a kind of developmental disability that needs some special attention, according to a parenting consultant.

The struggles of children who haven't yet developed executive skills - and therefore are prone to being impulsive, chaotic, forgetful and inattentive - can exhaust and exasperate parents and lead to dysfunction in a family.

But parenting consultant Joseph Driessen tells Kathryn Ryan that people need to identify this lack for what it is - a kind of developmental disability that needs some special attention.

Research shows that about 3 to 5 percent of children - possibly more - are quite delayed in the development of neurological circuits involved in the control of impulse, awareness and time and self-management, Driessen says.

"Some parents ... are really quite surprised at their children who seem to be immature, chaotic, disorganised, forgetful and a little bit hyperactive. They miss deadlines, they can't do their schoolwork, they procrastinate everything and it just drives everybody a little bit mad with their impulsivity and you really think 'why haven't they grown up?"

"The immature response of the average parent is to become frustrated and exasperated and put pressure on the child and don't seem to understand why the child may get worse."

"Most children can control their impulse for the now. You know, 'I'll stop, I'll wait, I won't do it'.

"But some children want to do it because the impulse control isn't working very well. They just feel overwhelmed - 'I gotta do this now'.

"The second thing which they lack is an awareness of time. They lose themselves in the moment. They forget what they were thinking or planning to do 10 minutes ago. And actually, the future recedes as well and they forget that actually if they don't do this now, the future isn't going to be good. They become completely overwhelmed with 'now' and lose a sense of time. And that is a very debilitating delay of an executive skill.

"The third thing that these children lack is the ability to self-talk and self-manage ... babies don't, but toddlers start talking to themselves, saying 'I gotta be good for mum,' I gotta do this, I gotta be on time, I gotta get my shoes ready'…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details