Will power alone fails miserably when parents try to get their children to exert restraint in the face of some highly desired object. The good news is that children can expand their self control with specific coaching and training you provide.
It is a child’s job to push against limits
When you think about the self control you want to instill in your children, you’ve probably been thinking that clear limits repeated consistently will instill those limits in your child. Say something a hundred times and you are sure they must have learned the lesson you were teaching.
Well, I don’t mean to shock you … but repeatedly stating your limits and then standing over your child to enforce the limit, does not instill self control. You might be surprised that when you walk away, your child loses the restraint that they used when you were standing there.
While you do have an important role in shaping your child’s self control, it is more important that your children develop the ability to restrain themselves. Lecturing or attempting to persuade your child to live according to your limits tend to be quite ineffectual.
But Sandra, come on! If I don’t guide my child by supervising their behaviors, won’t I be ignoring my parental responsibilities and leave my child vulnerable to becoming out of control?
Sure, parents have general responsibility to help their children develop self control. However, your child must learn to resist temptation whether you are in the room or not. Threats and punishment have not proven to increase self control over the long term even though fear may motivate compliance in the short term. The harsher the punishment, the more a child tends to fight back through non-compliance or acting out in an expression of the rage and helplessness based on how they have felt. So what is a parent to do?
Children need to push beyond the limits to grow and develop
Think of it this way, if your child did not push the limits by repeatedly trying to lift their heads, they would not develop the muscle strength that allows them to sit up. The more parents take over for children rather than giving them the task of self regulation, the less self control your child carries with them.
No matter how much you believe your child needs to wait; you must teach them how to wait
Temptation is hard to resist, especially if a four year old has a marshmallow in front of them like in the video above. While some four year old children are more inclined to show restraint than others, it is still an agonizing struggle if you give them one marshmallow or cookie and tell them that they may either eat that one or wait for you to return and get two. Waiting for you to return to have two marshmallows or cookies is the desire of most children. So even if your child is motivated to wait that desire and will power is sometimes not enough. We know that will power works for about 30 seconds for most four year old children.
The video above is a reenactment of the test that was initially conducted at Stanford University 41 years ago by Dr. Michell. He used marshmallows and left children for 15 minutes, alone at a table where they were told to sit. There were no toys or other distractions in the room.
They were instructed that they could either eat the one marshmallow in front of them or if they waited until he returned, they would be given a second marshmallow. It was up to them; eat one while he was gone or wait and eat two when he returned.
The children were recorded on video and he and the parent were behind a two way mirror, observing the child as they attempted to restrain themselves. Some sang to themselves, others fiddled with their hair while others sniffed the marshmallow or put it to their lips.
There is a powerful way to increase your child’s self control
Try this test with your child to see if they can wait. This will give you a baseline to measure their current level of self control. Remember, no judgment, the choice is 100% up to the child, one desired cookie or treat and then return after 15 minutes and give the second if there is still a cookie or treat on the table. Ultimately your child makes the choice.
If your child doesn’t wait, calmly ask if they would like to have two instead of one next time. Teach them the 3 D’s delay, distract and desire for something more. Distraction, not willpower is what allows them to delay for more than 30 seconds. Notice how one boy in the video looks away from the marshmallow to restrain himself.
You can teach your child techniques to distract themselves. They might look away, think about something else, or count the tiles in the ceiling. If your child is tempted to look at the marshmallow, teach your child to imagine the marshmallow is really clouds piled high or imagine putting a box over the top of the marshmallow.
At another time redo the test with the delay strategies you taught so that your child gets two rather than one. The long term benefits of learning to delay impulses and cope with temptation is that children develop effective coping strategies they can use in any situation at any time. With practice, they build their self control.
A New Way Of Looking At Self Control Development In Your Child
Look – I am all for taking responsibility for self control development in your children. We just need to be aware that children are not empty vessels to be filled up. We need to recognize and honor their need to agonize in the face of temptation; this exercise once mastered by your child, builds their sense of pride in their self control.
By taking just a few moments and assessing how many delaying strategies your child already has, you will be better prepared for success AND ready to quickly and resourcefully teach your child new strategies that they can use to distract themselves from temptation . By coaching your child on strategies to extend their delaying skills, you will be building your connection with your child that allows for the additional benefit of having the positive influence you desire.
While I can see the benefit of this for teaching self control, this appears to be almost arcane in methodology. I just don’t agree with the idea of using your child for an experiment. There are much better ways of teaching self control than having children be ‘lab rats’. I will admit that this is better for training the parents than for teaching the child.
John,
I appreciate your comment and agree that we do not want to treat children as “lab rats”. Whether consciously or not, as parents we assess our child’s growth rate, how they are doing in coping with life challenges at school, with friends or with the family. Whatever method parents utilize to evaluate their child’s level of self control is totally individual.
Arcane? Yes, this research is 41 year old. It followed children into adulthood to find out how the ability to delay had a profound impact on the children’s achievement and success in life.
I chose this research to provide a visual for parents to help us see the amazing power of self control that children can exert. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, yet I agree that this is not a perfect picture. Yet more importantly, the benefit from the research is to provide parents with essential ways to help their child build more self control. We learned the value of self distraction, the importance of delay beyond self control (which lasts about 30 seconds), and the important role that desire plays to increase the motivation for children to practice self control.
Now parents have tools for teaching distraction strategies that help their children increase their self control. Perhaps you might share some of your ideas for assessing a child’s self control for other parents.
Thank you for taking the time to share your concern. I also wonder what your thoughts are about parents allowing their child to experience the agony of waiting and delaying gratification as a way of building self control.
I never would have thought that a four year old would be able to wait for 15 agonizing moments just to get a second marshmallow. What a great message for us parents to realize that our children are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.
I really enjoyed the video and have shared it with others.