Chapter 3

Self-Control

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

—Mae West

KAPOW!!! BANG!! BANG!! BANG!! KAPOW!!!

The explosion of firecrackers rang through the quiet neighborhood on a Sunday evening. Tom had thrown them into the mail slot at his girlfriend's house before taking off running. He didn't anticipate that his girlfriend's dad would angrily confront him a couple of minutes later. "It seemed like a good idea at the time" was the only weak response Tom could muster. His girlfriend's dad was astonished—prior to seeing Tom run across the street, he thought that he was a reasonably intelligent high school sophomore who possessed some degree of self-control. He could see now that he was wrong.

Carla was a responsible overachiever. She knew what she needed to do, did it, and then checked it—often more than once. In elementary school, she was always sure to finish her homework before going outside to play, and she placed her folder by her door key each night so that she would remember to take it to school. In high school, Carla did not engage in many extracurricular activities because her priority was preparing to one day attend medical school. Today Carla is a successful physician and continues to remain always aware of and in control of her emotions. Her colleagues know that they can depend on her to get tough jobs done because of how well she is able to focus.

In the above examples, Tom clearly needs more self-control, and Carla could probably do with a bit less. An overabundance of self-control can inhibit us from taking risks, being extemporaneous, and generally enjoying life. Finding the balance is the key. (By the way, unlike the other archetypes in this book, Tom is actually a real person—in fact, he is the author of this book. Yep, it happened, and, yep, as I told my girlfriend's dad, "It seemed like a good idea at the time.")

Figure 3.1 shows the self-assessment survey for self-control. Take a moment to answer the questions before continuing with this chapter.

Figure 3.1. Self-Assessment Survey: Self-Control

Note: The following survey is designed to provide a sense of your feelings about self-control. It is a tool to elicit reflection and discussion, not a scientifically valid instrument.

Directions: Place a 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (not sure), 4 (agree), or 5 (strongly agree) after each item.

Self-control is a part of personality; students either have it or they don't. ___
If students work hard and do well, self-control will develop. ___
Self-control can be improved. ___
Giving students choices has no effect on their self-control. ___
It's important to be aware of the issues that make self-control hard. ___
Self-control in one area can lead to developing it in another area. ___
Having self-control means not being spontaneous or creative. ___
Student self-control should be a focus of parents, not educators. ___
Students can support peers' efforts to develop self-control. ___
Setting self-control goals for behaviors outside of school can positively affect self-control goals for behaviors in school. ___

Scoring:

___ (A) Total points for questions 3, 5, 6, 9, 10
___ (B) Total points for questions 1, 2, 4, 7, 8
___ (C) Subtract (B) from (A) for your "self-control" score

If you scored

18 or higher: You fully understand the issue of self-control!
15–17: You understand self-control but may need to work more directly on it with your students.
12–14: You should probably focus more on self-control in your classroom instruction.
11 or lower: You would probably benefit from reading up on or joining a discussion group about self-control.

Note: You can find a self-control self-assessment survey for students in Appendix A.

What Is Self-Control?

Daniel Goleman (1995) defines self-control as "the ability to modulate and control one's actions in age-appropriate ways; a sense of inner-control" (p. 194); Walter Mischel (2014) says it is "the ability to delay gratification and resist temptation" (p. 6). Some level of self-control is necessary for achieving success in every domain.

Self-control is as elusive as it is important. The importance is evidenced by the persistent panoply of self-help books on the best seller list year after year. Its elusiveness is illustrated in the fact that, according to Statistic Brain (n.d.), 67 percent of all people with gym memberships never use them. (I'll be sure to check on this the next time I go to the gym—whenever that happens.) Although he doesn't explicitly use the term, economist James Heckman (2013) makes clear its importance when discussing success in life, noting that self-control "depends upon much more than smarts. Non-cognitive abilities—including strength of motivation, an ability to act on long-term plans, and the social-emotional regulation needed to work with others—also have a large impact on earnings, employment, labor force experience, college attendance, teenage pregnancy, participation in risky activities, compliance with health protocols, and participation in crime" (p. 12).

