I would love to share the factors which determine success in children. Is it quality time spent with parents? Is it time spent with parents? Is it eating the right food? Or is it really all about the school they go to and the quality of childcare you buy-in, and nothing to do with your quality time?
The internet is full of advice for parents telling them how to promote their children’s IQ levels with vitamin supplements or telling them to eat dinner together every night. These carry elements of great advice but neuroscientists are now coming up with interesting theories about another way to determine success. They are suggesting that we teach impulse control from a very young age. This is both good and bad news for professional working mums.
It’s good news because it’s something we can all teach our children even when quality time is short. It’s bad news because when children are “acting out” parents want the behaviour to stop and might do this by rewarding the child (with gifts or sweets) which shuts them up in the short term. Teaching impulse control means you have to have patience if not time.
In their book “Welcome to the Child’s Brain” Aamodt and Wang from Princeton University, explain that “The ability to plan and organize your own behaviour to reach a goal predicts success in almost every area that matters to parents, from education to careers to marriage”.
Basically research is showing us that children who have higher levels of self control in childhood are healthier and wealthier adults and less likely to commit crimes or do drugs (Study from Kings College London, Duke University North Carolina and Otago University New Zealand 2011)
Why is self control so important?
Self-control helps us with many aspects in life. Aspects that are key for success. It teaches us to:
- plan and prepare for the future
- control our temper
- manage relationships
- share and wait our turn
How do you teach your child self-control?
- It starts around 2 with the temper tantrum phase. If you give in straight away (and that screaming is so hard to ignore and cope with so all our sympathies to parents with screaming toddlers), you send the message that their shouting and screaming works. Teaching children to delay gratification starts right then. If you give them instant gratification at this stage, they aren’t going to have self control later on. Just be there with your child when they are having a tantrum and once https://www.montauk-monster.com/pharmacy/diazepam they start to calm down reflectively listen to what was upsetting them and sympathize without giving in.
- Teach children to plan ahead, anticipate all the things which might happen in a future occasion, and help them anticipate the appropriate behaviour for that occasion (like visiting an Aunt’s or going out for the day.) Then they do the action or have the experience and then review it afterwards. When reviewing praise all the times they had to wait “You didn’t whine about being hungry even though Auntie took so long bringing out any food!”
- If you as a parents were not happy with some aspect of the way your child behaved in any situation, you can do an action replay which teaches them alternative ways of behaving. So if they snatched a toy, action replay takes them back into that situation in their imagination and asks them to come up with alternative ways of getting the toy they wanted. They often only snatched (or behaved impulsively) because they had no idea of any alternative way of behaving.
- Teach about waiting or delaying getting what they want. Give children screen time only AFTER they help around the house or do something creative first.
- Team sports help children control impulses as they have to wait in turn and be part of a team so it reduces selfishness.
- Put aside a box of toys designated only for one day a week which teaches the child to wait for something special.
- Teach children to budget their pocket money as this teaches self control and all about future planning.
Why is this good for working mums and quality time?
This is good news for working mums as we naturally teach our children to wait. After all we’re not there to meet their every need and to listen immediately to all they want to share. They know they have to wait until you return from work so they are automatically learning self control and to wait for their gratification (quality time with you).
So instead of any feelings of guilt, feel confident and happy in the knowledge that you are teaching your child an important and positive lesson in life about learning self control. And that most of the successful people in life learnt impulse control from a young age.
Author: Bebe Jacobs, Parenting Coaching Now, Contact her for individual coaching of parents, workshops for parents and in-company tailored workshops. info@parentingcoachingnow.com, M: 07939 880856
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