Hello, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. I've been continuing to think about this question of impulse control that came up last week in the podcast where I was talking about this principle of coaching children up, and the example I gave was helping five, six, seven-year-olds when they get to about that age to learn how to ask, is this a good time when they want to ask us something. Just continuing on from that theme, there's other little ways I mentioned in last week's podcast how crucial impulse control is in helping kids have future success when they're young adults and into their adult life, to have a sense of timing.
It's so, so crucial, this sense of timing, as I unpacked a little bit more last week. Another way to drip feed this, little by little by little, is to coach our children up when they're at the dinner table, or breakfast, or lunch, three times a day sometimes, or at least once or twice a day, we can coach them up to ask, may I get down. Now, I know this sounds awfully old-fashioned, sometimes I say in my family counseling practice when I speak with people, have you considered bringing in this respectfulness of may I get down, and I hear this comment quite a lot, gosh, really, do parents still do that? And my response is, yes, if they want to raise successful young adults, absolutely, yes.
The reason for it is one of the simplest ways to justify it is you get two or three chances every single day to do it. The other is that it bookends a meal. I'm a big believer in mealtimes, well, of course, mealtimes are so crucial to family connection, but a mealtime needs to be bookended.
I'm a big believer in a thank you to the farmers of some sort before we eat so food's not put on the table and children just dive in, that there's a pause. In my family, for years, we would have a little folding of hands and gosh, I don't know, 15, 20, 30 seconds of quiet. I loved that quiet before the meal and we still do it, you know, even though they're big kids now, very young adults, we still are doing it quiet.
And then the meal begins with a blessing of sort that is a thank you to the farmers. And it's a simple little thing we say, but it's ours and we do it. And so, again, there's a little bit of impulse control.
We don't just dive into food, quiet, moment of quiet, a thank you or a blessing or even a prayer for those folk who that's a part of their lives. The meal takes place and even a further little piece of impulse control can be some parents have really enjoyed having the simple little question of what was the best thing today? You know, what was something that went well today? But having an understanding, and again, impulse control of one person speaks at a time. We don't talk over the top of each other and over and over and over.
We remind children of this. But the big one, in some ways, is the other end of the meal when we can have as a part of our mealtime ritual, a may I get down. And this may I get down, I think, is only respectful.
You know, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to grow that food. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to bring it to wherever it is we bought the food. And then someone went to an awful lot of trouble to cook it and make it.
So the may I get down helps prevent children from just running off and, first of all, not finishing their meal. It also helps in having that just that little bit of respectful impulse control at the end. It's not just a last mouthful and run.
It really is a genuine question because it may be, oh, you know, you might say, oh, do you know what, Joshua or, you know, Jenny or Josiah, I wanted to ask you about. No, no, I forgot tomorrow. And it just gives that little bit of a chance like, hang on, is this like, is everything done here? One of the ways, one mum said to me that she helps kids stay at the at the table and ask may I get down is that she cracked the code of this, so to speak, when she started insisting on her children clearing the table.
Because then they're, and I thought I was so smart, because then it wasn't that they were jumping down like they're at the table, which is kind of for some kids boring after a while. And they're going to go off to do something really exciting. You're going to lose kids really fast like that.
Having them and having, you know, and insisting, really insisting that a child helps clear the table doesn't mean there's something so, so much better to do. It's not, you know, clearing the table is not, you know, great big fun. It's okay.
But it's not like, okay, off I go outside and playing with my friends or playing with my toys or, you know, just getting up and listening to music in my room or whatever. It's a, you know, for older kids, it's, it's, it is, you know, when we finish a meal, you help clear off or whatever it is, you know, you help with the dishes and so on. So it walks off the meal.
Kids walk onto the meal by helping set the table. They, they walk off the meal by asking, may I get down and then helping clear off. And in that way, it's just a beautiful piece of helping children with their sense of timing.
I think respectfulness and courtesy as well, even though they're again kind of old fashioned words, aren't they? But these will be, not might, according to Goldman's research, Daniel Goldman in his book, Working with Emotional Intelligence, these will be successful kids in the future. He doesn't say too much about how to develop impulse control in the book. And that's where I'm trying to fill in the gaps a little bit with, with this in how to do this in a way that's, I don't know, gives that feeling of connection.
Because when a child asks, may I get down? There's a tiny little bit of eye contact there. There's a tiny little bit of a pause. Yes, you may.
And, and, and the child starts clearing up a table with, with our help, you know, if we're going to coach our kids to clear, clear the table, it's, you know, very, very clearly got to be with our help. But it's that, it's that moment where, where yes, you may also helps establish our loving authoritativeness. It's we, and we've earned it, right? We made this meal, we earned the right to be able to say, yes, you may, and be asked.
Okay, good, good, good. So little bits of impulse control, hope this strikes a chord with you. And as always, go right onto our website.
If you want to speak to me personally about some of the issues that are going on in, in my family counseling practice capacity, then don't, of course, don't hesitate. It's one of the things I love to do the most. Okay.
That's it for now. I hope you have an impulse controlled, lovely week. Bye now.