Of course, educators spend a lot of time and energy helping students develop self-control (though like Heckman, we may not always use the term). Just about every classroom has a few students (and maybe more) whose performance suffers due to a lack of this essential skill. Not doing homework, falling short of expectations, being distracted in class, failing to study—too often, students aren't disciplined enough to consistently manage themselves.

The most famous study on self-control is the Stanford marshmallow experiment, colloquially known as the Marshmallow Test, first conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford University in 1960 (Mischel, 2014). Here's how the experiment works: One at a time, 4-year-old children sit in a room alone with an adult researcher. The researcher offers each of the children a marshmallow and tells them that they can either eat it immediately or wait 15 minutes and receive a second marshmallow as a reward for their patience. The researcher then leaves the child alone in the room with the marshmallow. Can you imagine the temptation that these young children felt?

In Mischel's initial study, results were mixed: some of the children ate the marshmallow immediately and others waited the e-n-t-i-r-e 15 minutes so that they could receive another marshmallow. At age 4, there were already differences in the degree of self-control that children possess. But that is just the beginning. Over time, Mischel and his researchers saw that the decision about eating the marshmallow at age 4 suggested a trajectory about individuals' self-control that continued to play out throughout later life:

"The more seconds they waited at age four or five, the higher their SAT scores and the better their rated social and cognitive functioning in adolescence. At age 27–32, those who had waited longer during the Marshmallow Test in preschool had a lower body mass index and a better sense of self-worth, pursued their goals more effectively, and coped more adaptively with frustration and stress" (p. 5).
"Preschoolers who delayed longer on the Marshmallow Test were rated a dozen years later to be adolescents who exhibited more control in frustrating situations; yielded less to temptation; were less distractible when trying to concentrate; were more intelligent, self-reliant, and confident; trusted their own judgment. When under stress they did not go to pieces as much as the low delayers did, and they were less likely to become rattled and disorganized or revert to immature behavior. Likewise, they thought ahead and planned more, and when motivated they were able to pursue their goals. They were also more attentive and able to use and respond to reason, and they were less likely to be sidetracked by setbacks. In short, they managed to defy the widespread stereotype of the problematic, difficult adolescent, at least in the eyes of their parents and teachers" (pp. 23–24).
"Around age twenty-five to thirty, those who had delayed longer in preschool self-reported that they were more able to pursue and reach long-term goals, used risky drugs less, had reached higher educational levels, and had a significantly lower body mass index. They were also more resilient and adaptive in coping with interpersonal problems and better at maintaining close relationships" (pp. 24–25).

The power of Mischel's work stems from the fact that a simple experiment gives insight into children's ability to exert self-control at an early age, and this has implications for later life. That said, we must look at the experiment carefully (as we should with all experiments). To what degree, we should ask, might the children's backgrounds influence their decision making? A child who has learned not to trust adults, for example, might wisely be prone to not believe an adult's promise of a second marshmallow. In fact, Mischel refers to this possibility, noting that "there's no good reason for anyone to forgo the ‘now’ unless there is trust that the ‘later’ will materialize" (p. 72). A child who has been without food for some time might also choose to eat the marshmallow immediately. Too, in a 2010 Daily Beast article, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman articulated some criticisms of the Marshmallow Test, suggesting that the group of students wasn't large enough for a statistically valid result. In my mind, even if these concerns are just, the point remains that self-control is present at an early age in some children, and the limited data suggest that this correlates with positive behaviors throughout life.

As a child, how good were you at delaying gratification? In 5th grade, did you do your homework before or after playing outside or chatting on the phone? In high school, did you devote enough energy to your studies, or were you more concerned with hanging out or playing on your computer? Today, are you able to focus your time, attention, and effort on what's important despite any distractions? (Is your mind wandering now???)

