The Benefits of Raising Conscientious Kids

My preschool child is obsessed with the rules – and, more importantly, the exploration of their gaps. When I tell him to stop throwing rocks, he drops a rock spectacularly with a thud, assuming a plausible denial. He will continue his little sister around our kitchen island, pretending to be a Tyrannosaurus rex, and push it. “Do not push your sister”, I order, and he will answer: “I did not push it! The dinosaur did it. “

Self -control is his ability to navigate between several competing desires, as between listening to your mother or pushing your sister. We tend to idolize people who show certain types of self -control (such as professional athletes) and demonize those that we think of not showing enough (like athletes who are caught in doping scandals).

When I think of self -control in children, I think of the famous marshmallow test, where children could either eat a single marshmallow immediately, or show self -control, refuse this first marshmallow and be rewarded by two marships later. Original studies have revealed that the children who waited for this additional marshmallow were more academic success in adolescence compared to those who yielded to temptation.

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But what happens if the manner of marshmallow thinks about self-control is wrong? And if it is not simply a question of avoiding this first tempting marshmallow but the myriad of other things that accompany it: plan the future, follow the rules, work hard and trust that you will indeed get this second award? In other words: be conscientious.

Teaching consciousness – a personality trait that is more than self -control – can be the way to help our children be the best versions of themselves.

In a recent journal, the researchers found that the change in self -control of the moment (for example, while waiting for this second marshmallow once) does not lead to changes of months or years in the way we regularly expect this second marshmallow. Unfortunately, changing our personalities to resist temptation is not so easy. In fact, people who have more coherent self -control do not necessarily do it all the time. On the contrary, they simply avoid temptation in the first place, so that they do not have to exercise a restraint and to show less (no more) self -control in their daily life.

Even the results of the classic marshal test are more complicated than the first thought. The performance on the test and future academic success are linked not only to self -control, but to factors such as the general cognitive capacity of a child or the amount of education of his parent. In addition, it does not seem that his ability to wait for this second marshmallow is linked to success in adulthood.

Consciousness is one of the personality features of the five greats which predict academic success (alongside extraversion, pleasantness, openness to experience and neuroticism). Conscientious people tend to show self -control, but they also follow the rules, present themselves on time and work hard.

Consciousness is often underestimated. A study revealed that the new mothers hoped that their babies grew up to be extroverted and pleasant but regularly consciousness as less favorite than almost all other traits. If extraversion is the life of the party and that pleasantness is that a friend who laughs at all our jokes, we can tend to consider consciousness as a wet cover, this person who asks to refuse music or must leave early to bed in time.

Consciousness, however, is associated with the same advantages (and probably more) that we associate with self -control: conscientious people have better health, are less likely to be depressed, are richer and live longer than less conscientious people. Compared to extraversion, consciousness is more strongly linked to academic success, labor performance and lower substances consumption rates. Conscientious people have grain.

Rather than the failure of the party, think in the place of your friend who always remembers your birthday, this colleague who volunteers for the most difficult mission, or a judge who confirms the law even when it is unpopular. We could use more awareness in our world.

Consciousness seems to be around 40 to 50% hereditary, so conscientious parents tend to raise conscientious children. This also suggests that the environment and education play a substantial role in the question of whether people become conscientious adults.

Authority parenting, characterized by heat, structure and establishment of limits, seems to be linked to higher consciousness rates in children. Parenting authority is also linked to secure attachment between parents and children, which is associated with more conscience.

One way in which we could practice authority and translate some of these ideas into practice could explicitly involve our children why we establish the rules we establish. An early sign of consciousness can be the way children easily follow their parents’ instructions and how they positively kiss family rules. This suggests that parents who expect children to behave in this way can help children become more conscientious over time. Rather than just telling my son that he should not push people “because I said”, I could explain that our family thinks that it is important not to hurt others and that we do not push others because we could injure them (even when you are a dinosaur).

We can also look at what people of conscience do in their daily life outside of self -control behavior and try to model these other actions for our children. If we want to model punctuality and responsibility, we could explain why it is important for our family to run for a date in time and then (heroically!). We could also describe to our children all the things we have to do – compare snacks, put gas in the car, feed the dog – before we can go to our friend as a means of modeling good planning.

Thinking about research on how adults have more coherent self -control often present less, no more, self -control, we could try to provide our children with opportunities to test the limits in complete safety and allow their impulses a certain freedom. Sometimes our family has what we call “yes” where we try to say “yes” to everything our children want (within reasonable limits) for an afternoon. Milkshakes for dinner? Of course. Go run a few birds in a park for hours? Go wild.

Cultivating consciousness in our children can not only help them prosper, but helping us manage our own stress. A study revealed that features such as pleasantness and conscience in French children were linked to less professional exhaustion in their parents, including parents reporting less emotional exhaustion and more self-efficiency in their parenting.

There are still a lot of things that we don’t know how consciousness is developing. Personality features are difficult to change, as is cognitive skills depending on the abilities of your child. For example, if your child has ADHD or is otherwise neurodiverse, a change in parental practices alone is probably not enough to help this child become more planned or respectful of the rules. It could take more time. Consciousness can be different from that of other children. All children, whatever their capacity, deserve parents with realistic and flexible expectations around the potential for change while we work to nourish consciousness in our families.

It’s tiring to explain to my son for the hundredth time why we don’t push people. The other day, however, my daughter decided to push her brother, and I heard him explain to him in a tone that opposes mine: “We do not push people in our family!” When he came running for Tattle on his sister, all I could do was laughing.