You can’t control your purchases, so why should you ask your children to delay gratification?

After work on Friday, my mother took 3-year-old Chenchen out. I was busy with work some time ago, so my mother rarely spent time with Chenchen. Today, I finally got off work early. My mother hopes to spend some time with Chenchen. She took Chenchen to his favorite playground, where Chenchen played for a full 3 hours. After coming out of the playground, Chenchen entered the toy counter next to it. He walked around the toy counter with great interest, looking around and touching here and there. Finally, we stopped in front of the train counter. What was displayed on the counter was a new track. Chenchen liked it so much that she lay in front of the display and stared at it motionlessly. After looking at it for a long time, I told my mother that I wanted to buy this new model of train and take it home. When Chenchen was staring at it, her mother had already noticed the price of the small train. It cost more than a thousand, which was really not cheap. Chenchen has many, many cars, but they only play with them for a day or two at a time. Her mother is worried that such an expensive new train will end up being shelved like other trains when she brings it home. My mother is even more worried that if Chenchen is immediately satisfied every time she asks for something, she will pamper Chenchen to the heavens and develop a bad habit of doing whatever she wants. Thinking about it, I took Chenchen out in the afternoon. I had already allowed him to eat ice cream as per his request and bought him the fidget spinner he wanted. If I followed his request and bought him a small train, it would be too indulgent for him. It is said that children with the ability to delay gratification are more likely to succeed. Mothers do not want to ruin their children because of their indulgence. So, my mother knelt down and looked into Chenchen\’s eyes: \”There are many small trains at home. Let\’s not buy them today. We will buy them later!\” Chenchen insisted: \”I want to buy this.\” Looking at him With a firm expression, my mother was even more convinced that she was right not to satisfy him, and said, \”Chenchen, mom has spent a lot of money today. She ate ice cream for you and bought a fidget spinner. I don\’t have any money to buy Thomas anymore.\” Chenchen shook her body and pouted and said, \”I want to buy this!\” \”I told you that I can\’t buy it if I don\’t have money. I\’ll buy it for you next time when my mother makes enough money, okay?\” her mother said patiently. Listening to her mother\’s insistence on not buying it, Chenchen burst into tears. Her mother was even more convinced that what she was doing was right. No matter how loudly Chenchen cried or even rolled on the ground, and regardless of the opinions of the people around her, she insisted not to buy it for him. After a stalemate for more than 20 minutes, the mall security guard passed by, and her mother said, \”If you cry again, the police will arrest you!\” Chenchen stopped crying out of fear and followed her mother home. Almost every mother will encounter the same problem as Chenchen\’s mother when her children are growing up. When the child asks to buy toys, snacks or various items, the mother will agree without hesitation at first. Buy the best for your children within your means. Sometimes if a child picks a toy that costs more than ten yuan, the mother will still dislike it. But as the child grows older and becomes more and more independent, the mother can\’t help but have the same worries as Chenchen\’s mother: if everything is done according to the child\’s opinions, the child will do whatever he wants and there will be no future. Therefore, when the child makes a request, the mother will deliberately deny it, hoping to cultivate the child\’s ability to delay gratification through denial. Is this really good for children? Before answering, let us first understandLet’s talk about what delayed gratification is and whether delayed gratification is really useful for children. Are children who delay gratification really more successful? Delayed gratification refers to voluntarily delaying the satisfaction of current needs for the sake of long-term benefits, which is what we usually call \”patience.\” To put it simply, the child\’s request is not met immediately, but an agreement is made to satisfy the child after the child has completed the agreed things or at the agreed time. Research has found that immediate gratification is closely related to the emotional center in the human brain, while delayed gratification is controlled by abstract reasoning ability. Therefore, delayed gratification is often a manifestation of a person\’s psychological maturity and an important component of emotional intelligence. This conclusion comes from an experiment at Stanford University. They found more than 600 children and conducted experiments in a kindergarten on the Stanford campus. Let these children stay alone in a small room with only a table and a chair. On the table, there are trays with the children\’s favorite foods-marshmallows, cookies or cookie sticks. The researchers told them they could eat the marshmallow right away or wait until the researcher came back to eat it and get another marshmallow as a reward. They could also ring a bell on the table, and the researchers would return immediately after hearing the bell. For these children, the experiment process was quite difficult. Some children covered their eyes or turned their backs in order not to look at the tempting marshmallows, and some children began to do some small actions – kicking the table, pulling their own braids, and some even hitting the marshmallows with their hands. . As a result, most children gave up after less than three minutes. \”Some children ate the candy without even ringing the bell, while others stared at the marshmallows on the table and rang the bell half a minute later.