Self-Control has to be taught

RE: Boy, 17, sells kidney to buy iPad 2

Contrary to what people like to tell themselves, I believe Self-Control (aka Impulse Control) is not a personality trait, but a life-skill which can be taught and learnt.

A lack of such the self-control skill may lead to lack of self-discipline (in some areas). Or lead to poor life decisions, such as choosing a wrong spouse, causing hurt to others (e.g. being unkind to others, lying, procrastinating, driving recklessly on the roads, making meowing noises at a female minister in Parliament etc)
Sounds familiar?


Read about how an Australian Senator makes cat sounds at the female Finance Minister, and gets a scolding in Parliament.

Conversely, having self-control is correlated to positive life outcomes, such as happiness, adjustment and various positive psychological factors.

See the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, where kids were each given a marshmallow and told that they can eat it anytime they want, but if they waited 15 minutes, they would receive another marshmallow. Researchers then studied these same children later in their lives and found that those who had waited (i.e. had exhibited self-control ability to delay gratification) were more successful as adults than those who had greedily grabbed the first marshmallow.

Acquiring this life skill requires learning it at a very young age, say from 2 years old. And it requires constant coaching and practice throughout the kid's waking hours.

As a proxy, it's takes 10,000 hours to become good at something. This roughly translates to 10 years, i.e. by that time, the kid ought to be taking his PSLE.

What does this mean for parents?

1. Parents cannot pass the role of teaching this skill to teachers in organised learning environments such as school.
2. Parents too need to have self-control and self-discipline to be teaching this skill to the kid.

As with the teaching of any type of knowledge/skill, I'm sure there are various teaching methods to be employed.

But nothing beats the 'role model' method. That is, if Daddy and Mummy exercise self-control and self-discipline, the kid will learn accordingly.

Conversely, if Daddy and Mummy have poor self-control, don't expect the kid to be otherwise. Unless, something shocking (e.g. life-changing) happens to the kid later, and he is intelligent enough to realise that he has to acquire this life-skill pronto.