Save it for a rainy day.

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A fun activity for all ages is described that promotes curiosity, logical thinking, and emotional self-control.

 

Solving The Black Box Puzzle

Do you have a little scientist-to-be living under your roof? Does your little scientist have an unquenchable thirst for new toys, projects, and equipment? There will never be enough money or space, will there? And how many “why?” questions can your kid ask before you say, “enough”? Supporting a child’s curiosity should not break the bank, nor should s/he depend on you as the sole source of knowledge. A good little scientist is not only curious, but also self-directed and resilient. Curiosity and persistence is an unbeatable combination in life. However, these characteristics can use some nurturing.

Here is a simple project that costs very little and promotes developmental goals important to a young scientist.

Find an old shoebox, a roll of duct tape, some cardboard, and a knife. Use pieces of cardboard and tape to create a new interior for the box. (Anything goes: ramps, mazes, etc.) Then include some expendable object (a Sammy Sosa autographed baseball, an out-of-date iPhone, …) that will navigate this interior. Close the box and seal it with duct tape.

Present it to your young scientist with this challenge:

“Figure out what object is in the box and what the interior of the box looks like. You can do anything you want to the box, except open it. Take as long as you want.”

A true scientist will need to keep a record of hypotheses and tests performed. A young child may need a scribe, but after that, consider affixing paper to the box or finding a little (lab) notebook. If your spouse wants in on the fun, then the lab notebook can stay with the box, for anyone to annotate. How the experimenting is recorded can take any form. Just don’t open the box.

What are we accomplishing?

Keeping the mess inside a single box (a noble goal in itself)?

Promoting curiosity and inquiry.

Encouraging logical thinking in the form of hypothesis generation & testing.

Encouraging persistence (because you are NOT going to open the box).

Also promoting tolerance and resilience (because you are NOT going to open the box).

Promoting debate and discussion (because you are NOT going to open the box).

Promoting emotional self-control, as in dealing with frustration and impatience (because you are NOT going to open the box).

 Do you think you can resist opening the box? I’ll leave that decision to you. However, scientists have developed useful theories, such as Evolution, The Big Bang, and Relativity without complete access to the inside of the box. At our house, I never did open the boxes, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to find them anywhere.

Don’t Eat The Marshmallow!

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Delay of gratification, willpower, impulse control, self-control, or internal discipline are terms that describe an ability to wait to be rewarded. Although some children are temperamentally less impulsive, the ability to self-soothe, distract, or reason about an urge to act can be learned and improved. The ability to delay gratification (develop internal discipline) is an important ingredient for gaining competence in all areas of a child’s life (socially, emotionally and intellectually).

An Ability to Delay Gratification Predicts Success in Life

 Are you familiar with the classic delay of gratification studies conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s? The what? Have you seen the YouTube video of four-year-olds trying to resist eating the marshmallow in front of them? If I had asked you, have you ever heard of the MarshmallowTest, you would have known exactly what I was talking about. Give it up for YouTube, where gratification need never be delayed. I still have not jogged your memory? Then go to YouTube right now for a reenactment of the classic study, where four-year-old children are left alone in a room with a marshmallow (or a cookie, or candy) with the promise of a second marshmallow if they do not eat this one before the experimenter returns (in 15 minutes). Only thirty percent of the children were able to wait. Not surprising, is it?

Mischel discovered that by the end of high school, the kids who were able to wait seemed better adjusted psychologically and were higher achievers, with significantly higher SAT scores (>200 pts higher) and better grades. Those who could not wait more than thirty seconds had trouble paying attention in school, coping with stress, and maintaining friendships. More recently, Angela Lee Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania offered eighth graders one dollar now or two if they could wait a week. Those who could wait fared much better academically. In fact, this measure of self-control was a better predictor of academic achievement than IQ.

As you might guess, these kids who can delay gratification grow up to be the ones who invest for retirement, wait for the best pitch to hit, and don’t say, “yes” to the first bad idea. They are able to wait to play their video games until after the homework is done.

So, are these delayers born with something special? Are their brains wired differently from birth? Are some kids just naturally more impulsive while others are more cautious and deliberate? You can be sure that the fMRI machines are cranking away in search of these answers. We can also be certain that a search for a genetic linkage will also be part of the next wave of research.

So what does that mean for us sticky fingered failures? Are we doomed to a second-class future, swinging at everything we are thrown, eating everything we see? Interestingly, Mischel found that he could provide children with techniques for resisting temptation. He said kids who continue to focus on the “hot stimulus” were doomed. But the ones who could distract themselves, were able to resist. Providing kids with techniques for taking their thoughts elsewhere, or transforming the meaning of the situation could be very helpful. In other words, self-control can be taught. Mischel also pointed out that a group of the kids who “failed to wait” grew up to be quite skilled in self-control as adults. Somehow, they found ways to teach themselves the self-regulation that came more naturally to the “delayers”.

Children are temperamentally inclined in one direction or another. At one extreme are the kids who are impulsive and labeled as Attention Deficit, Hyperactive. At the other extreme are the kids who come to be labeled as Obsessive Compulsive. Most kids are somewhere in between. Even though biology or temperament inclines a child in one direction or another, that does not mean they cannot grow in terms of self-control (or spontaneity).

Environments can be structured to help with focus and attention. Children can be taught techniques for self-control and self-soothing. Mischel explained that children can be taught habits of self-control in the family through rituals that force kids to wait on a daily basis, showing them that they can develop that self-control, and having them learn the benefits for that delay. Examples of that are limits such as no television or video games until homework is done, no snacks before dinner, save money for a desired purchase and wait until your birthday for a wished for gift. When children must work within limits (a clothing allowance for instance) they learn the benefits of self-control and the hazards of impulsivity.