The degree to which we are able to maintain self-control is especially important when we're bothered about something. "From the parent who gets upset with the teacher and instantly yanks her child out of that school, to the CEO who gets cold feet because of some bad numbers and changes strategies without thinking through their implications, the ability to control your thinking when your emotions are enflamed is huge for success," notes Henry Cloud (2006, p. 130). Paul Tough describes how this can happen with students: "Talking back and acting up in class are, at least in part, symptoms of a child's inability to control impulses, de-escalate confrontations, and manage anger and other strong feelings …" (2016, p. 55).

As we get older, temptations may change, but they never disappear. The good news is that self-control can be taught: as Charles Duhigg (2012) says in The Power of Habit, "Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be taught the same way kids learn to do math and say ‘thank you’" (p. 134). And of course, willpower is just another word for self-control. Our executive function—that "set of mental skills that help you get things done" ("Executive Function Skills and Disorders," 2016)—relies heavily on self-control. According to Kaufman (2010), both impulse control and emotional control are important aspects of the executive function's "social-emotional regulation strand" (p. 5). The perils of insufficient self-control are clear: "Because individuals lacking in self-control are insensitive to others and are risk-taking, they are also more likely to experience problems in social relationships, such as marriage, they are more likely to use drugs and to abuse alcohol, and they are more likely not to wear a seat belt and to get into automobile accidents" (Wright, 2009).

Malcolm Gladwell's famous "10,000-hour rule" (2008) is a good example of how important self-control is to success in all endeavors. To illustrate the rule, Gladwell discusses the fact that the Beatles' "overnight success" was actually 20 years in the making. What opportunities did John, Paul, George, and Ringo give up to pursue their passion? How many distractions must they have resisted? (Of course, spending 10,000 hours on something won't matter much without a baseline of talent. I could spend far more than 10,000 hours shooting baskets, for example, and I still wouldn't be as good as I'd like.)

The good news is that regardless of whether or not we ate the marshmallow, we can always improve. As Mischel (2014) says, "Beginning early in life, some people are better than others at self-control, but almost everybody can find ways to make it easier" (p. 12). And humans have always had trouble resisting temptation—just think how different things would be without Adam and Eve and the concept of forbidden fruit. Or consider Ulysses, who had his sailors shackle him to the mast of his ship so that he wouldn't be lured by the songs of the Sirens in the Aegean Sea. Impulse control is a recurring theme throughout history and literature for a reason: it reflects a constant preoccupation.

As we all know, technology has exponentially multiplied the number of distractions in our daily lives. It's gotten so bad that Apple now offers a free app called SelfControl that "lets you block your own access to distracting websites, your mail servers, or anything else on the internet. Just set a period of time to block for, add sites to your blacklist, and click ‘Start.’ Until that timer expires, you will be unable to access those sites—even if you restart your computer or delete the application" (SelfControl, n.d.; see more information).

Hopefully we can help our students develop enough self-control not to need an app to filter online distractions. As David Brooks (2011) says, "There is no questioning self-control is one of the essential ingredients of a fulfilling life" (p. 123). It's actually easier to develop self-control as we age (so there is still hope for me!). Mischel (2014) notes, "Most children younger than four are unable to sustain delay of gratification on the Marshmallow Test. When faced with temptations, they ring the bell or start nibbling on the treats within about 30 seconds. … In contrast, by age 12 almost 60 percent of children in some studies have been able to wait as long as 25 minutes, a very long time to be sitting facing a few cookies and a bell in a barren room" (p. 47).

According to Mark Muraven, "Willpower isn't just a skill. It's a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there's less power left over for other things" (quoted in Duhigg, 2012, p. 137). If we want students to develop and flex their self-control muscles, we must present them with (somewhat limited) choices so that they can learn to take responsibility for their behaviors while we stand back (even if it means gritting our teeth). Children must learn to consider alternatives, make a decision, and accept the consequences. Of course, these consequences may be difficult or even painful for students, so we must guide them, without shielding them, in a spirit of care.

Candidly, it can be easier to work with children when they are allowed no discretion and the path to approval is as clear as the penalties are obvious. But although this approach may be easier for adults, it doesn't benefit the children.

