Hello, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. Gosh, lovely you could join us again this week. I've been thinking about how to help children with impulse control, and there are so many little ways this can be done.
Impulse control and delaying gratification, you know, these terms have really come into the mainstream now, but we all pretty much know how important that is. I was reading, rereading actually Daniel Goldman's book, Working with Emotional Intelligence. He's the gentleman that wrote the original book, Emotional Intelligence, and I was really struck by his emphasis that he gave on timing in that book, on successful people in the workplace have a sense of timing, have a sense of right thing, right person, right place, right time.
And I was, I was, you know, reading how these people genuinely have great careers, have good relationships with their co-workers. And I just had this feeling through reading this part of the book that, gosh, you know, those people probably wake up in the morning looking forward to going to work and wow, what a wonderful thing that we could possibly give our children a good chance of achieving that in the future. Because as parents, you know, we're always thinking about, well, of course, the now, but about the future and how are they going to turn out and how can I help give my children that start in life that's really going to set them off on a good trajectory? Well, of course, impulse control is a great way to do that.
All around us in modern times, we've got temptations of wanting it now. You know, we just can click on a button and purchase it and within a day or two, there it is right on our doorstep. You know, we, so many children these days are exposed to screens and particularly gaming and where the dopamine released to a child's brain in gaming where it's all designed to do that.
And we know that now, the designers of these games, many of them have come clean, you know, and it's designed to have our children feel very quick pleasure, very quick reward, easy pleasure, quick reward, quick reward, easy pleasure. That's the way these games are set up. But you know, that's setting up our kids to not get up in the morning and look forward to going to work because it'll be a bit of a slog for many of them if they don't have impulse control, which is exactly what the modern world is setting kids up to have very poor impulse control.
If they don't achieve that when they're kids, that is just without doubt going to affect their lives in the long term. So, what a great thing that we can work towards giving our kids the ability to have a sense of timing to hold back, hold back, and then be able to move, to go for it exactly when the time is right. That's when a young person will, I don't know, make a good decision about a relationship and not just jump straight into a relationship that could be problematic, even disastrous as a young adult.
Conversely, that could be a young adult who has to make a decision about an investment and they hold back and they hold back and they watch and they wait until the moment is right and then they make that investment and it works out. With purchases, like big purchases when they're adults, young adults, 25, 30 years old, buying that big buying decision of their first apartment or first house and rather than make a poor decision and buying when prices are high or overbuying, buying more than they need and being saddled with huge repayments that they can't manage, they can hold back, hold back, hold back, and then go for it. These are just a handful of examples of pretty much what we all know is what we hope, we really hope our young kids can gain in these early years.
Now, to do this, it's not so much a big deal, a big gesture. It's built up over time and I've noticed this more and more that good impulse control is paying attention to all the little things and I want to focus in just on one, there of developing our kids impulse control but just drip by drip by drip we fill the vessel and that is impulse control via having children develop a sense of timing and one way we can get a chance to do this on a day-to-day basis is to have our children ask us when they want to talk to us, Daddy, is this the right time? Mama, is this the right time? Is this a good time? That is just a tailor-made impulse control training. When they're very little, it's please and thank you.
When they're a little bit older, coming up to four or five, it's you're welcome. But another one is when they're six or seven, to be able to coach them up when they want to speak and you're concentrating on work of some sort or especially if you're speaking to someone else, they can ask, Dad, is this a good time? And you can very easily just say, oh, in a moment, love, I'm just finishing talking to your mom and we're working something out or even just once kids really get this, they can even hold off and not even ask the question until they sense it's the right time. They don't even need to use words then.
But if they can ask, is this a good time? Mom, is this a good time? I think the answer to that, if when we're first coaching our kids up to be able to do this is it needs to be either yes, well done, that is the right time, love, yeah, what is it that you need? Or if it's not, one of the ways we can help our children is to be able to say, oh, just in a minute, I'm just finishing off with this, whatever it is, you know, whatever you're doing, I'm just finishing off. And as soon as I'm done, I really want to hear what you have to say, right? Just in a minute. And I'm just putting all the food on the table now.
As soon as we sit down, I really am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. And being able to give a specific time so that it isn't just the answer of no, it's not the right time now. That's a little bit discouraging, particularly for children who, you know, five, six, seven year old kids don't have a highly developed sense of time, you know, of clock time.
So to give them something specific, let them know when you'll be there. And also, as you probably heard implied in what I was saying, is I want to pay full attention. If I was to try and listen to what you've got to say now, I would be distracted because I'm serving up supper or whatever it is.
And that can be said right out loud, oh, I want to pay all, I want to give all my attention to you. I really want to hear what you have to say. But I won't be able to if I try to listen now while I'm serving up.
So when we sit down, and after we say thank you to the farmers for our meal, then I want to hear all about it. Now that takes just five seconds, you've you've, you know, you've given a child, I think a pretty satisfying answer. And you've also very much encouraged them to be able to do it again, and again, because it's warm, it's connecting.
And it also, piece by piece, is building up this crucial muscle of impulse control. Okay, so I hope that was helpful. Little thing, little big thing, right.
And also, as I as I often do, just a reminder, don't hesitate to reach out to me if you would like to work one to one on some of the issues that specifically surround your home and your parenting. You can go right to our website, Simplicity Parenting, and there you'll see request a consult. Okay, bye bye for now.
