No Self Control? No Problem!
Self control. It’s keeping your hands to yourself instead of hauling off and hitting the kid who just stole a toy from you (even though you are really, really angry). It’s waiting until your mother is off the phone before asking her your burning question about where your other sneaker is. It’s telling your dad, “I need help,” instead of “Just give me the answer!” when doing your homework.
A longitudinal study that followed over 1000 New Zealand children over three decades has found that, not only does a lack of self-control make your children much more difficult to live with…those who scored lower on measures of self-control at the age of three were more likely to make poor choices as teens (smoking, unplanned pregnancy, dropping out of school) and experience negative outcomes as adults (sexually transmitted disease, obesity , greater debt, have a criminal conviction record, and be dependent on alcohol, tobacco and other drugs). (The study was conducted by an international team led by Duke University psychologists Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.)
For those of you raising a skeptical eyebrow, just a reminder: poor self control hasn’t been proven to cause these things, but there is a significant relationship between difficulties in tolerating frustration, persisting in reaching a goal or sticking with a task, modulating activity level, waiting one’s turn, thinking before acting, lack of conscientiousness, restlessness and having difficulties in life. As with most solid research, this correlation makes sense—when one acts impulsively, one tends to make poor choices.
As a mom and a psychologist, when I come across a study like this, my next question is: what does this mean for parents? What do I do if, say, the three-year-old in my house is begging me to get off the computer and play “haircut” with her as I hold up my finger for the fifth time and say, “Just five more minutes, please?”
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