An example from my days as an elementary principal is instructive. One November I was talking with Arnie, a friend who was the assistant principal at the district's middle school, where he spent most of his time disciplining students for misbehavior.

"How is Marty doing?" I asked. Marty had been my single most challenging student the previous year. When he responded that he'd never met Marty and didn't even know who he was, I was shocked. I knew for a fact that Marty was attending his school. How can this be, I wondered? After all, Marty and I were regular acquaintances because he used to get sent to my office once or twice a week. He was a good kid, but he could be rude and he wasn't terribly motivated to follow school rules. Marty didn't have much self-control.

I followed up by asking Arnie about some other students now attending his school—Janel, Alan, and Pete—all three of whom were also frequent visitors to my office in elementary school. He didn't know any of them! Arnie told me that he wasn't surprised that he hadn't met these students yet because the most challenging kids at his school came from a different elementary school in the district—one known for being a "tight ship" with a culture of very strict discipline. The principal of this school took pride in its extraordinarily quiet halls and the orderly lines of students heading from class to class. (When I went to the school once for an administrative meeting, I actually found myself whispering so that I wouldn't get in trouble!) According to Arnie, these students were never given choices, so they had a particularly difficult time behaving themselves when they went to a larger and more fluid middle-school situation. The elementary school that those students attended was so rules-oriented and constricting that they had never had the opportunity to develop self-control. (However, I would be remiss if I did not also acknowledge the consequences that can come from compliance. We want students to follow rules, but we also want them to question rules and to stand up when they see a wrong; we want them to think for themselves. This point is discussed further in the chapter on integrity.)

The Steps to Developing Self-Control

There are five basic steps to developing self-control:

Developing awareness
Complying
Goal setting
Transferring
Monitoring

Step 1: Developing Awareness

Students need to become conscious of the importance of self-control before they can learn it. It's possible that many see it simply as "doing what you are told," but, of course, it's more than that. Teachers should make a point of talking about its importance and illustrate how people who have been successful—whether in school, literature, or the everyday world—have been so because they have exercised self-control in some aspect of their performance. It's best to elicit student awareness through class discussion, working from real-life examples of people whose success in life is due largely to exercising self-control. (It can be easy for students to think that people succeed, well, just because and not thanks to specific success skills.)

Step 2: Complying

Once students have developed an awareness of the importance of self-control, the next step is for them to attempt exercising theirs by complying with school rules and teacher directions. At the same time, educators should make students aware of why specific rules or directions are necessary and discuss with them why compliance can be difficult. Students develop self-control not just by following the rules but by being conscious and thoughtful about why they do so and what temptations they are resisting (e.g., playing with friends or a game on their computer). We want students to be thoughtful, question authority, and to stand up for what's right (see the chapter on integrity for more on this.)

Step 3: Goal Setting

During this step, students set one academic and one personal goal related to self-control. By setting goals for behaviors both in and out of school, students are better able to transfer self-control skills from one setting to another. When drafting each goal, students should identify three specific components: the ultimate objective, the obstacles or distractions they'll need to overcome to meet that objective (so that they are aware of the self-control that will be required), and how they will determine success. Ideally, students will draft their goals using a form such as the one in Figure 3.2 and discuss them with a teacher before considering them set. This interaction—ensuring that goals are realistic and that obstacles have been anticipated—will play a significant role in helping students succeed.

Figure 3.2. Self-Control Goals

Examples of scholastic goals include allocating enough time to complete homework (using self-control to avoid distractions), remaining attentive in class (using self-control to resist talking to friends), being on time to class (using self-control not to linger in the halls), and so on. Personal goals could be as specific as improving as an artist (using self-control to practice diligently and routinely) or as broad as being kinder to friends or not arguing with parents (using self-control to restrain negative emotions). In all cases, the goals should be reasonable and potential obstacles or distractions should be specified. It's important, especially early on, for students to be able to meet their goals so that they can gain confidence in their ability to succeed.

