And in the process, they have found easier and more effective ways for parents to handle the situation. tsunami of temptations in the lives of children.
Focusing on willpower can backfire
Willpower is the ability to resist a temptation that is in front of you, says Milyavskaya. “It’s the idea of resisting temptation with effort.” For example, your ability to say no to a fast food cheeseburger for dinner and choose baked salmon instead. Or resist the video game and finish your homework.
“Fifteen or twenty years ago, it was thought that willpower could be trained,” he adds, developing a child’s ability to resist temptations the same way athletes develop muscles: through practice. Let children play video games every day and teach them to stop after an hour, for example. Or expose your children to “forbidden” foods, such as chips, cookies, and soda, so they learn to self-regulate and not gobble too much.
“There was this idea that if you’re more exposed to junk food, you’ll resist it better,” he says. Michael Insightprofessor of psychology at the University of Toronto. But there was a big problem with this approach: it doesn’t work for long. “Evidence from my lab and other people’s labs suggests it won’t help in the long term.”
In fact, he says, trying to develop children’s willpower actually backfires. By regularly offering temptations to children, parents teach them to prefer and want these foods and activities. “Guess what the kids are going to like?” Inzlicht asks. “Fatty and sweet foods because that’s what we’re programmed to like,” he says.
New strategies for modern temptations.
The original studies on willpower relied on surveys or questionnaires to measure a person’s self-control and success in life. The researchers assumed that these questionnaires measured a person’s willpower: the ability to resist temptations presented to them.
But in the early 2010s, psychologists decided to stop relying on surveys and instead study what people do in real life to achieve your long-term goals. These studies revealed a surprisesays Inzlicht. The most successful people did not have greater willpower compared to those who were less successful. Instead, successful people organized their lives so that they did not need to use willpower frequently. They exposed themselves to fewer temptations.
And this is the strategy parents should teach their children, says Wendy Wood, a emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. “Teach them how to choose situations that reduce the likelihood of doing things that are not good for them. Teach them how to control temptations,” says Wood.
In essence, parents do not need to teach their children to say “no” to the marshmallow in front of them, as in the infamous Stanford study – but rather, learn “how to put a pie plate on top of the marshmallow,” says Wood. Or how to avoid being in a room with marshmallows.
“For example, parents can teach their children to leave their phone in another room when they are studying,” says Wood, or to use apps that block distracting websites and games. They can teach children how to keep sweets and ultra-processed foods out of the house and out of their backpack or car. In other words, parents can create times and places in children’s lives where distractions or temptations are not an option at all, and show them how they can implement this strategy themselves.
Learn to love what is good for you.
The best thing, Wood says, is that parents can help kids fall in love with healthier alternatives: loving salmon and bok choy for dinner, loving playing outside with friends, or loving working hard at school.
“Your children’s decisions are malleable and are actually influenced in part by what they are exposed to,” she says. “You can really learn to like things that are good for you.”
To shape their preferences, she says, give your children plenty of opportunities to experience the pleasure of these healthy options. For example, Wood wanted to teach his children to love reading. So she kept books in the car and in her bag. “I like to go out to eat at good restaurants and I would take my kids.” While waiting in the restaurant, the only option they had was to read. And so they developed the habit of reading. “Today my children are still passionate readers.”
Finally, Carleton University Marina Milyavskaya says, pay attention to how you talk about healthy foods and activities. Do not present them as burdens, sacrifices or punishments. Instead, focus on how good these foods taste or how fun an offline activity is. Studies have found that our language shapes our preference for foods, as well as how much we eat.
“Whether it’s eating healthier foods or going to the gym, if you make the activity more fun in the moment, you’ll be more likely to do it again,” says Milyavskaya.
So if you want your child to love salmon, talk to them about how delicious it tastes with a delicious garlic soy sauce and wild rice. And how good it makes you feel as soon as you eat it. Something that an ultra-processed frozen dinner doesn’t do.
