Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

The latest research by Roy Baumeister and others has likened self-discipline (also know as willpower) to a mental muscle. You can read more about Baumeister’s work here. Laboratory and field studies indicate that, like a muscle, self-discipline can be strengthened by practice and use. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the brain has a limited capacity for self-discipline. Thus, also like a muscle, willpower can become fatigued with overuse.

Now, with this fatigable muscle in mind, imagine your teen going through their typical school day. Think of the number of times they flexed and stretched their willpower muscle as they worked to stay focused on a boring lecture, kept from blurting out an answer to an easy question, labored through a difficult test, or swallowed a smart-aleck remark to a teacher or coach. Suffice it to say, that by the end of the day your teen has performed a variety of acts of self-control, all of them draining the same mental reserve.

By the time teens return home from school their willpower muscles are often worn out from overuse. And with their restraints weakened, it’s little wonder that they engage us in homework debates, fail to focus on their assignments, or have trouble switching off the television.

So what’s a parent to do?

Offer your teen an afterschool snack. We’ve known for a long time that glucose fuels many brain functions. But only recently researchers have discovered that restoring glucose levels can restock self-discipline. So something as simple as having a bite to eat can help boost your teen’s willpower. Proteins or slow-burning carbs (including fruits, vegetables, yogurt, as well as whole grain breads and crackers) are thought to elevate willpower for longer periods. But in a pinch, according to research lab tests, a sugar sweetened drink such as lemonade can revive willpower too.

Collaborate with you teen to establish a homework routine. Without a regular time and place designated for homework, teens have to make up their mind on a daily basis about when and where to study. And research has shown that making decisions and choices seems to draw on the same pool of resources as exercising willpower. So by collaborating with your teen to establish a regular homework routine, you’re helping them spend their limited willpower reserve wisely. Plus, it will cut-down on the everyday debating. Definitely an additional bonus!

Encourage your teen to come up with a homework to-do list. Working on multiple things at the same time or even constantly trying to figure out what to do next can quickly deplete your teen’s willpower. But by creating a to-do list before starting on the night’s homework, teens can reduce the strain on their willpower muscle. Some teens (usually the ones with the strongest willpower muscles) will begin with the hardest or least interesting tasks first. Others will organize their lists the other way around. Regardless, they’ll increase their odds of success by concentrating on one thing at a time as they move down the list. And they’ll feel a sense of accomplishment as they cross off the completed tasks.

Entice your teen to train their willpower. Researchers have found that willpower can be trained and become strong with use. In psychological studies, a couple weeks of performing simple, daily acts of self-control – things like changing the hand you use when opening a door or using a computer mouse or simply standing up straight whenever you remember– can increase willpower capacity in completely unrelated activities.

By following through on just a couple of the suggestions listed above, you can help your teen strengthen and conserve their willpower muscle. That’s important because the strength of your teen’s self-discipline is highly predictive of their success in school and beyond. It’s even more important than smarts.

The next posting will cover a topic related to willpower: procrastination. We’ll take a look at why teens procrastinate and what you can do to help them overcome it.

---

I'd love to have you become a regular reader. Join my mailing list to be notified by email of new blog posts here. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it on Facebook below.

Labor Day has come and gone. Homework season is upon us. And if your household is like most, you have at least one kid who makes homework a hassle.

You know the drill: How he engages you in debates to avoid getting at his schoolwork. How she waits until late to start her homework each night. The way he rushes through the assigned work and fails to focus. Her lack of persistence and quickness to give up when the work gets challenging. And the hours he’d spend playing video games or watching TV on school nights instead of studying if left unsupervised.

This whole list of hassles has to do with self-discipline – a trait we all have to varying degrees. My two kids’ capacity for self-discipline varied so much that I sometimes wished I could pour what each had in a bowl, mix it up, and hand it back out in more equal helpings. I cared because as a middle school teacher I’d seen firsthand how crucial self-discipline is to academic success.

A range of studies over the last several years has confirmed what I observed in my classroom. Self- discipline matters when it comes to school achievement. In fact, it matters even more than you might think.

In one study (journal article found here), researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman followed over 160 eighth graders for an entire school year. Their goal was to find out what matters more in predicting school grades – IQ or self-discipline.

Once school started in the fall, each eighth grader took an IQ test, and each of them (as well as their parents and teachers) answered survey questions that probed for traits related to self-discipline. Students were asked “Can you work effectively towards long-term goals? Are you good at resisting temptation? Or does fun sometimes keep you from getting work done?” In addition, students’ ability to delay gratification was measured using a real-live test: Each was given an envelope with a dollar bill inside and told they could keep the dollar or give it back and get two dollars a week later.

When the researchers returned at the end of the school year, they took a look at the students’ report cards and then compared each student’s final grades with their IQ scores and how self-regulated each had been back in the fall. The researchers found that self-discipline was not only highly predictive of success, but accounted for more than twice as much variance as IQ in a student’s end of year grades.

What’s more, highly self-disciplined kids outperformed their equally smart peers on every academic performance variable measured: They earned higher standardized achievement test scores, had fewer school absences, spent more time on their homework, watched less television, and started their homework earlier in the day.

As I read this research, I thought about how my kids would have responded if as 8th graders they’d been given that delayed gratification test. No doubt, my daughter would have handed the dollar bill right back to the researchers without wavering. My son, on the other hand, would have probably pocketed the dollar. For years I wondered how two children raised in the same home with the same rules and expectations could differ so much when it came to self-discipline. I suspected the difference had to be in their genes – at least to some extent.

Sure enough, a just published study (discussed in brief here) of more than 800 sets of twins suggests just that. Researchers found that the identical twins (who have the same DNA) were twice as likely to share character traits as their non-identical twin counterparts. And of all the traits examined, the genes were most influential on individual’s self-discipline. In fact, genes mattered more than home environment in forming self-discipline.

So it seems that some people are simply less tempted by short-term pleasures and distractions than others. They’re born that way. But this does not mean that we should just throw-up our hands as if the whole thing is beyond our control. Because researchers have recently discovered that self-discipline – a trait so important to success in school and beyond – is like a muscle. With regular exercise this trait will grow and improve even into adulthood. The downside is that, just like a muscle, self-discipline can get worn out from overuse.

Next week’s posting will take a look at some specific things you can do to help your teen build self-discipline and some quick-fix approaches for restoring it when their supply has been depleted.

---

I'd love to have you become a regular reader. Join my mailing list to be notified by email of new blog posts here. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it on Facebook below.