59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot (29 page)

IN 59 SECONDS

It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to make children feel good by praising their abilities and talents. However, research shows that such compliments can have a detrimental effect and that it is far better to focus on the children’s effort, concentration, and organizational skills. So, for example, when your daughter gets a good exam grade, recognize how hard she must have studied, how well she organized her homework time, and how good she must have been at performing under pressure. Similarly, when your son wins a place on the school football team, praise his ability to train hard and work well with others. This kind of praise encourages effort, resilience, and persistence in the face of failure. To help children focus further, consider asking reflective questions about the techniques and strategies that they used (“What parts of that did you enjoy the most?” or “How did you deal with any problems that came up?”), and try to make the praise as specific as possible (“You played well at football today,” rather than “You are good at football”).
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THE SECRET SCIENCE OF SELF-DISCIPLINE

Let’s start with a quick thought experiment. Imagine that you have decided to spend an hour or so in an upmarket coffee shop. You walk in and are presented with a long and tempting list of cakes and pastries. The portions are very small, but the quality is incredible. In your mind’s eye, look down the list and choose your favorite item—perhaps a wonderful cheesecake, an amazing cookie, or a tasty piece of pie. Next, imagine giving your order and the waiter bringing a tiny but perfectly
formed portion of your dream dessert. Visualize the dessert sitting in front of you right now, looking irresistibly mouthwatering. Then, just as you are about to dig in, the waiter explains that today the coffee shop is running a special offer. You can eat a single portion of the dessert right now, or you can wait thirty minutes and have a double portion for the same price. What would you do? Could you wait and get more, or would you demolish the dessert before the waiter even finishes describing the offer?

In the late 1960s Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel carried out an amazing experiment involving a real-life version of the imagery scenario described above.
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Mischel and his team armed themselves with a large bag of marshmallows and a bell, went to a local school, and presented four-year-old children with a dilemma. An experimenter invited the children into a room one at a time and showed them to a table on which were a single marshmallow, a bell, and then two more marshmallows. It was explained to the child that the experimenter had to go out of the room for a few minutes, but that if the child could keep their hands off all the goodies on the table until the experimenter came back, he or she could eat the two marshmallows. The experimenter also explained that the child could ring the bell at any point and the experimenter would return, but that if this happened the child would be allowed to eat only the single marshmallow.

Each child was presented with a slightly less-glamorous version of the dessert-based dilemma that you faced a few moments ago. Ring the bell early and get a single marshmallow, or wait a while and get twice the prize. This deceptively simple test provided an accurate measure of each child’s level of self-discipline. About one-third of the children grabbed the single marshmallow right away, another third took a little longer before ringing the bell, and a final third waited
for the experimenter to return and therefore enjoyed two marshmallows.

However, Mischel was not interested only in discovering the percentage of children who were able to resist temptation. Instead, just like the children who obtained the two marsh-mallows by waiting, he was eager to carry out a truly impressive piece of work by thinking long-term. Ten years later, Mischel contacted the parents of as many of the children as possible. He asked about their children, who by then were adolescents. How well were they coping with life? Did they usually plan ahead? Was there a tendency for them to give up when the going got tough? The few moments spent in the company of three marshmallows and a bell many years before proved to be amazingly predictive. The children who had waited for the experimenter to return before eating their two marshmallows tended to develop into self-motivating and organized adults who were good at coping with difficulties and persisted in the face of failure. In contrast, those who immediately grabbed the single marshmallow grew up to be easily distracted, less motivated, and highly disorganized. Mischel’s results also suggest that this ability is formed early in life and continues unchanged into adulthood, as well as that a very large percentage of children prefer to gobble down one marshmallow right away, rather than two in a few minutes’ time, and so they struggle to get what they want out of life.

Whereas the marshmallow test measures impulsiveness, other researchers have focused on the kind of self-discipline that children need in order to listen to instructions, pay attention, and do what is required of them rather than the first thing that comes into their head. Some of this work, conducted by Megan McClelland at Oregon State University and her colleagues, has involved asking hundreds of children, between four and five years of age, to play a game called “head
to toes.”
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During the game, the experimenter says the phrase “Touch your head” or “Touch your toes.” The children have to touch their toes when they hear “Touch your head” and touch their head when they hear “Touch your toes.” In the same way that the marshmallow test predicts some aspects of long-term success, so the “head to toes” game provides a good indicator of the level of self-discipline needed for achieving important aims and ambitions. Research shows, for example, that school pupils’ level of self-discipline provides a better predictor of their future academic success than their scores on intelligence tests.
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Outside the classroom, dieters who are able to resist that mouthwatering slice of cake quickly lose weight, students who endure the hardship of homework achieve better exam grades, and athletes who are prepared to spend hours training win more medals.

If you happen to find yourself in the company of a child who is struggling with such skills, what is the best way of helping them control their impulses and behave themselves? Is it better, for example, to play good cop (“Would you be a little darling and please spend only thirty minutes on the computer?”) or to adopt a more threatening approach (“If you don’t get off the computer now, that optical mouse is going right up your USB port”). In the mid-1960s, Jonathan Freedman from Stanford University conducted an experiment on this issue.
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His study involved a group of about forty boys, between seven and ten years of age, who were attending one of two local schools in California. One at a time, the boys were invited into a room and asked to rate the degree to which they liked five toys by assigning each one a number between 0 (“very, very bad toy”) and 100 (“very, very good toy”). Four of the toys were fairly mundane: a cheap plastic submarine, a child’s baseball glove, a toy tractor, and a Dick Tracy toy rifle.
In contrast, the fifth toy was far more expensive and exciting. This was a toy among toys, a battery-controlled robot that represented the very height of 1960s technological wonder.

