4 tips to teach kids self-control

Modern parents are constantly faced with the fact that children are not able to control their behavior or restrain emotions. This is confirmed by official data. The National Institute of Mental Health (USA) conducted an extensive study, during which it turned out that before the age of 18, every second child acquires an affective disorder, behavioral disorder or drug addiction. And the point here is not in new diagnostic methods, but in the fact that modern children are different from children of previous generations. Our children have a greatly reduced capacity for self-control. What is the cause of the crisis of self-control? Researchers cite three factors:

1. Children grow up in the world of gadgets and high technologies.

2. They are focused not on contribution to the common cause, but on academic success and skills.

3. They have almost no opportunity to play on their own and spend time outside.

“The main challenge of the era is this: we must teach children self-control,” says Catherine Lewis. But how to do that?

Give them back their responsibilities

For today’s middle-class parents, children are no longer helpers indispensable in the home, farm or family business, but rather beautiful, talented flowers that need to be constantly looked after. However, by professing this approach, we unwittingly let children understand that their value depends on achievements in all areas. But to achieve outstanding achievements is very difficult! If there are 15 thousand young football players in the country, how can you become the best of all?

“Our kids are unemployed,” says Lewis. “Their time is filled with lessons, music, sports, extracurricular activities, but they have no obligations to the family and society. We can do just fine without their help — we will look after the baby ourselves, do the cleaning, put dinner on the table.

Adults believe that they are acting for the benefit of the child. In practice, the absence of simple household chores does not give the child the opportunity to master a range of skills and learn how to be useful. Imagine how confused and discouraged an adult is if he loses his job — so is it any wonder at the high levels of anxiety and depression in children deprived of real duties?

And parents forget that doing chores together, whether it’s cleaning, washing, cooking, fixing a bike, or gardening, would allow them to get to know their child better and communicate with him. All this undermines the motivation of the child and prevents him from feeling safe.

Make them play more and more often

Children who have more freedom and who play more often without adult supervision are better at learning, more creative, more responsible for their actions. A group of researchers from the University of Colorado proved in 2014 that children with more free time are better able to control their thoughts and behavior in order to achieve a goal. As a result, it is easier for them to study at school, and subsequently to work.

Reduce the load

The school bell does not mean the end of the lessons: almost all children now attend various sections. But in order to grow a genius, only the desire of parents and a busy study schedule are not enough. Children who are looked upon as role models are naturally gifted, competitive, and show extraordinary abilities in their first years of life.

The child himself decides what to do, and if you start to force him to do something, he will simply burn out. It is better to measure your parenting success not by the medals and awards that your children will win, but by what kind of people they will grow up, how they will relate to work, how independent they will be.

When a child from the guests is taken to football training, and from there they are immediately taken home — the schedule! — he is deprived of such an important thing as unstructured play without the participation of adults. Such children rarely have the opportunity to argue with playmates, solve problems that confront them, control their own emotions and reactions in order to stay in the game. And all these skills are extremely important both at school and in life. However, children are not allowed to master them, because there is always an adult ready to intervene nearby.

stop worrying

New Zealand clinical psychologist Richie Poulton has led the Dunedin study, one of the largest and longest-running projects ever to collect data on a person’s physical and mental health throughout their lives. Before him, several researchers at once found no connection between early trauma and childhood phobias.

Poulton decided to check their data. He started with falls, the most common misfortune that happens to young children. Falls at an early age did not cause a fear of heights in the future. On the contrary, such falls seemed to prevent the occurrence of fears of this kind. If the child was not afraid of heights, most likely, in childhood he fell more than once.

Poulton repeated the study, this time for children who were afraid of water. Did they have a traumatic experience with water? No connection. Poulton took up the children with the fear of separation. And again it turned out that children who experienced separation from their parents, at the age of 11-12 years, suffered from the fear of separation less often.

“It can be assumed that one of the true causes of fears, anxieties and phobias in adulthood is not an early traumatic experience, but the desire of adults to protect children from traumas and fears in the first years of life,” says Catherine Lewis. — Poulton’s research indicates that children should be able (within reason) to experience the consequences of risky play and exploration of the world. Through this, they learn where the limits of the possible lie and gain self-confidence.