The challenge of fruit snacks has flooded our social networks in recent weeks, on the Internet it is also called the challenge of patience, and is based on a fundamental developmental capacity: the self-control of children.
The challenge is to fill a bowl with attractive foods for children, especially sweet ones, that become visible and at hand, but the child is told that they will not be able to eat them until the parents return, then a camera records the children only while the adult leaves for a few minutes.
- Children’s reactions are as new as they are varied.
- Some show great self-control and even use distracting techniques.
- Such as singing or asking themselves not to touch a snack.
- Others bite a little and quickly repent.
- While others are invaded by temptation and eaten in advance.
In fact, this new challenge has a precedent in the 1970s known as Marshmallow Experience, a kind of delight. This experiment was conducted at Stanford University by researcher Mischel and his collaborators, who were trying to get answers about delayed or delayed gratification and the child. self-control.
The experience of marshmallows is similar to the challenge of fruit sandwiches, but it has also been suggested that if children could overcome the challenge, they would receive twice as many sweets as they had originally been provided. For example, they found that children who had passed the experiment used distraction and self-learning techniques.
However, the biggest discoveries came later, when they evaluated these adolescent and adult children, they noticed other significant results.
Children who passed the experiment had better social skills and higher self-esteem, while children who failed to reach the end of the experiment had higher levels of impulsivity, aggression, and a higher likelihood of developing behavioral disorders.
Children’s self-control is a protective factor in mental health
It’s the ability to oppose children’s impulsivity. In this way, it requires the ability to regulate emotions and impulses, the self-control of children is actually a very complex skill, in addition, it requires training and is particularly difficult to manage up to 4 or 5 years.
This ability influences all important areas of the child and is therefore linked to the development of difficulties in later stages; for example, in the social sphere, the child’s self-control is especially important when waiting to speak, control tantrums, share and respect the properties of each child, etc. Similarly, poor self-control will lead to poor emotional regulation and the child can excel in everyday situations.
There are some childhood disorders in which self-control can be especially compromised, such as attention deficit disorder or ADHD, one of the main features of this disorder is the impulsivity that compromises your daily life and even your physical health due to frequent accidents and falls. .
The fruit snack challenge is a challenge that has amused social media users by witnessing the strong internal struggle (or not) that some children have to show their self-control, however, there are signs of everyday life that allow us to value this ability.
The self-control skills described are always an ideal and a model to guide us, not all children develop this skill in the same way and at the same time, so not all of these skills are acquired and there are no major related difficulties: learning is a circular process.
As we have seen, the challenge of snacking fruit can be a fun time for children to learn to face situations that require self-control and, above all, to assess the importance of gradually acquiring this skill.
Remember that the best way to educate children about self-control is to behave like a good model of self-control.