my food thief and self control

Our son is constantly in search of his next sugar high.  I know this sounds like a problem most of us struggle with....however, he takes it to the next level.  If we have sugar in any form in our home he will find it and devour it all in one sitting.  We have bargained with him in all shapes in forms.  We've used sugar as a behavior reward and we've also rewarded him for using self control.  No matter what we do he is constantly seeking and negotiating for his next sugar high.  When we are exhausted by the negotiations we just physically place locks on the cabinets.  Don't think this deterred him.  Kaya merely saw this as a new challenge and woke up a few hours earlier to figure out how to get past the locks and sneak the cookies.

I was reminded of our "sugar dilemma" when I heard about a report that suggested that lack of self control predicts your future health, wealth and potential criminal behavior.  I had to laugh out loud because ever since my son was little and using his houdini tricks to get to the cookies I found myself telling him "use your powers for good".  He goes through such planning and effort to get cookies that it's hard not to think about how successful he could be if he just applied his skills to a more productive task. I've always felt that one day he'll either use his "powers" to become the next ruler of the world or with his lock picking skills he'll end up in jail.  Little did I know that research would validate my argument. 

An article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in January states that "The need to delay gratification, control impulses, and modulate emotional expression is the earliest and most ubiquitous demand that societies place on their children, and success at many life tasks depends critically on children’s mastery of such self-control."  This is very similar to the results of the original Stanford marshmellow test (which is quite entertaining to watch). 

In the study they followed 1000 children from birth to adulthood and looked at certain measures of self-control including parent, teacher, and self reports of impulsive aggression, hyperactivity, lack of persistence, inattention, and impulsivity (otherwise known as ADHD!) and how these affected health, wealth and happiness. At the age of 32, children with poor self-control were struggling financially, they were less likely to save and had acquired fewer financial building blocks for the future (e.g., home ownership, investment funds, retirement plans). They reported more money-management difficulties and had accumulated more credit problems. Poor self-control in childhood was a stronger predictor of these financial difficulties despite social class origins and IQ.  Children with poor self-control were also more likely to be convicted of a criminal offense.  Adolescents with low self-control made mistakes, such as starting smoking, leaving high school, and having an unplanned baby, that could ensnare them in lifestyles with lasting ill effects. 


It sounds like the children with the lowest levels of exhibited self-control would likely meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD.  I wonder if any of the children in the study who demonstrated low levels of self control early on were treated with medications or behavioral plans?  Did this change any of their outcomes?  


For now I'm still left with the conundrum that I somehow have to help my son master self control - at the moment I'll stick to shopping for a better lock to keep him out of the cabinets and I won't be leaving any marshmellows out unsupervised for awhile.