Teaching girls patience in a world of instant gratification?

It’s enough to drive a parent to distraction: you’re trudging round the supermarket doing the weekly shop when suddenly your toddler spots her favourite sweets and moves swiftly from asking to begging to roaring and screaming!
And it doesn’t get any easier as she gets older – the right clothes, the “in” toys and gadgets, to go anywhere anytime with anyone… it’s what she wants and she wants it now.

The messages she’s getting from the media and her mates are that she “deserves” what she wants, that she should have it when she wants it – so how, or indeed who, are you to persuade her otherwise?

The satisfaction of knowing something has been achieved to the best of one’s ability enhances personal esteem, but in today’s world of instant communication, fast food and the global village, this ‘pleasure’ is hard to describe and can be lost in the reality of daily life. Equally hard to describe is that ‘actions have consequences’ and that hard work does eventually bring its own rewards.

I have often used an assembly to undertake some ‘pop psychology’ exercises in emotional intelligence. In describing several typical scenarios, each with its own optional choice answers, it is relatively easy to make a teenager think about her response to a situation-for example:

You want to go out with your friends on Saturday night. You have already arranged to go out with a different group on Friday. Your exams are in 4 weeks time. You ask your mum and she says no. Do you?
a. Slam the door and sulk in your bedroom
b. Make the arrangements anyway – as if you didn’t hear her
c. Try to make her feel unreasonable: “I’m never allowed to do anything”
d. Ask your dad
e. Convince both parents you will not go out the following weekend

Clearly, the emotionally mature answer is “e”, to negotiate your way out of a difficulty, but the thought-provoking alternatives allow a teenager to both laugh at herself and realise the value of the exercise. The question is easily altered to apply to an adult – work situation and the teenager can see that her practice of emotionally mature behaviour will help her in later life:

You want to leave work early next Friday. You have already arranged to go out early this Friday. Your end of year financial report is due 4 weeks time. You ask your boss and she says no. Do you?
a. Slam the door and sulk in your office
b. Make the arrangements anyway – as if you didn’t hear her
c. Try to make her feel unreasonable: “I’m never allowed to do anything”
d. Ask her boss
e. Convince your boss you will not ask to leave early again until your report is complete

Children are, of course, great imitators – your daughter will copy you in most things, including whether you work hard and wait patiently to attain your goals. If you model the behaviour you want her to emulate you have every chance of raising your daughter to value most those things she works and waits for.

The premise that life will bring increased rewards with delayed gratification is the basis of our whole national education system and the clearer we make the message, the better understood it will be!