Unless you limit your kids’ access to screen technologies, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to interest them in much else. As we’ll see in Chapter 4, the makers of entertainment technologies purposely design their products to keep users fixated on their screens at the cost of other pursuits. The activities kids need for healthy brain development just can’t compete.
I suggest you follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAPs’) recommendations. Don’t expose kids to any screen media before they’re 2, and limit kids 2 and older to 1–2 hours a day of total screen time.18 When young children begin to watch TV, slower-paced educational programming is a better choice than fast-paced cartoons and other entertainment technologies. A study in Pediatrics found that viewing educational programming—shows with a clear intent to educate—from birth to age three was not associated with children developing attention problems, however, viewing entertainment television during this period in a child’s life was linked to attention difficulties.19 We’ll look more closely at recommended screen limits in Chapter 3.
HOW READING DEVELOPS SELF-CONTROL
Clearly reading benefits children of all ages, as kids who frequently read have more advanced language development and get better academic grades than kids who read less.20 Still, even more is happening when children are read to or read themselves: It helps develop their brain’s ability to maintain self-control. The practice of reading, or listening to a book being read, requires that kids focus attention on a challenging activity without the attention-grabbing sights and sounds of TV cartoons or video games. As Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, said in a recent New York Times’ article, reading teaches kids that there’s value in “doing something taxing, in delayed gratification.”21
The following steps will help you promote your child’s reading, and in turn build self-control skills.
Limit Screens that Discourage Reading
There’s little question that children’s use of screens gets in the way of their learning to read or learning to read better. A study by University of Michigan and University of Texas researchers shows children ages 10–19 who play video games spend 30% less time reading compared to non-gamers.22 Similarly, the more TV kids watch the less they read and the less proficient readers they become.23 Consistent with the theme of this book, challenge digital-age myths by strictly limiting your child’s TV and amusement-based tech use to promote reading.
Create a Home Conducive to Reading
To promote our children’s reading, what we do is more important than what we say. No matter how much we tell our kids to read, if we spend a lot of time watching TV or playing on the Internet, our kids will likely do the same. A classic study in the Journal of Education Research, which pre-dates the digital revolution, shows that parents’ home activities and the environment we surround kids with has a profound influence on their interest in reading. Kids of kindergarten age were much more likely to take an interest in reading if their parents read to them daily, took them to the library, or kept books in their room. Also, these same-age kids were more likely to find reading appealing if their parents’ leisure activities were focused around reading rather than watching TV.24
Choose Traditional Books Over Bells and Whistles
E-book apps designed for tablet computers and other electronic devices are heavily promoted as the ideal method for getting kids to read. Their interactive features—sound effects, videos, games, etc.—are supposed to captivate kids and entice them to read. While there’s no doubt that e-books grab children’s attention, there’s concerning evidence about their effect on kids’ reading skills.
A recent study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center Print Books vs. E-books compares parent-child interactions while reading print books, basic e-books (without interactive features), and enhanced e-books (with interactive features). The study finds that children’s use of both types of e-books, but especially the enhanced e-books, led parent-child pairs to have more non-content related actions as compared with print books.25 In other words, when using e-books, parents and kids spent time focusing on non-reading matters such as the device itself, or parents had to push their kids’ hands away from the device. This isn’t surprising as the engaging features of e-gadgets can make it difficult for parents to help their kids stay focused on a story.
Print Books vs. E-books also compares how different types of books affect children’s ability to recall a story. Perhaps not surprisingly, kids who use an enhanced e-book recall fewer story details than kids who read print or basic e-books. As the authors of the study conclude, “Some of the extra features of enhanced e-books may distract adults and children alike from the story, affecting the nature of conversation and the amount of detail children recall.”26
Another common complaint about e-books by parents I work with is that kids left alone with the devices often don’t read, but use them to video game or play around on the Internet at the expense of schoolwork. Such problems with e-books lead me to suggest that parents rely on traditional books, kids’ magazines, and other printed materials, not e-books, to develop their children’s reading skills.
Dialogic Reading
If fancy machines aren’t well suited to teach children to read or read better, what is? Dialogic reading. This term may sound intimidating, however, it’s a custom that parents have long used with their children. In dialogic reading, parents engage their children in discussion (dialog) about a book that they read together. Instead of parents doing all the talking while their children sit silently, parents encourage their kids to talk about the book’s content through questions (“Oh, what’s going to happen to the children?”). This helps elicit kids’ responses, which parents can then expand on or follow-up with more questions, perhaps tying the book’s content to their child’s own life (“Do you remember when we saw the lion at the zoo?... What did he do?”).
Dialogic reading helps kids use more words, speak in longer sentences, score higher on vocabulary tests, and have better expressive language skills.27 That’s because it helps kids practice using language. Dialogic reading also fosters children’s language development because it helps kids associate books with loving moments with adults, and in turn encourages their desire to read as they grow older.
