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This fails with a sizeable portion of adults... and you expect children to somehow understand delayed gratification? To force themselves? Have you ever met an
by crabbone 6mo ago
This fails with a sizeable portion of adults... and you expect children to somehow understand delayed gratification? To force themselves? Have you ever met an actual child?
Just a week ago mine found and devoured a pack of cookies that were meant for supper and then cried at supper that there weren't any cookies left, choking on a hated apple instead.
Guess he won't do it again in a week if there's another pack of cookies in the hand's reach? Guess again!
- zozbot234 6mo ago> Just a week ago mine found and devoured a pack of cookies that were meant for supper and then cried at supper that there weren't any cookies left This was famously tested with the Stanford marshmallow experiment. A sizeable fraction of kids - preschool kids, no less - can in fact learn not to eat the marshmallow.
- crabbone 6mo agoCan learn? -- I'm sure! Will they learn without any "encouragement"? -- Absolutely not. There are millions of people struggling to get on a diet, to quit smoking, to stop doom-scrolling their choice of social media. Most of them know very well how good it would be to stop doing bad things and start doing something good instead, and yet they don't. Children are worse, overall, because life isn't as harsh for them as it is for adults. An alcoholic who can't quit drinking is risking his marriage, his career, on top of his health, and still pulls out a stashed flask and takes a sip. The worst that can happen to a child is that their parents will yell at him / her? That's a very weak deterrent against doing something that offers instant gratification.