Learning self-control in the field of life
In his classic 1970s book, The Road Less Travelled, Scott Peck said that a sign of maturity is how well a person is able to regulate his emotional responses in proportion to an event that might trigger an emotional reaction in them. If someone pulls out in front of me in his car, just how mad should I get? If someone appears to queue-jump and I’ve been waiting a while, just how annoyed will I let this make me? According to Peck, the degree to which we develop an ability to balance our emotions with our ability to think proportionately about a triggering event is a sign of emotional maturity.
So, what might, at first glance, look like a blatant act of selfishness by someone, could just as easily be an innocent mistake. The driver who pulled out in front of me may not have seen me. Of course, in other circumstances, it may well be that people’s actions are selfish! But, before we can tell, we need to consider a few things, and it’s not useful to always jump to harsh conclusions.
Most children can learn self control if they’re given the right help. That is, they can learn to gauge and measure their emotional reactions to triggering events. And, the older a child becomes, the better he should be getting at this.
Some children (and even some parents) react in a 9/10 way to almost everything, even if the triggering is something minor and really only warrants a 3/10 response. Maturity is when we can respond appropriately, even when our emotions are heated.
Let me tell you my rugby story to show you what I mean.
Here’s the scene: the Wallabies are playing the All Blacks. There’s a roaring 80 thousand-strong crowd, TV commentators are up in the box and New Zealand has drawn the feed as a result of a knock on from an Australian back. It’s close to fulltime, and Australians are in front by a whisker. The All Blacks are close to the Wallabies’ line. A scrum packs down, and very quickly the New Zealand second rower jabs a punch through the middle of the scrum, hitting his opposite number. The Aussie forward hits back and a melee breaks out. Punches fly, and it would appear that every forward is involved in the ensuing skirmish. But, after the dust has settled, the Australian forward is ordered to stand before the referee. Here is a 26 year old male, weighing over 105 kg and standing 183 centimetres tall. His body language communicates his emotional state. He is seething because he feels unfairly identified as causing the fight and he is just about to be penalised which will result in his team losing the game.
Inside his head, this player’s brain is going at a thousand miles an hour, between the part of his mind that wants to hit the referee or verbally abuse him and another part of his brain that is trying desperately keep some self control. This part of his mind is saying, "I’ll be suspended for life if I touch the referee. I’ll be sent off if I do that. I need to hold it together."
In his mind, he is exercising enormous self control; I call this process toggling. This man is toggling between the part of his mind that is reacting (responding to an emergency) and the part of his mind that is putting on the brakes in a desperate attempt to ‘hold’ onto his emotions, or inhibit his emotional reaction to what has occurred.
Like the rugby player, we want to encourage our children to be able to use that part of their brain that allows them to hold their immediate emotional response and check their behaviour.
If a parent says, - ‘No, you can’t go next door to your friends’ place (because it’s dinner time)’ we don’t want him to automatically get mad and hit things or shout abuse at his mum. Rather, we want him to get better at exercising some level of self control. This type of self control in the child is a process similar to the one the rugby player is displaying. It is a process involving him quickly toggling between his emotional reaction (getting mad at mum for not letting him go) and arresting that reaction (which is saying, ‘Hold it together; it’s okay ’).
It is by teaching our kids to toggle like this, that we give them practice at learning the skills of managing their own difficult behaviour. But to toggle successfully, the children need to be reminded by parents or carers about what’s an acceptable reaction to a frustrating event. The process is one in which children learn to apply the brakes to their behaviour as the situation requires. While coaching children about their emotions is crucial, using something like 1-2-3 Magic, which is a signalling system, helps a child get better at self-control. It teaches children to react proportionately to frustrating events.
by Michael Hawton, MAPS
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