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.

The Magic Formula

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Children are motivated when they genuinely want a goal and believe they can accomplish it. That is quite different than a goal we want for them or we think they can or should attain. Getting it right, in terms of the Magic Formula: INVESTMENT = (I WANT) x (I CAN), is essential to motivation at school or at home.

 

The Magic Formula: The Essentials of Motivation

 

January of my senior year of college, four of us headed for Florida “to work on our tennis games.” As part of that on court development, we ventured into a Jai Alai arena in Miami one evening. Unfamiliar with the sport and ignorant of its subtleties, I quickly became bored and prepared to leave. But soon after placing a two-dollar bet, my face was plastered against the protective viewing glass screaming, “Go Cuatro!” Anyone can see that after placing my bet, “I had skin in the game.” I went from passive and bored to an amped up fanatic. I share the experience because the difference in feeling was so dramatic, so visceral and so immediate. (It’s a little like filling out your NCAA basketball bracket in March and putting your $5 into the office pool.)

Red-faced and exhausted, you look across the kitchen table at your son and throw up your hands – unwilling to “go to the mat” with him one more time about finishing his homework. Now think, when it comes to finishing homework, “Who has the skin in the game?” As a parent, you are in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” position. You know for a fact that there is a world of difference in the outcomes of kids whose parents care and those who don’t. But at what price? You are their parent, not their friend. But you shouldn’t have to be the enemy in the process. Some days it feels like that, and you can see why many parents just let things slide. Parents do their own form of coasting. The child says, “I got it done at school” and accepting that excuse saves another evening of battling. Structure, limits and high expectations are essential. But motivation to do homework or work around the house should not just come from outside the child. There is a limit to how well that will work, and the older the child gets, the less well external sources of motivation work.

The secret to work at school, work at home, or work on the ball field is investment. If the child is not invested in the process, there are serious limits to what they can accomplish and how much they can be motivated. But, there is a magic formula for investment. Some might say, “Secret Formula” given the common absence of its application. It is simply:

(I want) x (I can) = Investment

If I have some skin in the game, if I truly want something, I am motivated to go after it. Equally as important is the belief that I can accomplish what I am after. When I want something and believe I am capable of achieving it, I’m invested. As a parent, a teacher, or a coach, we need to be on the correct side of this equation. If the child perceives the formula to read:

(You want) x (I can) = investment

the investment depends more on not wanting to disappoint the parent, coach or teacher and less on something internal for the child. Like I said, the older the child, the less this second formula works. Adults who rely on the second formula usually have a rude awakening when the investment evaporates with adolescence.

Before you focus on what they should do, you need to focus on what goal they truly seek – what will make them “want” to do what it takes to get to that goal.

So, before you get ready to do battle again, figure out how you help your child get some “skin in the game” and (want). Here’s a hint. Consider what the goal is and who is choosing it. If you have chosen it, then you have a lot of convincing to do to make the child want it as well. Here’s another hint: Start by listening (and being curious). If you start by joining them in their world, you have a good start at gradually pulling them into your world. Some kids accept the “because I said so” rationale. But if we are hoping for kids who think for themselves, our goals can quickly conflict on this course. It takes more work to find a course that includes a genuine (I want) on the part of the child, but the “because I said so” almost universally crashes and burns. And if it doesn’t, you have a whole set of different problems involving submission, accommodation, dependence, resentment, and depression waiting at the end of that developmental hallway. Or is that what we call, “normal adolescence”?