\” About one-third of the children successfully delayed their desire for the marshmallow until the researchers came back to redeem the reward, which took about 15 minutes. When these children grew up, they conducted follow-up surveys and found that children who rang the bell immediately were more likely to have behavioral problems and lower academic scores, both at home and at school. They often have difficulty coping with stress, have difficulty concentrating, and have difficulty maintaining friendships with others. And those children who could wait 15 minutes before eating candy scored an average of 210 points higher in academic performance than those who ate candy right away. Experimental results show that children who are able to delay gratification have stronger self-control abilities. They can appropriately control and regulate their behavior without external supervision, suppress impulses, resist temptation, and persevere to ensure the achievement of goals. Children with strong ability to delay gratification are more likely to develop stronger social competitiveness and higher work and study efficiency in the future; they have stronger self-confidence and can better cope with the setbacks, pressures and difficulties in life; in pursuit of When you set your own goals, you are better able to resist the temptation of immediate gratification and achieve long-term, more valuable goals. If the ability to delay gratification is insufficiently developed, the child will lack the above-mentioned qualities in terms of future development, and will be prone to some bad behavioral habits, such as watching TV while doing homework, looking around and making small movements during class, being too playful after school and not going home, and being too lazy to sleep in. Not getting up and waiting; prone to being impatient and lack ofPatience, there are relatively more people with psychological problems; after entering adolescence, they are prone to shyness, withdrawal, stubbornness, and indecisiveness in social interactions; they are easily upset when encountering setbacks, and shrink back or are at a loss when encountering pressure. Nowadays, many prestigious primary schools use the same method as the Michelle experiment to test whether children can be delayed in gratification in their admission interview questions. For example, the teacher will give a child a candy and tell him that he cannot eat the candy now and will take it home to his parents later. If they can do it, the teacher will reward them with another candy later. Then the teacher would find an excuse to leave. Some children would eat the candy right away, while others would endure it for a while and then eat the candy. Some children would put the candy away and take it back to their parents. Those children who put away the candy will receive another candy as a reward when the teacher comes back. These children may be admitted to prestigious schools even if their scores on other test-oriented questions are poor. Because the teacher decides that such children are more valuable to cultivate. So delayed gratification is really important for children. Let your children have the ability to delay gratification, are you doing the right thing? Seeing this, mothers may think: Since delayed gratification is so important, then I must cultivate the ability of delayed gratification in my children as early as possible! In the future, I cannot easily agree to my child\’s requests, and I must not allow him to become a child without self-control because of my indulgence. Does delayed gratification really need to be cultivated by denying children’s requests? Here, I would like to ask everyone first: When something you like is placed in front of you, can you delay gratification? If you are a foodie and you are hungry and see a plate of delicious food on the table that makes you salivate, can you resist eating it? If you are a bag lover and your favorite brand releases a new and popular product, can you control yourself from buying it? If you love fashion, can you control yourself from buying this year’s latest clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics? Or to put it more simply, when you find a product that you like very much online, you place an order immediately, and the result shows that it has not been shipped that day. You have waited for another day, and there is still no movement. Will you continue to wait patiently or will you? Can\’t help but contact customer service, or even get angry and cancel the order because the other party delayed it for a whole day and failed to satisfy you in time? When the items you buy arrive by express delivery, will you be eager to unpack them immediately, or can you wait and let them sit for a while before unpacking