After the boy completed the ratings, the researcher explained that he had an errand to run and so would have to leave the room for a few minutes. He told the boy that he was free to play with four of the toys but was not to touch the robot. Half of the boys were clearly told that bad things would happen if they disobeyed the experimenter (“If you play with the robot, I’ll be very angry and will have to do something about it”), while the other half were subjected to a more “softly, softly” approach (“Do not play with the robot. It is wrong to play with the robot”). The experimenter then left, leaving the boy staring longingly at the robot and its “come and play with me” flashing eyes. About five minutes later, the experimenter returned, thanked the boy for taking part, and allowed him to leave.

Did the boys succumb to temptation? To find out, the researchers had fitted the robot with a secret device that measured whether the toy had been turned on. The data revealed that only two of the boys had the self-control to leave the robot alone. One of the boys came from the group that had been given stern instructions not to play with the robot, while the other was from the group that had been subjected to the “softly, softly” approach. When the experimenter was not present to enforce the instruction not to play with the robot, both approaches proved equally ineffective.

However, Freedman hadn’t expected any real difference in the short term. He was far more interested in differences that might emerge over a long period of time. About six weeks later, he sent a female experimenter back to the schools, apparently to conduct a different study with the same boys. Each boy was invited into the room and asked to make a drawing.
Exactly the same collection of toys had been placed in the corner of the room, and when the children had finished their drawings, the experimenter explained that they could now spend a few minutes playing with any of the toys. This time, none of the toys were designated out of bounds, and so all of them were up for grabs. A big difference emerged between the two groups. Of those in the “I’ll be really angry and will have to do something about it” group, 77 percent played with the robot, compared to just 33 percent of those in the “softly, softly” group. Remarkably, just a slight change from the experimenter’s instructions of several weeks earlier had had a significant impact on the boys’ subsequent behavior, with the softer wording producing far more compliance.

Why the big difference? There are several possible explanations. According to some researchers, it has to do with people’s response to threats. Normally, people need to be threatened only when someone does not want them to do something that they want to do. And the more they want to do something, the bigger the threat needs to be to prevent them from doing it. According to this approach, the children who heard the stronger threats would have unconsciously thought, “Wow, people only give out big threats like that when I really want to do something that they don’t want me to do, so I must really want to play with the robot.” Using the same logic, a quiet request to the other boys that they not play with the robot resulted in their convincing themselves that they didn’t really want to play with the toy.

Other researchers argue that the threat instantly elevated the robot to the status of forbidden fruit and elicited the age-old tendency to want to do something because it is not permitted. Although academic arguments rage about whether this tendency is driven by a sense of curiosity, stubbornness, or rebellion, everyone agrees that the effect is powerful and reliable,
and explains why attempts to ban teenage smoking, drinking, and fast driving frequently backfire.
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In the secret science of self-discipline, the truth is that some children have an almost innate ability to control their impulses, whereas others find it difficult to resist instant gratification. And to instill self-discipline in those who grab the single marshmallow rather than waiting for two later, it’s clear that the smaller the threat you make, the bigger the impact.

IN 59 SECONDS

The Marshmallow Test

It is easy to do the marshmallow test with your own children and friends. Find a food that they like and offer them the option of a small portion now or a larger portion if they sit and wait for about ten minutes. If you are going to do this quick and fun assessment, make sure that your guinea pigs can see the small and large portions of food throughout the test. Mischel’s research suggests that the experiment is most effective when people are continuously tempted by the sight of their favorite food!

Heads and Toes

During this game, children have to touch their toes when they hear the phrase “Touch your head,” and touch their head when they hear the phrase “Touch your toes.” To play, explain the rules to your child and give them a couple of practice sessions. Then randomly say the phrase “Touch your head” or “Touch your toes” and award 2 points if the child makes the correct response without hesitation, 1 point when they start to make the incorrect response and then correct themselves, and 0 points for an incorrect response. Try a list of ten
commands and see how they score. On average, three-year-old children tend to obtain 3 points, four-year-olds score about 10, and five-year-olds get about 14 correct. If your child does not score within this range, don’t panic! It is perfectly normal for children to get a range of scores, but a low score may indicate that he or she could benefit from some of the games described below.

Focusing on Focus

Studies suggest that playing certain types of games can help children learn to pay attention, follow directions, and develop self-control.
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In the “freeze game,” tell your child to dance to music and then freeze when the music stops. In the first part of the game, your child has to dance slowly to slow songs and quickly to fast songs. However, once they have mastered this stage, ask them to do the opposite, dancing quickly to the slow songs and slowly to the fast songs. In a similar exercise, called “conducting the orchestra,” give your child any musical instrument and conduct their music using a makeshift baton. In the first part of the game, ask them to play when you wave the baton but stop when you put it down. Next, ask them to play quickly when you move the baton quickly and slowly when you move the baton slowly. Finally, ask your child to do the opposite, playing quickly when you put the baton down and slowly when you wave it around.

There are several other techniques that can help children understand, value, and develop the power of self-discipline. Have them write their name with their nondominant hand, repeat the months of the year or days of the week in reverse order, or name as many objects in a certain category (e.g., vegetables, pets, countries) as they can in thirty seconds. Also, when you see your child concentrating very hard on something, encourage them to reflect on their behavior by, for example, asking them how long they thought they’d been concentrating (point out that time flies when
you are focused) or how it felt when someone interrupted them (point out the value of being able to get back into a task after someone interrupts you).