SELF-CONTROL IS CHILD’S PLAY
What’s another way to build children’s self-control? Let them play—a lot. While it may seem counterintuitive, kids’ dramatic play is incredibly important for strengthening the brain’s self-control abilities.
Dramatic play is the pretend or imaginative play of children. It often includes more than one child and involves symbolic representation of experiences kids see every day in life or books, i.e., playing school, parent, firefighter, space crew, or vet. Dramatic play supports problem solving, language, and social skills. Yet Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky was the first to understand how dramatic play also builds children’s executive functioning, cleverly observing, “A child’s greatest self-control occurs in play.”28
At first glance, children’s dramatic play may appear carefree, but if you look more closely, you’ll see that it’s all about control. There are roles and rules to be followed, and if children step out of line or don’t fulfill their responsibilities (for example, if a kid playing the firefighter role doesn’t do the right thing), other children will help bring him into line.
What’s magical in dramatic play is that children are motivated by the play to push themselves to self-regulate. In one study, four-year-olds who were asked to stand still could not do so for more than a minute, yet when the same kids were engaged in dramatic play guarding a factory, they could stand still, focused on their role, for more than four minutes.29 Over the course of months and years, such experiences build brain connections that regulate self-control.
Contemporary researchers are now testing Vygotsky’s principles. The innovative preschool program Tools of the Mind engages 4-and 5-year-olds in a curriculum designed around dramatic play. After a
year in the program, participating kids exhibited substantially more self-control (such as the ability to contain impulsive behaviors) than children the same age in a more traditional preschool program.30
Promoting Dramatic Play
In previous generations, no one had to encourage children in this kind of play, which comes naturally to kids and is remarkably rewarding. Sadly, in an age of digital machines that provide addictive-level distractions, we need to actively support dramatic play to help our kids prosper.
Turn off screens to give play a chance. Ever try to get your child’s (or spouse’s) attention while he or she is staring at a screen? Impossible, really. Evolution has provided us with lower brain structures, such as the brain stem, that draw our focus to sudden movements in the environment. Referred to as the orienting response, this trait once helped us find food and kept us from becoming food for other creatures. The frenetic pace of today’s fast-action video games and TV triggers the orienting response, and an unfortunate result is the loss of undistracted space needed for dramatic play. A report in Pediatrics found that the more children from birth to 12 years watched TV, the less they were involved in creative play.31 So Step One in fostering play? You’ve guessed it by now—limit kids’ screen time and regulate all family members’ use of screen entertainment in the home.
Give your child play scenarios. You also may need to help your children develop a mental storehouse of play scenarios to draw from. How? It’s pretty simple, actually. Expose your kids to a wide range of experiences in real life and through literature. Have your children cook with you; tour a local firehouse, airport, or farmers’ market; expose them to travel and museums. Take advantage of a local children’s theatre or band performance. Go to a sports event. Share enriching experiences outside the daily routines to foster your child’s imagination.
Help your child appreciate all that’s behind seemingly simple life experiences. While you and your child are waiting for an appointment with the pediatrician, keep your phone in your pocket and talk with your child about the roles of various medical staff and how a hospital or medical office works. At the grocery store, talk about how the products get there. When your child plays, he or she will have the material needed to generate ideas and be an active and knowledgeable participant.
Be a play coach, especially for tech-obsessed children. Children who have grown up in environments conducive to dramatic play usually do it instinctively, but the screen-heavy lives of the current generation of kids deprive many of the knowledge and ability to play. Parents therefore may need to guide their children’s early forays into play. For example, you can help kids plan play activities by asking them, “If you’re going to play doctor, who’s going to be the nurse? What does a nurse do if someone is sick?” Parents or grandparents can play one of the roles and offer kids guidance until the play gets going. Once your children become comfortable with dramatic play, the play itself will be its own reward, and you can step away.
Provide opportunities for play. Solitary pretend play may help build children’s self-control, however, it’s also important to provide lots of opportunities to interact with other kids in unstructured ways. Siblings are good play partners; if you have an only child, ask cousins or your child’s friends over for play dates. Quality childcare centers can provide an ideal setting for dramatic play, so look for programs that understand the value of play and also limit screens.
Props matter. “In all my games, I kill someone,” seven-year-old Ben told me matter-of-factly, as he made it clear the only things he had to play with at home were violent video games. Many kids I work with don’t have playthings that encourage positive play experiences. Instead, they either are solely engaged with screens or have toys that are movie or video game spin-offs. By their nature, spin-offs come with prepackaged character identities and purposes that can limit rather than foster dramatic play.
Look for toys and props that promote child-centered, open-ended play. “The best toy is 10% toy and 90% child,” says Susan Linn, author of The Case for Make Believe. “We’ve got all these toys embedded with computer chips that talk and sing and play and dance at the press of a button. But what they do is deprive children of the ability to exercise their creativity. The toys that really foster creativity just lie there until they’re transformed by children.”32 A box of discarded, colorful clothes and hats is great—the same item can connote a firefighter one day and a pilot the next. Dolls and stuffed animals that aren’t media-character tie-ins, doctor’s kits and cash registers, kids’ tool kits and strollers also promote dramatic play.
