Two weeks countdown to summer vacation: how to teach children to delay gratification? Parents take a quick look

Written by/Dai Dai

As the old saying goes, "If you can't bear it, you will make a big plan", "If you see small profits, you can't achieve big things". Most human success requires controlling and resisting present impulses and temptations for long-term goals. On the way to practicing this concept, "delayed gratification" is a key psychological ability. Let's take a look at how to become a better version of yourself while waiting.

Case

"Xiao Gang (pseudonym) recently had to play with his mobile phone for an hour after school before he was willing to write homework, and if his parents stopped him, he would lose his temper; Even when he starts writing, he will immediately flip through his mobile phone as soon as it rings, causing serious delays and affecting sleep and the quality of study the next day. In the process of psychological counseling, Xiaogang's mother said very anxiously. And Xiao Gang himself was very annoyed, but he didn't know how to change.

The reason why Xiao Gang has this performance is because he lacks the ability to delay gratification, that is, he is willing to give up the choice of instant gratification for more valuable long-term goals. Delayed gratification is the core component and important skill of a person's self-control, and it is also a necessary condition for us to complete various tasks, coordinate interpersonal relationships, and successfully adapt to the environment.

Brains confused by "small rewards" 

There is a reward system in the brain's primordial dynamical system, which, once activated, drives individuals to focus on delightful stimuli such as food and games, while ignoring things that require energy and effort to solve.

We can understand "pleasure" as a reward after behavior, the brain will secrete dopamine neurotransmitters after being rewarded, dopamine in turn transmits information that excites the brain, and the brain feels excited will further trigger the individual to unconsciously repeat those behaviors. In this process, rewards act as enhancers, stimulating people's desire to change behavior and making it difficult for us to suppress temptations and impulses.

Obviously, Xiao Gang has fallen into a vicious circle: playing with the mobile phone brings him easy and pleasant instant gratification, and learning requires willful effort and a certain amount of time accumulation to see the results, so Xiao Gang is easily tempted by the small rewards of the moment, but ignores the long-term big reward of acquiring knowledge and improving grades through learning. At the same time, the satisfaction of small rewards drives him to indulge in his self-created comfort zone.

Shout "stop" at temptation 

In the study of the physiological mechanism of delayed gratification, Walter Michel, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, compared the frontal cortex in the brain, which is responsible for planning and decision-making, to the cold system, and the amygdala, which is responsible for impulses and desires, to the thermal system, and effective self-regulation balances the two systems. That is, when we use the thermal system to consider the immediate reward, it becomes difficult to resist temptation; Self-regulation through strategic analysis and psychological transformation can effectively cool the ardent craving for immediate rewards, thereby keeping gratification delayed.

The effective way to make mental transformation is to constantly shout "stop" to yourself in the face of temptation, or to look at temptation from a different perspective and imagine it as something that you hate is equivalent to putting the brakes on impulsive behavior that is about to occur.

In addition, the balance of the hot and cold system is also affected by the pressure level, which reduces the activity of the cold system and enhances the activity of the hot system. Exercise is a good way to self-regulate, reducing stress levels while delaying satisfaction by honing willpower.

A great way to improve delayed gratification 

Building the ability to delay gratification requires us to think calmly in the face of temptation, during which the brain mobilizes a lot of cognitive resources that can make our decisions more rational.

Deferred gratification is a way to help us overcome difficult current situations and achieve a balance between short-term happiness and long-term gain. The principle of compensation is at the heart of this process, with the aim of giving oneself more motivation to see the rewards on a regular basis and thus be more motivated to follow through on the vision.

The specific method is: make a table, write the time, temptation, and reward in the project column, and whenever we resist a temptation, we must record the time and temptation content, and fill in 1 star in the reward column, and finally count the number of stars. At first, it can be counted in "days", but as the delay satisfaction ability improves, it gradually becomes calculated in "weeks" or "months". The rule of statistics is that for every 10 stars, you can set compensation according to your preferences, for example: get 10 stars for resisting the temptation of mobile phones, and the content of compensation is to play mobile phones for 1 hour today. If all kinds of stimuli tempt us, we need to merge similar items when counting the number of stars, and only if we reach 10 stars on similar items can we get compensation.

In this way, we can find out which temptations are better resisted, as long as we stick to it; Which temptations are not well resisted requires intensive practice. The principle of compensation clearly shows the growth trajectory of the individual, not only learning to look at the results of their efforts as a whole, but also experiencing the importance of delayed gratification ability for self-development in comparison.

Goal splitting is also a good way to develop the ability to delay gratification. Some adolescents show withdrawal behavior in the face of goals because their long-term goals are set too large, and the period of achievement is long and difficult, which is easy to get frustrated. It's a good idea to split big goals into smaller ones. If your current academic performance is at a passing level, it would be too much to aim for a perfect score in the final exam of the semester, and the split stage goal is to improve your exam score by 10 points per month. It is also possible to split broad goals into concrete goals. For example, learning English well is a broad goal, and making it concrete is accumulating 5 words a day.

"The wood of the embrace, born of the end of the moon; The nine-story platform starts from the soil; A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." The cultivation of delayed gratification ability is not something that can be achieved overnight, and only with perseverance can we achieve stability and long-term success.

This article is from "Knowledge is Power" magazine, the original title is "Achieve a better self in waiting", written by Dai Dai, there are deletions and modifications, and the original works are reprinted please indicate the source.