Fruit Snack Challenge: Children’s Self-control

The fruit snack challenge has flooded our social networks in recent weeks. On the Internet, it’s also called the patience challenge, and it ‘s based on a fundamental developmental skill: children’s self-control.

The challenge is to fill a bowl with food that is attractive to children, especially sweets. They are placed in plain sight and within reach, but the child is told he will not be able to eat them until the parents are back. Then a camera is recording the children alone while the adult leaves for a few minutes.

The children’s reactions are as unprecedented as they are varied. Some children show great self-control and even resort to distraction techniques such as singing or instructing themselves not to touch lunch. Others bite just a little bit and soon regret it, while others are overcome by temptation and eat before the appointed time.

Background: the marshmallow experiment

In fact, this new challenge has a precedent in the 1970s known as the marshmallow experiment, a kind of treat. This experiment was carried out at Stanford University by researcher Mischel and his colleagues, who were trying to get answers about delayed gratification or delayed gratification and children’s self-control.

The marshmallow experiment is similar to the fruit snack challenge, but in addition, it was proposed that if children were able to overcome the challenge, they would receive twice as much candy as they were initially provided. Thus, they found that children who passed the experiment used techniques of distraction and self-instruction.

However, the biggest discoveries came later. When they looked at these children as teenagers and adults, they saw other significant findings.

Children who passed the experiment had greater social skills and greater self-esteem. In contrast, children who did not make it to the end of the experiment had higher levels of impulsiveness, aggression and greater likelihood of developing behavioral disorders.

children’s self-control

It is the opposite ability to childish impulsiveness. In this way, it assumes an ability to regulate one’s emotions and impulses. Children’s self-control is actually a very complex skill. Furthermore, it requires training and is especially difficult to manage until age 4 or 5 years.

This skill influences all important areas of the child and, for this reason, is related to the development of difficulties in later stages. For example, in the social sphere, children’s self-control is especially important with regard to waiting their turn to speak, controlling tantrums, sharing and respecting each child’s properties, etc. Likewise, low self-control will lead to deficient regulation of emotions and the child may overreach in everyday situations.

There are some childhood disorders where self-control can be especially compromised, such as attention deficit disorder or ADHD. One of the main characteristics of this disorder is the impulsiveness that compromises your daily life and even your physical health due to frequent accidents and falls.

How to assess children’s self-control?

The fruit snack challenge is a challenge that has entertained users of social networks as they witness the strong internal struggle (or not) that some children have to show their self-control. However, there are some everyday signs that allow us to assess this ability.

• At school, children show patience: they wait to hear their name, raise their hand to speak, respect the established time to speak and do not interrupt classes very often.
• In the social sphere, they establish dialogues and games in which they are not always the center of attention and do not make monologues. Furthermore, they are increasingly open to the possibility of sharing.

• In the family environment, children who gradually develop their self-control show, as they grow up, more and more calming skills during tantrums and learn to accept the small frustrations of everyday life.

The self-control capabilities described are still an ideal and a model to guide us. Not all children develop this skill in the same way and at the same time. Thus, not all of these skills are acquired and there are no major related difficulties: learning is a circular process.

As we have seen, the fruit snack challenge can be a fun time for children to learn to deal with situations that require self-control and, above all, to appreciate the importance of gradually acquiring this skill.

Remember that the best way to educate children about self-control is to behave as a good model of self-control.