Goals that aren't shared are no more than hopes, and sharing them is the first step in being held accountable for them. Of course, we need to respect every student's comfort level as he or she shares. One idea is to write the goals out on a chart hanging on the wall or displayed on the white board; kids can periodically show their progress with a checkmark ("I'm on target"), a hyphen ("I'm not sure"), or an X ("I'm in trouble"). If students prefer to share goals privately, they can do so in one-on-one conversations with the teacher or by sealing their goals in an envelope and handing it to the teacher.

We often fail to meet our goals because we lose focus (who remembers New Year's resolutions by the time May rolls around?), so it's important for students to regularly reflect on and share their progress. Students who are comfortable sharing their goals with one another can meet in teams of three or four for 10 minutes every week to share how they're doing. Teachers should make clear to them that they are sharing so that they can be held accountable for their goals and support one another in trying to meet them. Students should practice active listening and encouraging talk in their groups. (As noted earlier, too much self-control can be inhibiting and create difficulties for some students, so teachers need to be particularly aware of how this focus has an impact on each child.)

Step 4: Transferring

Once students have set their goals and had time to pursue them, it is time for them to discuss how they might transfer the lessons about self-control that they learned during this process to other situations. Teachers can help students reflect on how they were able to transcend obstacles or distractions and how they might do likewise in pursuit of different goals. One of the keys to a strong sense of self-control is drawing from experiences when new challenges arise. A teacher may ask, "How can what we learned about the role of self-control in achieving goals be used in other situations?" Over time, again reflecting the age and developmental level of children, teachers can help students reflect on how the obstacles that they have identified may be similar to those that were overcome when other goals have been met.

By reflecting on their own experiences, students might develop new goals related to self-control with varying levels of specificity. Here are some examples:

I need to focus more on giving time to my little sister.
I will count my calories and only eat dessert on the weekend.
I will devote 90 minutes to my homework even if I think I have completed it before then.
I will make a point of not sitting by my friends in math class.
I will count to seven before I respond if I feel criticized at the dinner table.

What's most important is for students to learn how to actively exercise self-control, realize its importance, anticipate challenges, and develop strategies for staying focused on their goals.

Step 5: Monitoring

Monitoring progress on the goals and revising them when necessary helps students identify their most effective self-control strategies. It's not enough that they develop self-control in a situation and achieve their goals (although that's good!); they need to understand what they did and why it worked for them so that they can use what they learned in other situations.

Self-Control as a Habit

Intention and effort can develop self-control. Roy Baumeister, a professor at Florida State University, notes that

engaging in some extra self-control activities for a couple weeks produces improvement in self-control, even on tasks that have no relation to the exercise activities. The exercises can be arbitrary, such as using your left hand instead of your right hand to open doors and brush your teeth. Or they can be meaningful, such as working to manage money better and save more. The important thing is to practice overriding habitual ways of doing things and exerting deliberate control over your actions. Over time, that practice improves self-control. (Weir, 2012, p. 36)

Similarly, Duhigg (2012) writes that "the best way to strengthen willpower and give students a leg up, studies indicate, is to make it into a habit" (p. 131). We do this, he says, when we choose "a certain behavior ahead of time, and then [follow] that routine when the inflection point arrives" (p. 146). He goes on to quote Angela Duckworth: "Sometimes it looks like people with great self-control aren't working hard—but that's because they've made it automatic" (p. 131).

Today, when children and adults often carry their e-distractions with them everywhere, students need to develop the habit of self-control more than ever. How many times have you seen people sitting at a restaurant table, talking while simultaneously checking their phones? How often do you see teachers and administrators checking their phones—sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes not—during faculty meetings? Increasing overprotectiveness is another challenge to self-control. Often, it seems, today's parents are most focused on protecting children from everything, including themselves, rather than on allowing them the necessary freedom to develop personal willpower in different situations.

