Do Kids Have More Self Control Today?

Thanks for a productive and inspiring week of preplanning! I am always left in awe of the talent we have at Trinity and the incredible effort we individually and collectively expend for our students and for the betterment of Trinity!

For those of you new to Trinity, every Friday during the school year, I send out an article that caught my attention and that I hope provokes thought in some of you. 

As we live in a hectic, busy times where people have grown accustomed to the character limitation of Twitter, I try to whittle down the article to its most salient points, so it’s a fairly quick read. (If available, I link the full article for those who want read it.)

The articles focus on topics appropriate to Trinity and our elementary school years.

I don’t necessarily agree with every article, but as a believer in the importance of an open marketplace of ideas (something that to me is woefully lacking in today’s polarized climate), I like to read articles that make me think, especially the ones that ask me to re-evaluate my beliefs and biases as an educator.

This week’s article summary is Do Today's Kids Have More Self-Control Than Kids of the 60s?, and it resonated for me because its findings surprised me.

While one research study won’t (and shouldn’t) change your or my mind about a topic, this article is a reminder that what we believe is not always right and accurate.

We all succumb to confirmation bias: our brains are more open to information that confirms our beliefs and more prone to dismiss data that contradicts them. 

My guess is most of us believe that kids today have less self-control than kids 50 years ago, yet the article counters this belief.

The article also provides reasons why kids today are more able to delay gratification e.g., higher preschool attendance and more attention at early ages at home and at school of developing children’s self-control.

Again thank you for a great first week of preplanning and enjoy the last weekend of summer!

Joe

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In the 1960s, researchers conducted the original “marshmallow test” measuring the self-control levels of preschoolers as they sat in front of a treat. Most of the children in the study chose to gobble up one treat immediately rather than wait several minutes to get a bigger treat. The study was replicated in the 1980s and then again in the 2000s.

In a new study, researchers compared the marshmallow test results from each of these generations and found that kids in the 2000s were able to delay gratification an average of two minutes longer than kids in the 60s and a minute longer than children in the 80s.

The researchers also conducted a survey asking adults how they thought today’s young kids would do on a test of self-control. The survey results were in contrast to the findings of the marshmallow tests: 75% of the surveyed adults believed that children today would have less self-control than children of the 60s.

The original marshmallow test, as it’s come to be called, was conducted by researchers at Stanford University. It involved a series of experiments in which children ages 3-5 years were offered one treat that they could eat immediately (for example, a marshmallow, cookie or pretzel) or a larger treat (another marshmallow, cookie or pretzel) if they were able to wait.

Researchers then left the room and watched the children from behind a one-way mirror.

The ability to delay gratification in early childhood is linked to a range of positive outcomes later in life. These include greater academic competence and higher SAT scores, healthier weight, effective coping with stress and frustration, social responsibility and positive relations with peers.

The findings serve as an example of how our intuition can be wrong.

The ability to wait did not appear to be due to any change in methodology, setting or geography, or the age, sex or socioeconomic status of the children. None of the children in the 2000s group were on medication to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder at the time of the study.

The researchers offer several possible explanations for why 2000s children were able to wait longer than those in previous decades. They noted a statistically significant increase in IQ scores in the last several decades, which has been linked to rapidly changing technologies, increased globalization and corresponding changes in the economy.

At a more psychological level, increases in abstract thought, which is linked to digital technology, may contribute to executive function skills such as delay of gratification, they said.

Or it could be society’s increased focus on the importance of early education. In 1968, only 15.7 percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds in the United States attended preschool. That number increased to more than 50 percent by the year 2000.

In addition, the main goal of preschool changed from caretaking to school readiness in the 1980s, with an emphasis on self-control as a foundation for educational success. 

Parenting also has changed in ways that help promote the development of executive function, such as being more supportive of children’s autonomy and less controlling, the researchers noted.