The secret to a successful kid: Managing their expectations and ours

Credit: Contributed

Credit: Contributed

If the child isn’t specialized enough to pursue a coherent life path by 15 years old, they might as well hang it up and head straight for the salt mines. I think not.

College admission advisers tell us colleges are looking for a student’s interests when they apply to the major of their choice. They want to see that the child’s resume ‘backs up’ their selection. For example, if they’re applying to an engineering major, schools want to see that they’ve been involved in logistics, design and other STEM-related clubs, internships and volunteer activities. College admissions can be so exclusive these days that they’re asking kids to prove interest and achievement in a field that they haven’t even entered yet. All this before college!

And we haven’t even discussed the ‘rigor’ of coursework and actual grade-point average.

This track of kid-performative culture is off-putting, not to mention expensive and all-consuming for parents and children. We have a disillusioned generation of exhausted kids, meanwhile their equally exhausted parents are wanting to ensure their kiddo’s life success, earlier and earlier. What’s unfortunately left out of the planning for success is the aim to help little Junior learn how to develop self-control.

We all want our kids to succeed but how do we define success? It’s true that this generation of graduates has an extremely difficult road ahead of them with limited positions for educated entry-level jobs, and percentages of college admissions looking more grim with high numbers of qualified applicants per available enrollment seat. Graduate schools, which used to be a default path for high-achieving bachelor’s graduates who either couldn’t find rewarding work or wanted to ensure academia as an option, are much harder to get into now.

On the other hand, people can go to the other extreme of “free range” parenting or “gentle” parenting, which are both “a sort of open-source mélange, interpreted and remixed by moms across the country,” according to The New York Times. Whatever whim is fancied or emoted at the given moment is the aim-du-jour (Sure, you can rage and throw your helmet on the baseball field but let’s go discuss over ice cream sundaes afterward).

When it comes down to it, happy and healthy kids and parents can have a mix of any or all of these parenting approaches but the end goal should be decidedly in favor of developing self-control.

Research reveals teaching children self-control just might be the biggest predictor of long-term success, avoiding substance abuse and criminality, health and wealth predictors, graduating on time and attending college and the list goes on with longitudinal study after study.

Any parenting method or path that doesn’t lead a child (beginning as early as 18 months believe it or not!) to wait with patience for something they want or follow simple requests is doing themselves a disservice and more importantly their child. Research reveals one simply cannot succeed in life without self-regulation that is learned in childhood.

Higher rates of health and longevity, positive relationships, academic performance, personal life satisfaction, emotional regulation, socioeconomic status, etc. are all linked with the ability to regulate one’s responses, especially behaviors, emotions, and impulses, to achieve long-term goals (versus short term gratification) and avoid undesirable outcomes aka self-control according to the American Psychological Association.

Self-control is what separates us from the rest of the kingdom animalia, via our beautiful prefrontal cortex. Some individuals are born with the innate disposition and tendency to make self-regulation and executive functioning tasks easier, but most of us have to work toward that end. And perfection is never attained (just look at my next-day shipping history on Amazon).

So take heart, parents. There are a million pathways to teach it, encourage it, achieve it. But self-control will be more predictive of your child’s happiness than your child’s specializations, diploma from you-name-it university, six-figure salary, and certainly more important than the amazing leadership opportunities one might achieve in the second grade.

And, who knows, it might make dinner a little more enjoyable too … for everybody.

Beth Collums is an Atlanta-based writer with a background as a child and family therapist. She focuses on the intersection of mental health, relationships and education.