Strategies for Developing Self-Control

For all teachers:

Have students set two academic goals: an achievement goal reflecting the knowledge and skills students hope to acquire, and a process goal focused on how best to exercise self-control in pursuing the achievement goal.
Work to create a classroom climate in which kids support one another's efforts at gaining self-control. Here's an example from Chris Hass, a teacher at the Center for Inquiry school in Columbia, South Carolina (personal communication, October 14, 2015):
Whenever my students struggle with self-control, I'll sit down with them and tell them what I see and invite them to help me think of a solution. They have learned what it is to play school, so they'll often suggest punishments I could dole out. But I push them to do more than think punitively. I ask them for strategies that might help us avoid the situations in which we so often see other people, or ourselves, getting into trouble. We talk about ways each of us could be responsible not only for the collective behavior of the classroom but for each of our individual actions as well.

When we see behavior as something we are all responsible for, we begin to help one another out. For instance, if someone has trouble transitioning without becoming a significant distraction in the classroom, someone else might put a gentle hand on the student's shoulder and remind him or her to focus. If building community has been a priority up to this point and the kids have built strong trusting relationships with one another, this act will be accepted as a demonstration of caring and not an attempt at authority over peers.
Develop a mindfulness practice. Chris Wallach, a teacher at New City School in St. Louis, Missouri, has done this. She routinely practices mindfulness with her students, colleagues, and students' parents. "Using the practice of mindfulness, we are able calm our bodies and minds," she says. "The simple action of focusing on our breath creates the foundation for lessons on self-awareness and self-control" (personal communication, September 27, 2015). Wallach recommends a series of videos about mindfulness designed for teenagers as well as one that features celebrities discussing their mindfulness. You can see the video here.

For middle or high school teachers:

Share some of the self-control quotes in this chapter to start discussions with students. Ask, "Are there ways in which these quotes conflict? Do you see instances of what they are saying in your life?"
Lead a discussion about whether it's possible to have too much self-control (answer: it is) and how that might be problematic.
Ask students to rate their levels of self-control regarding various household duties and consider why they might have more self-control with some unpleasant duties than with others. It might be interesting to do this in the context of multiple intelligences: Do students have more or less self-control on, say, linguistic tasks than bodily-kinesthetic ones?
Examine literature through the lens of self-control. What characters exercise appropriate self-control, and what characters don't? How might a plot have evolved very differently (or not at all) if certain characters had more or less self-control?
Discuss how self-control relates to the other Formative Five success skills (empathy, integrity, grit, and embracing diversity). This is also a good way to reinforce the importance of the Formative Five.
Have students consider what kinds of jobs might require the most self-control. Then ask them if they think the high need for self-control is a function of the job or the individual who is doing it. Does a job require more self-control because precision is required or because the distractions or temptations are greater? Could it be both?
Ask students to find examples from news sources of people who uncharacteristically failed to use self-control (e.g., a well-respected banker who is indicted for siphoning funds). The "uncharacteristically" is important because news accounts are rife with people demonstrating a lack of self-control; the point here is to identify a situation in which it is an exception and then speculate on what might have happened.
Ask students to identify lyrics from popular music that proclaim the value or challenges of self-control (although the term self-control is not likely to be used).
Identify political candidates whose careers were derailed due to poor self-control. (There is, unfortunately, no shortage of examples.)

For elementary teachers:

Have students set personal goals for each reporting period. These could be taken from a category on the report card or related to one of the other Formative Five success skills. "I will do a better job of sitting and listening" and "I will keep my desk organized" are both good examples. At New City School, students in grades 2–6 set two goals each year, one focused on scholastic improvement and another on one of the "personal intelligence" qualities listed on their report cards (confidence, motivation, problem solving, responsibility, effort and work habits, appreciation for diversity, and teamwork).
Create a system to help students monitor their self-control. For example, students might write their goals on a notecard and tape it to their desks. Either randomly or at predesignated times, students can check on their progress and share with the teacher.
Help students anticipate situations where maintaining self-control might be difficult. For example, if students have trouble exercising self-control at lunch or during recess, the teacher can ask them to think about the consequences of their actions and how they might change their ways (perhaps through brief "touch-base" meetings before these times).
Use "problem-solving chairs" in the classroom. This idea comes from retired New City School teacher Carla Duncan. Students have the right to ask classmates to join them in the chairs to talk about obstacles or distractions that might be impeding their self-control. Ideally, the teacher should monitor from a distance and not get involved. The goal is to help children adequately anticipate and address challenges.
Facilitate a class discussion on the role of self-control in art. Are some forms of art more dependent upon self-control? Is self-control an essential part of any creativity?
Facilitate a class discussion on the relationship between location and self-control. Are there some physical spaces where people need to exhibit more self-control than in others? Are there places where self-control doesn't really matter?

