Children With Self-Control Do Better in Life

A healthy, well-adjusted preschooler sits down at a table in front of two giant, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It�s not a kitchen table�it�s Walter Mischel�s Stanford lab during the late 1960s. The smell is heavenly. �You see these cookies?� Mischel says. �You can eat just one of them right now if you want, but if you wait, you can eat both. I have to go away for five minutes. If I return and you have not eaten anything, I will let you have�bothcookies. If you eat one while I�m gone, the bargain is off and you don�t get the second one. Do we have a deal?� The child nods. The researcher leaves.

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What does the child do? Mischel has the most charming, funny films of children�s reactions. They squirm in their seat. They turn their back to the cookies (or marshmallows or other assorted caloric confections, depending on the day). They sit on their hands. They close one eye, then both, then sneak a peek. They are trying to get both cookies, but the going is tough. If the children are kindergartners, 72 percent cave in and gobble up the cookie. If they�re in fourth grade, however, only 49 percent yield to the temptation. By sixth grade, the number is 38 percent, about half the rate of the preschoolers.

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Welcome to the interesting world of impulse control. It is part of a suite of behaviors under the collective term executive function. Executive function controls planning, foresight, problem solving, and goal setting. It engages many parts of the brain, including a short-term form of memory called working memory. Mischel and his many colleagues discovered that a child�s executive function is a critical component of intellectual prowess.

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We now know that it is actually a�better�predictor of academic success than IQ. It�s not a small difference, either: Mischel found that children who could delay gratification for 15 minutes scored 210 points higher on their SATs than children who lasted one minute.

Notes:

Children who can resist eating a cookie long enough to be rewarded with a second one have much higher SAT scores.

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Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Medina , John (2010-10-12), Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five, Pear Press, Retrieved on 2011-07-27

Folksonomies: parenting pregnancy babies child development