In my last post on educating for self-control, I laid out a Christian case for the importance of self-control from the New Testament, citing Paul’s famous fruit of the Spirit and Peter’s not-as-famous virtue list in the first chapter of 2 Peter. Then we delved into the roots of self-control as a concept deriving from early Greek philosophers, before turning to what it might look like to develop a school for self-control, rethinking how our schools should be set up if supporting self-control is a chief goal.
In particular, we referenced the British educator Charlotte Mason, as she discussed “the gradual fortifying of the will which many a schoolboy undergoes” in her chapter called “The Way of the Will” from vol. 6 Towards a Philosophy of Education.
In this post we’ll continue to engage Mason’s chapter, but, as we’ll see, the results of research on self-control and willpower from neuroscience and psychology give us more reason than ever to focus on developing self-control in our schools. The science also confirms a couple tactics for strengthening willpower advocated by traditional educators like Mason.
The Benefits of Self-control
As Christians we may be inclined to think of self-control as only a spiritual grace, and it certainly is that. It’s listed as the final virtue in the fruit of the Spirit, after all. But like many Christian virtues, there’s a common grace manifestation of it that is extremely beneficial even from a secular perspective. This is what we should expect, since we know that God set up the order of reality in such a way that acting or living in accordance with certain virtues would, in general, bring blessing. The book of Proverbs is littered with examples to this effect.
In the famous Marshmallow study from the 1970s, a Stanford University psychologist invited 4-year-olds into a room cleared of distractions one at a time (see Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, 78-79). They were told that that they could have one marshmallow now, or if they waited for the experimenter to return from an ‘errand’, they could have a second marshmallow as well. As we might predict, some of these 4-year-olds decided to skip the offer and immediately popped the single marshmallow into their mouths. About 2/3, however, tried to wait out the grueling 15 minutes sitting alone in an empty room with no books or toys to distract themselves. Another third caved part way through the time, but a final third made it through and received the reward. As we might expect, “the ones who resisted the lure of the sweet had higher scores on measures of executive control, particularly the reallocation of attention” (Goleman, Focus, 79).
What’s surprising and fascinating was that these same children were tracked afterward for measures of success in life (their health, wealth, avoidance of criminal behavior, etc.), and their self-control was found to be a key predictor of positive life outcomes. This study has been confirmed numerous times by other studies including one in New Zealand. As Goleman summarizes:
“The big shock: statistical analysis found that a child’s level of self-control is every bit as powerful a predictor of her adult financial success and health (and criminal record, for that matter) as are social class, wealth of family of origin, or IQ. Willpower emerged as a completely independent force in life success—in fact, for financial success, self-control in childhood proved a stronger predictor than either IQ or social class of the family of origin.” (81)
It’s important to concede that self-control isn’t everything; social class, wealth and IQ play a role in a person’s worldly success… but not the overwhelmingly determinative role that ideologues and fatalists tend to imply. Intelligence, wealth and upbringing are important, but self-control and willpower enable most children to overcome various challenges through focusing on achievable goals and working on improving their situation and abilities. This is why a growth-mindset is so important and can fuel efforts of self-control. After all, if you don’t think you can improve and grow, you aren’t likely to engage in the hard effort to deny yourself immediate pleasure or recreation for the sake of a goal.
Self-control or willpower must be exercised for many different types of goals, whether they be lofty spiritual goals like holiness and purity, or more mundane worldly goals like doing well in school, fulfilling your obligations at work, or maintaining your health. As Goleman explains,
“High self-control predicts not just better grades, but also a good emotional adjustment, better interpersonal skills, a sense of security, and adaptability.” (81)
Among psychologists self-control is one of several traits that fall under the heading of conscientiousness, which is itself a major predictor of success:
“Conscientiousness seems as powerful a boost in the long run as fancy schools, SAT tutors, and pricey educational summer camps. Don’t underestimate the value of practicing the guitar or keeping that promise to feed the guinea pig and clean its cage.” (81)
That last statement illustrates an immediate take-away for parents and educators. Sometimes we can be so focused on our students’ external development through their many activities that we fail to hold them personally accountable for faithfulness and conscientious fulfillment of their obligations. We fail to enforce rules and discipline them. The knowledge and skills they “learn” in school and extracurriculars may not in fact be nearly so important as the virtues and character traits they cultivate along the way. Instead of focusing on making sure they ‘succeed’ at these external goals, we might need to let them fail, so that they can learn the deeper lesson of the need for virtue.
Otherwise, we might be robbing them of the most valuable attainments, even from a worldly perspective. Dr. Daniel Levitin, the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University, summarizes the value of conscientiousness, including self-control, this way:
“Conscientiousness comprises industriousness, self-control, stick-to-itiveness, and a desire for order. And it, in turn, is the best predictor of many important human outcomes, including mortality, longevity, educational attainment, and a host of criteria related to career success. Conscientiousness is associated with better recovery outcomes following surgery and transplants. Conscientiousness in early childhood is associated with positive outcomes decades later.” (Levitin, The Organized Mind xxv)
So the benefits of self-control are many, but how do we actually cultivate self-control in our students, or ourselves for that matter?
