Welcome back to Term 4! What an exciting term we have ahead. There are all sorts of fun things in store for the students and adults. 6.58 will be back on Friday evening every second week, we have Christmas Carols on November 25, Junior Primary Christmas concert, Graduation Service for our Year 6s and Graduation and Awards night for our Year 7s, Foundation Orientation day, Pancake Breakfast, Volunteer Morning Tea, Year 7 Camp and lots more. On top of that, our Nature Playground will be constructed as the term goes by.

In the holidays, my son-in-law and I took my two year old grandson for his first fishing trip, on Ardrossan Jetty. It was interesting to watch the little guy figuring out what was happening and how it all worked. We had a life jacket on him and he really didn’t like it and wanted to get it off. He pulled at it and tried to undo it and made his mind up it had to come off – now! It took a little while for us to get his mind on something else and away from the life jacket. Earlier this year, I wrote a bit about the book Emotional Intelligence – the book by Daniel Goleman. I came across this article that builds on the Emotional Intelligence ideas and gave me an insight into the life jacket “incident” on Ardrossan jetty. I hope you find it helpful.

“How many of you have been in a situation where, after being on a diet for a few days, a colleague comes to work selling chocolates for a fundraiser? Do you give in and buy a chocolate? It’s for a good cause after all. Or do you resist?

Austrian psychologist Walter Mischel conducted an experiment in 1965 involving four-year-olds and marshmallows. Mischel invited individual children into a room where a marshmallow was on the table. The man who brought the child into the room explained that he had to step out for a couple of minutes and if the child wanted to, he or she could eat the marshmallow. However, if the child could wait until the man returned before eating the marshmallow, they would be given an extra marshmallow – so two instead of one. Sure enough, some children couldn’t wait and ate the marshmallow before the man returned, while others were able to resist the temptation in order to earn the reward.

Mischel followed the subjects of his experiment into adult life. He discovered that those who had displayed the ability to delay gratification as young children grew to be more socially competent, self-assertive and dependable. And they performed better at school.

Other studies have shown similar results: individuals who had self-control when young later do better on a whole range of variables.

Mischel initially believed that the ability to delay gratification was a result of a certain personality type. However, in a subsequent study with Albert Bandura, Mischel placed children who had not shown the ability to delay gratification in contact with adult role models who demonstrated some delaying tactics. The adults engaged in some kind of self-distracting activity or put their heads down for a nap. The children who observed these adults later showed the ability to delay gratification themselves. That is, they had learnt the ability to resist temptation from their experience with the adult role models.

Impulse control is a skill

The implications for parents are clear. If our children display characteristics such as impulsivity, we can help them learn more beneficial ways to deal with the world. Parents can role model the appropriate behaviours and talk to their children about the strategies they used.

Two main factors seem to influence the ability of both children and adults to delay gratification. Both are more likely to delay gratification if they trust they will eventually get the better reward. That is, they will be more inclined to hold out if they believe the person or organisation that is offering the reward is likely to follow through.

Second, people will generally only display delaying behaviours if they have the skills to turn what might be tedious waiting time into a more enjoyable (or at least tolerable) time. In the original experiment, children who delayed eating the marshmallow showed a range of behaviours including turning their chairs away from the table, singing, inventing games with their hands and feet and talking to themselves to help them pass the time.

Emotional intelligence is the key to impulse control

Parents can help younger children delay gratification by distracting them. Many parents find themselves doing this instinctively. When four-year-old Holly nags for snacks just before dinner, they give her a job to do. However, be aware that children younger than about four generally haven’t yet developed the parts of the brain that allow them to delay gratification of their own accord.

Older children need to learn how to distract themselves by redirecting their emotions. This is more likely to happen if children understand that emotions don’t always need to be acted upon. Older children who are able to focus on the bigger picture will be able make choices that allow them to achieve their goals.

In the book Influencer, the authors contend that many social skills, including the ability to delay gratification, can be learnt. This is good news for most of us! They maintain that while we accept that practice improves performance in sport, music and technical areas, few people would think to practice the skills needed to delay gratification, be a better team member or to negotiate with a boss. However the authors say we should. They claim that with the right kind of practice, we can all learn to be more socially competent.” (Hawton, 2018)

Have a great week with your kids,

Mark B

Welcome back to Term 4! If you don’t mind, I would like to start this term off with a story…

Once upon a time there was a group of people who had been wandering around in the desert for the last 40 years. Their whole lives had involved setting up camp, packing up camp and walking some more, then repeating the whole process, again, and again, and again!

Finally, they came to a place where they had been told they would live. And as they got there, they had a realisation that the place they were supposed to live, was in fact, filled with people living there. Now, they had two options here, they could A, fight and take this place by force, or B, go back to where they came from.

Now going back to where they came from meant either wandering around in the desert again, or doing what they did before that, which was being slaves. And neither of those two things sounded very inviting (I know, who wouldn’t want to wander around a desert for years or be a slave, right?). But what could they do! There were people already living in what was meant to be their home. So their leader, (let’s call him Josh) went for a walk, and while Josh was walking around trying to figure out what to do, he came across this man with a sword. As everyone does when they see a man carrying a sword, Josh went to him and asked him if he was on their side or on their enemies side. (Clearly he is wiser than I am, I would have either tried to fight him, or the more likely option, run away as quickly as I could).

This man responded saying He was the commander of the Lord’s armies. And that Josh could take his shoes off because he was on holy ground (which to me, means Josh was talking to God here. I mean, who else makes ground around them holy?). Anyway, this man told Josh that instead of fighting or running, there was a third option…

Which was to walk around this city…

                 Each day…

                                       For a week…

And then on the seventh day, do it seven times! After that, you’re going to shout, and then watch as these massive and securely built walls will simply fall down in front of you.

Just imagine with me for a second, Josh going back and telling everyone else what the new and improved plan was. They would have thought he had lost his mind! I could imagine some of them blaming it on heat stroke, or that he got too much sand in his ears and it was affecting his brain.

Either way, that was the new and improved plan. To trust in God, and do what He said, no matter how crazy it sounded.

With much encouragement and possibly some persuasive speeches, Josh got everyone to walk around Jericho. Each morning they walked, and each afternoon Josh came up with a new persuasive speech to encourage them the next day.

“Why did they have to walk even more, they had been walking around for years and years” may have been one of the complaints. After a few days, maybe some got frustrated, because they should be seeing some progress by now, I mean, some of the walls should be starting to fall or at least crumble, or a few of the bricks should be falling. Despite their wishes, nothing happened. Even so, they did it, they kept walking and on the seventh day, they shouted, and then watched and waited… And after a few moments of silence, after everyone was starting to worry that Josh had actually gone crazy. The walls fell down. God came through.

* details in this story have been added that are not in the Bible, but the story is found in Joshua 5:13-6:20 if you would like to read it for yourself.

Hope Born