3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: CAN YOU TEACH THE VIRTUES OF DELAYED GRATIFICATION AND WORK ETHICS (GRIT)?

The short answer is that 'I have no idea'. There is a very good article about teaching conscientiousness to children, and not just strive for 'happiness' at http://tinyurl.com/lu6vqp5. Not surprisingly, research shows that children who are industrious, orderly, and have good self-control are more likely than their careless or undisciplined peers to grow into happy adults. This has also been shown with the classic Stanford Marshmallow experiment.

So we have tried with Joey. First, we used Ferber when Joey was a baby and then Baby Wise. These two methods really worked for us and Joey basically got used to waiting a bit when he needed or wanted something. We almost never had any issues with sleeplessness (he slept through the night at six weeks of age) or getting out of bed once he was moved from the crib to a toddler bed. His behavior in nice restaurants is (usually) excellent, and we get regular compliments. We have never used a pacifier or food to insure good behavior. It is hard sometimes, but we see some kids who are always snacking when they are supposed to be on good behavior, and we just don't want to do that. Baby Wise in particular teaches the concept that you have to parent the child and not their emotions. 

Lately, we have instituted another rule: when Joey wants (yet) another car, he has to earn it, so he performs a very simple task (taking out a T-shirt he will wear that night and a pull-up) and laying them out very neatly on one of his night tables. He makes 10 cents a night for his job, and we have a special Save, Spend, Share Money Box , and he keeps a tally every night of how much he has left to earn to get the car (I tell him the cars are $1.00, so the goal does not take too long to achieve.. he has to save 1 cent and share 1 cent every time, so he accumulates 8 cents a night). I really wasn't planning to do the allowance thing for quite a while, but I had noticed that Joey was starting to develop a certain sense of entitlement, and I didn't like where this was going: since he can read, he got a hold of the many toy catalogues we received and started asking for things, a lot of them... so I felt that it was time to start teaching him the concept that money does not grow on trees and has to be earned, and that's how you can buy things. At first I felt bad for doing that because who does not want to spoil their child and let them hang on to the illusion that they can just 'get' when they ask because we are fortunate enough to be able to provide that illusion. But I felt that I had to withhold love to love better, and this was difficult. Also, I really did not want to pay him for a chore that I consider just 'good citizenship' (my initial idea was to give him an allowance when he was older but not as an exchange for being a good citizen in our home and doing his fair share, with the possibility of paying him for tasks that were above and beyond), but since he is so young, there are just not that many things he can handle that wouldn't end up giving us more work in the end, so this simple job works for us right now... and I can tell you that when he earned his first car, this was definitely a special moment for him. That car is clearly extra valuable to him, and we made sure to make a big deal about it. That feeling is what we were after, so this was a successful experiment. We still ask him to do other things as well, like go throw things in the garbage or recycle, help putting away paper towels, put his dirty clothes in the hamper, and so forth. 

So that's for delayed gratification. In terms of instilling work ethics, I think it is a matter of setting and sticking to expectations. Joey loves doing his learning program, especially math, most days, but not every day. So on the days he does not want to do it, he spends time in the 'time out' chair because we insist on a minimum amount of work every single day (except on the week-end) because as I tell him... life is not about doing what you want when you want. This may seem like a lot to expect from a three year old, but conforming to expectations and group dynamics is actually a lot of what even regular pre-school focuses on, and it is particularly important in the case of an only child dotted on by three adults at home (parents and nanny). When Joey does well, which is often, I tend to focus on his effort rather than his abilities, as the latest research advises. Will Joey eventually be completely self-motivated? I certainly hope so, as I know he is capable of incredible focus and motivation now, but only time will tell. 

There is some interesting research about grit by Dr. Angela Duckworth, on which she gave a very compelling talk, which you can find here and you can fine another excellent article about grit and disciplinarian instruction there. It turns out that grit is a little more than just work ethics: it is perseverance in the face of challenge. The good news is that with challenge and effort, it appears that you can change the ability of the brain to to learn for the better. The bad news is that in our school system, often times the brain of naturally gifted children is not challenged. So not only do their brains' natural abilities 'atrophy', but they also acquire terrible study habits (or rather no study habits) because for the first few years, everything is so easy and boring, and they don't need to work at them at all to 'do well', i.e. get good grades. Once they are further along, though, they eventually have to compete with the grittier kids, the ones who perhaps did not start out with as much innate brain power, but because they were motivated to begin with and had to work at it, ended up doing just as well, and with good study habits to boot. This would explain why many gifted kids do not necessarily end up as successful individuals in the end. So as I have already alluded to in my other post ('Why The Rush?'), that's why I firmly believe that letting a gifted kid 'cruise' through school, in order to avoid dealing with the challenge of pestering schools to differentiate and accelerate, is NOT a neutral decision, it is a harmful one for that child.