Tactics for Developing Self-control
We’ve already mentioned that simply focusing on the virtues that a certain activity could foster, rather than the knowledge or skills alone is one of the first steps to cultivating self-control. In a way, the mere habit of attending to virtues as a key outcome for our children is half the battle. The classical tradition made virtue the main goal of education and let the chips fall where they may on less important matters. Modern education is often so concerned with perfect delivery of information and incrementally graded skill development that we can tend to miss the forest for the trees. (See, for instance, “When Bloom’s Gets Ugly: Cutting the Heart out of Education”)
Often the individual coaching it would take to come alongside a student and support him or her in taking steps for developing self-control seems like the long way around. How much easier and simpler for teachers and administrators to have an impersonal and “objective” system of grades and punishments to mete out to the masses! While the administration of fair consequences is important, when it is used to avoid the need for relationships and personal coaching for improvement, it can become ineffective and even counter-productive. The shortest way to our goal (if our goal is a student’s development of self-control!) is to work personally and individually with them on practicing the tactics and acquiring the habits that enable the virtue of self-control.
So then, what are the tactics for developing self-control? Based on modern research, Charlotte Mason, ancient Greek wisdom and the Bible, I’ve come up with two main tactics: 1) draw up a battle plan, and 2) create a diversion.
Willpower Tactic #1 – Draw up a Battle Plan
In a sense the most obvious tactic for developing self-control in a particular area is to make a plan. As long as your brain is fuzzy about what is actually off-limits or what new positive habit you’re trying to establish, it’s going to be nigh impossible to exercise self-control or willpower. Psychologists call this act of clarifying what to exercise self-control about making “bright lines.” If a person is trying to lose weight, and their resolution is something vague like “eat healthier” or “eat less dessert,” they are unlikely to be successful in the moment when impulse is pushing for just one more brownie.
This is because of how self-control works in our brains. Imagine the children trying to resist the marshmallows in front of them. The executive control centers of their brain have to reallocate attention from the tempting marshmallow in front of them to the clear goal of a second one later, and from that to other matters, so that they don’t continuously focus on the possibility of popping that tempting marshmallow into their mouths. As Goleman explains,
“Executive attention holds the key to self-management. This power to direct our focus onto one thing and to ignore others lets us bring to mind our waistline when we spot those quarts of Cheesecake Brownie ice cream in the freezer. This small choice point harbors the core of willpower, the essence of self-regulation.” (77)
Drawing up a battle plan for self-control is the first and most crucial tactic for regulating ourselves, since it gives our brain clear marching orders. Bright lines enable us to know when we’ve crossed the line into indulgence.
In the synopsis of her philosophy Charlotte Mason discussed what she called “the way of the will,” and described this process as distinguishing between desire and decision or “I want” and “I will”:
“Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’ (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.”
Effective willpower involves using those executive control centers to turn our attention from our immediate desire to our predetermined battle plan.
For example, the video game or netflicks addict has to commit to a definite time period, like 30 min. or a single show a night, and then set an alarm that gives a clear signal that it is time to stop. If your executive control center is arguing in the moment with your impulsive desires, it has to work double-time, not just at refocusing your attention on your goals but also on coming up with a plan. Overstretched in this way, it is less likely to conquer your more impulsive flesh with all its rationalizations.
Drawing up a battle plan has also been called making a pre-commitment. This could be as basic as deciding when to check email during the day, so as not to be lured through your smart-phone into the time-wasting click-bait of the internet and away from the task at hand.
The classic example of a battle plan or pre-commitment is Odysseus. Having been warned beforehand of the Sirens’ song by the sorceress Circe, Odysseus was able to prepare. Odysseus makes a pre-commitment by stopping his sailors’ ears with wax, so they don’t hear the Sirens. And in order to allow himself the opportunity of hearing them without succumbing to their deadly lure, he had them tie him to the mast, thereby making it physically impossible for him to alter his prior decision. Odysseus’ battle plan worked.
Parents and teachers can help children in this tactic by recognizing an area in which they are need of willpower support. The next step is having a supportive and understanding conversation with the student about their weakness in this area. If approached tactfully, most students will recognize the need for growth and not resent your intrusion, especially if you emphasize that you are on their side and want to help and support them. At this point the conversation should turn to developing a battle plan with them; it shouldn’t be something you simply impose.
There are two reasons for this. First, the goal is to train them in these self-control tactics, so they can deliberately apply them on their own throughout life. Therefore, the more involvement they have in the process, the more they learn by experience what it is like to develop strategies for self-regulation. Second, as human beings, we’re more motivated to enforce pre-commitments that we participated in coming up with. We have to own our self-control measures for them to be most effective.