For principals:

Build developing or improving self-control into every teacher's professional goal-setting process. Teachers must model the self-control that they want students to develop. This should be presented in the context of teaching the Formative Five, adults developing self-control so that we can help our students do the same. Principals might ask teachers to share any obstacles or distractions that they anticipate having to surmount. Of course, principals should also serve as role models and share their self-control efforts with faculty (both successes and not-yet-there stories).
Remind faculty that self-control has many aspects. Losing weight or quitting smoking are classic examples of goals requiring a lot of self-control, but willpower is just as important in any number of contexts. Kevin Dwyer, a graduate of the New City School, shared that for him, self-control "isn't just resisting the fourth donut, but it's also maintaining control over your thoughts." He cites racism as an example, noting that we all need to develop and use self-control so that we don't fall prey to stereotypes and generalizations. (I expand on this point in Chapter 5.) "We should not let our base emotions dictate our lives," he notes. "We can experience them, but we should control them" (personal communication, January 30, 2016).
Ask teachers to reflect on how they have developed and used self-control in their teaching. Principals might consider sharing the following powerful example from Andrew Gallagher, a middle school teacher in the St. Louis Public Schools (shared in a personal communication on November 12, 2015):
Just last year, for the first time in a very long time, I had a student direct some very colorful language at me so loudly and forcefully that a very large classroom of students working in groups fell dead silent. Obviously, I had no other option but to address it directly and in the moment.

I would be lying if I said my adrenaline wasn't pumping—I was completely unused to language like that being directed at me, particularly from a student who had always been remarkably amicable with me (though occasionally prickly with classmates). I collected myself and said to her, "Let's speak outside." I didn't yell because I didn't need to—the class was as quiet as a grave. Thankfully, the student complied without arguing.

I made a conscious decision before our talk to let her speak first. The situation to me called for firmness, but also forbearance. After about 30 seconds of silence and staring at the wall, the student broke down crying—heavy, wracking sobs. She doubled over and sat down. When I hugged her and helped her to collect herself, she shared with me that her cousin had been brutally murdered the night before.

Instead of punishing her, I made her promise me that she would help with our school's peer-mediation group. She did. And over the course of the year, she became without question the best student in my class. To this day, she visits my classroom regularly even though she's no longer my student. Had I lost my self-control after her outburst, or had I not given her a chance to put her behavior in context, our relationship would likely have ended up in a very different place.
Facilitate a discussion among teachers and parents of Paul Tough's article "Can the Right Kind of Play Teach Self-Control?" (2009). The article suggests that we should think about play as framing children's future development.
Establish a faculty committee to look into ways to develop students' self-control that require no additional personnel, rules, procedures, or penalties. In doing this, consider mindfulness as a strategy worth pursuing. An article in the Journal of Child and Family Studies by Rachel Razza and colleagues looked at whether mindfulness could help develop self-control and concluded that
by the end of the school year the children who had been practicing mindfulness were less impulsive and better able to wait for a potential reward—in other words, they became more like the kids who could wait for that second treat in the Marshmallow Test. … What's more, the program had the strongest effect on the children whose self-regulation skills were the weakest at the beginning of the year. (Razza, Bergen-Cico, & Raymond, 2015)

Books That Support the Development of Self-Control

Picture books:

Mouse Was Mad (2009), by Linda Urban
David Gets in Trouble (2002), by David Shannon
Interrupting Chicken (2010), by David Ezra Stein
Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse (1996), by Kevin Henkes

Chapter books:

True … Sort Of (2011), by Katherine Hannigan
Takedown (2006), by Rich Wallace