WHAT FUELS SELF-CONTROL: MOTIVATION FROM WITHIN
“If you do your homework, you can play video games” or “If you get good grades this semester, I’ll buy you a phone.” Parents often rely upon their children’s profound desire for tech gadgets as a carrot to motivate them to put effort into academics. Many well-meaning parenting experts recommend this strategy, and the immediate results may look positive, as the promise of technology for completed schoolwork can persuade even the most uninterested kid to put pencil to paper. What gets lost is the long-term consequences of using extrinsic rewards like video gaming time or the promise of a phone to influence our kids’ behavior. As we’ll see next, the common practice of trading technology rewards for school effort compromises our kids’ self-control and chances of long-term success.
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation
A technology incentive for completing homework is an example of extrinsic motivation, something external (e.g., video games) for the behavior we are asking of our kids (e.g., school effort). Other extrinsic rewards include money, ice cream, or other enticements we give kids in return for their performance. This contrasts with intrinsic motivation, internal factors that influence children to put strong effort into meeting a goal. Examples of intrinsic motivation include curiosity about how living things work which spurs interest in biology, or students’ focused study to reach the goal of becoming a pilot, musician, or doctor—because that’s what they’ve always wanted to be.
What’s most effective to motivate your child to work hard, extrinsic or intrinsic motivation? It’s intrinsic motivation by far. Intrinsic motivation works because it promotes children’s self-control and self-interest. Kids motivated from within are focused, don’t give up easily, and are driven to perform at their best level. Think about yourself. Are there activities at which you excel? Chances are it’s because they intrinsically motivate you. If you enjoy them, you want to do well. Sure, a reward like a paycheck is nice, but what really gets us to try our best day in and day out is wanting to do well and taking pride in what we do.
Why Choose Intrinsic Motivation?
My recommendation to move away from extrinsic rewards and to embrace intrinsic motivation may sound foreign, especially since many trusted sources recommend using video games or other technologies as incentives for completed tasks. I fully agree that extrinsic rewards seem to make common sense, however, science sometimes reveals the unexpected, and in this case it shows why our kids will do better if we cultivate intrinsic motivation, especially in school.
Extrinsic rewards hurt intrinsic motivation. Perhaps the most disturbing effect of extrinsic rewards is that they decrease children’s intrinsic motivation,33 essentially robbing kids of the enjoyment in, and the effort they would otherwise put into, learning. Offering children extrinsic rewards inadvertently sends the message that schoolwork, for instance, isn’t worth doing in its own right—what is really important is the video game or other reward. The long-term result is that kids put less effort into schoolwork. While it may seem that your child would never be motivated from within to study, this may be because using extrinsic rewards is diminishing the pleasure he or she otherwise could experience from learning and mastery provided by the activity itself.
Extrinsic rewards lead kids to choose easier tasks. Extrinsic rewards also limit success because they encourage kids to choose easier tasks.34 If children know they’ll receive a rew
ard for schoolwork, they tend to do just enough to get the reward. The reward takes precedence over the learning. When kids choose easier work or classes, they avoid challenging tasks that really could bolster their learning and satisfaction.
Intrinsically motivated kids perform better academically. The best proof of the superiority of intrinsic over extrinsic motivation may be in the results. Researchers at Stanford and Columbia universities, and Reed College, found that the more 3rd-through 8th-grade children were intrinsically motivated, the better their grade point average and standardized test scores. The same researchers also found that extrinsically motivated kids had lower grade point averages and standardized test scores.35
How to Foster Kids’ Intrinsic Motivation
The following actions will encourage your child’s intrinsic motivation for school and other learning activities.
Shift away from extrinsic rewards. If you have been trading the use of video games, smartphones, or other technologies for your child’s school effort, start to shift away from this practice. While this may be challenging, remember that—over time—extrinsic rewards actually lessen the chances that kids will put genuine effort into learning. For children who have grown used to having screen time as a reward for effort, I suggest having an age-appropriate talk with them about how rewards can make school seem less interesting and reduce their chances of success. For this reason they should be phased out. Over a period of weeks or months, begin to ask your kids to put in more school effort for less extrinsic reward, working towards eventually stopping the use of extrinsic rewards.
Moving away from extrinsic screen rewards demands that kids use much less entertainment technology and TV than is now typical. A number of parents I work with have found eliminating video games and TV Monday through Thursday inspires their kids to do well in school. A system of this sort gives kids a chance to put effort into their studies, appreciate what they are learning, do their homework without rushing, and achieve. I know this is a radical departure from how most American children live, but as we’ll see in the next chapter, our kids—caught up in long hours of digital playtime—are academically underperforming compared to their peers in the developed world. We need strong action to change this.
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