The follow-up for this sort of process is to check in with the student periodically on how the battle plan is going. For instance, if a teacher is working with a student on not impulsively talking out in class, or on getting his homework done on time, the teacher might take a moment to ask the student how the plan is working for him before or after class. A parent might designate time limits for TV or establish guidelines for homework time or practicing that instrument. Charlotte Mason calls this process habit training, and the goal should be to develop the will of the child, not over-manage her or keep her dependent on your every whim.
Willpower Tactic # 2 – Create a Diversion
Unfortunately, given the changes and chances of life we will all encounter moments when we are caught off our guard by what might be called a surprise attack. The most famous biblical example is when Potiphar’s wife catches Joseph inside when all the other servants are away. Of course, Joseph had already experienced her advances and was able to do the only thing he could in that scenario: flee!
In our lives, though, there will be circumstances when even fleeing temptation is not an option, either because of other obligations or because the sudden temptation is more internal than external. In this case, one of the best tactics is to create a diversion. Since temptation to indulgence comes through our attention, if we can successfully divert our attention to other things, the power of the temptation is removed.
Goleman discusses how parents typically use this tactic on toddlers who are still developing emotional self-regulation and have just gotten inordinately upset. We try to distract them:
“Attention regulates emotion. This little ploy of selective attention is able to quiet the agitated amygdala. So long as a toddler stays tuned to some interesting object of focus, the distress calms; the moment that thing loses its fascination, the distress, if still held on to by networks in the amygdala, comes roaring back.” (Goleman, Focus 76)
As Goleman describes neuroscience has revealed how the brain networks for “selective attention” are crucial for the development of self-control. There’s a reason why in the marshmallow test the Stanford research team removed all the toys and games from the room. Many more 4-year-olds would have likely been able to resist the lure of the marshmallow if they had a roomful of potential diversions on hand. Of course, we still have to make the decision to divert our attention from the temptation, and in order to do that, we have to recognize it as a temptation, as crossing the bright lines we’ve put in place for ourselves. That’s why I’ve addressed the battle plan first, because we need it as a foundation for making the split-second decision to create a diversion when confronted by a surprise attack.
Charlotte Mason described this next tactic that we should train students in as the idea… “that the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.” If we have a mind stocked with “entertaining or interesting” knowledge and pursuits, this is an easy and effective strategy. She develops the idea further in her chapter on “The Way of the Will”:
“When the overstrained will asks for repose, it may not relax to yielding point but may and must seek recreation, diversion,––Latin thought has afforded us beautiful and appropriate names for that which we require. A change of physical or mental occupation is very good, but if no other change is convenient, let us think of something else, no matter how trifling. A new tie, or our next new hat, a story book we are reading, a friend we hope to see, anything does so long as we do not suggest to ourselves the thoughts we ought to think on the subject in question. The will does not want the support of arguments but the recreation of rest, change, diversion. In a surprisingly short time it is able to return to the charge and to choose this day the path of duty, however dull or tiresome, difficult or dangerous.”
In Greek mythology Odysseus wasn’t the only hero to encounter the Sirens. During their quest for the Golden Fleece, Jason and the Argonauts, including a host of the best Greek heroes, happen upon the Sirens by chance without having the benefit of preparation. Luckily for them, Orpheus is one of the heroes on board, and after some quick thinking he immediately begins playing and singing his own song louder and louder. In this way he is able to divert the heroes’ attention from the Sirens’ song enough to avoid crashing into the shoals and falling into the Sirens’ trap.
This illustrates how to respond with the power of diversion, when your pre-commitments fail, and you are surprised by the temptation in spite of your best efforts to avoid it entirely. For this to work, though, our minds have to have an Orpheus on board. We and our students have to have richly stocked imaginations full of lively interests. If instead our students are decidedly bored with anything because of living on a diet of low-effort entertainment and indulgence, they won’t have the resources to divert themselves as a means of self-control.
This fact draws attention to the importance of a rich curriculum and the importance of helping our students cultivate enough varied interests and hobbies. In this case, the best defense is a good offense. We need to support ours and our children’s creativity and healthy passions. As they say, idleness is the devil’s playground. Having something enjoyable and productive to do is a powerful preventative against developing unhealthy and addictive habits.
Educating for Self-control
Teaching our students these tactics explicitly and actively coaching them in the process will take us a long way toward educating them for self-control. As Daniel Goleman expressed memorably,
“Anything we can do to increase children’s capacity for cognitive control will help them throughout life.” (Focus 81)
However, the benefits are not just worldly success or positive life outcomes. From a Christian perspective self-control is a necessary ingredient in sanctification, or that holiness “without [which] no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14 ESV). It is important to remember that our own modeling of this virtue is as important as teaching it to our children. We can’t lose sight of Paul’s famous statements to this effect:
“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:27 ESV)
Preaching and teaching these things is important, but practicing them, even more so. So let’s educate ourselves for self-control first and foremost. And then as we grow in these things, sowing to the Spirit more and more, we will in time reap a harvest of self-control in ourselves, our families, and our schools. And we might even have more of an influence on our indulgent culture.