them? If you compare these actual scenes in life, you will find that when you really encounter something you like, it seems difficult to endure it. In fact, these abilities are delayed gratification. Many adults do not have the ability to delay gratification. The reason for this problem is not that I was fully satisfied as a child. On the contrary, it is that I was not fully satisfied as a child, which makes me even more unable to control myself! Most of our parents grew up in ordinary working-class families when they were young. When I was young, I was deprived of material resources and many of my wishes were unsatisfied. When repressed desires accumulate, a sense of emptiness and lack will gradually arise in our hearts. Because we know that it is wrong to express desires, these feelings of emptiness and lack will be suppressed deep in the subconscious. Usually I won’t reveal it, but as long as I encounter the right time and place, theseThe feeling of emptiness and lack will be expressed uncontrollably. But these feelings of emptiness and lack can manifest in two extremes. One is to buy, buy, buy without control. Some people\’s monthly salary is only a few thousand yuan, but they can save money and buy bags worth tens of thousands yuan. Some people have no resistance to food at all, especially when they eat delicious food, they want to eat as much as they want without any control. That\’s it. They are like a greedy child in their hearts, who will eat whatever they want. Not satisfied. Another type is manifested by material scarcity and indifference, indifference or even disgust. They have to save a lot of money, but they are also very thrifty in terms of material things. Every penny spent feels like a sin. These are all caused by not being fully satisfied as a child. Therefore, the ability to delay gratification is formed not by dissatisfaction, but by full satisfaction first. Only if you have been fully satisfied in time, you will not stop in delayed gratification in the future growth! Just like when you eat steak, if it feels amazing when you eat it for the first time, this delicious dish will keep popping up in your mind, and you can\’t wait to eat it again right away. After eating it a few times, you start to lose your fascination with the taste of steak. After eating a few more times, you will feel that you can tolerate not eating for a long time. I give this example just to illustrate that if you really want your children to have the ability to delay gratification, you must first let your children be gratified in a timely manner from an early age. Before the age of 1, the child is hungry, peed, sleepy… any request will be met promptly. Because children at this stage have no ability to delay gratification. If his needs are met promptly, no hole will be left in the child\’s heart. During the period of 1-2 years old, try to satisfy the child within your ability. Especially when a child has needs for toys or items, as long as they are safe, they will be met. Because children before the age of 2 are still in the omnipotent fantasy stage, they can’t figure out the difference between toys in the store and toys at home, and they all think they belong to him. Therefore, children at this stage can be satisfied as much as they want. When a child reaches 2 years old, especially after the anal desire period, he slowly develops a sense of autonomy and learns to control his urine and feces, which means that the child gradually develops self-control. At this time, children will gradually learn to delay gratification in life. For example, he wants to drink milk, but his mother happens to be busy. He can wait patiently for a while before drinking. If he wants to go out to play, you can also let him wait for 10 minutes, and his mother will finish what she is doing before going out. Because at this time he knows that his needs will be met later. In this process, children will naturally develop the ability to delay gratification. The same is true when a child wants to have a certain toy or snack. The mother must first fully satisfy him. When he has been satisfied, he will know that his needs can be satisfied. Then one day you tell him, \”Mom can\’t buy it today. When we come back tomorrow to buy it, he will be patient and wait one more day.\” Of course, parents must keep their word and take the child to satisfy him at the agreed time the next day. After a few times, the child\’s ability to delay gratification will become stronger and stronger, and the time he can wait will become longer and longer. If parents always think about delaying gratification, but are never satisfied in the end, when the child keeps getting it, the hole in his heart will become bigger and bigger.When you want something, you become extremely greedy. A mother once told me that her 4-year-old child could steal things. Once when she went to the supermarket, the child secretly took a lollipop and ate it happily. The mother discovered it. The mother was very angry. She didn\’t understand. Why do children \”steal\” candy when there is it at home? During the chat, I discovered that this mother never satisfied her child\’s requirements. For example, when she took her child to the supermarket, the mother always refused her child\’s request, and the child had to find a way to satisfy himself. Children who are not satisfied will be more greedy!