- By Eden
- Salley
Patience Pays Off: Delayed Gratification and Executive Function in Children
This article is part of our weekly series, Executive Function Tips for Families.
Executive Function and Delayed Gratification
Executive function (EF) refers to a set of mental skills that includes working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. These skills are essential for planning, focusing, and managing multiple tasks. By fostering EF skills in early childhood, we pave the way for lifelong success. In this article, we take a look at a recent study titled Knowing When to Be “Rational”: Flexible Economic Decision Making and Executive Function in Preschool Children. Lee, W. S., & Carlson, S. M. (2015) Child Development, 86(5), 1434–1448. The study examined delay of gratification, or the ability to resist immediate temptations in favor of long-term goals. Read on to learn how delaying gratification contributes to EF development and what parents can do to support this skill.
Delayed Gratification Builds the Following EF Skills:
- Inhibitory Control: Children must resist the temptation of immediate rewards.
- Cognitive Flexibility: Kids weigh multiple factors, like trust and expectations, when deciding whether to delay gratification.
Key Takeaways from the Study:
- Context Matters: The ability to delay gratification is influenced by various factors. For example, how much you trust others, your immediate needs, your cultural values, and your expectations for receiving rewards all play a crucial role in helping you weigh the pros and cons of pursuing immediate and delayed rewards.
- Cultural Influence: Cultural customs and values play a significant role in the ability to delay gratification. For example, certain cultural practices may encourage immediate consumption as a way to cope with social situations, such as consuming a beverage to relax while mingling with a large group of people.
- Expectations and Trust: Trust in adults heavily impacts children’s expectations for rewards. The study suggests that inconsistent parenting can affect a child’s willingness to delay gratification. For example, a child who receives inconsistent rewards from parents may have a more difficult time learning the importance of delayed gratification than children whose parents provide more stable rewards.
- Long-term Outcomes: The study also highlights that early delay-of-gratification behaviors can predict a range of long-term developmental outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Children who show higher levels of delay of gratification may be less likely to engage in impulsive behavior as adults, such as making impulse purchases while shopping, overdrawing from one’s bank account, and engaging in substance abuse.
Parenting Principles with Actionable Steps
- Building Trust: Consistently deliver on promises and rewards. In order to do this, it is important to communicate clearly about when and how rewards will be received. If parents make a rule that leads to a reward or a consequence, they should follow the rule regularly. If you say your child can only have a treat if they clean up toys, always reward them. Likewise, only reward them if they follow the rules. This helps them establish a clear connection between rules and rewards.
- Play: Stop, Go, or Go Slow?, a simple game that can help your child work on listening, attention, and inhibitory control. By strengthening inhibitory control and practicing rule following, your child can also improve delay of gratification.
- Set Realistic Expectations: Align rewards with achievable tasks. It would not be realistic to expect your child to always succeed when trying new things (e.g., tying shoes). However, rewarding your child for their effort, even if they don’t succeed fully, encourages perseverance.
- Read: Cohort Effects on Delay of Gratification to dig deeper into the importance of delay of gratification.
- Promoting Flexible Decision-Making: Challenge your child to adapt to changing rules or conditions by playing games that strike a balance between pursuing immediate and delayed rewards. Red-light green-light is a good example. The child can only go when you say ‘green light’, and they have to delay their impulse to go when you say ‘red light.’
- Play: To practice following rules, try Bear and Dragon, a fun activity for children of all ages that strengthens mindfulness.
By fostering delay-of-gratification skills, you’re not just teaching patience—you’re building a foundation for a lifetime of thoughtful decisions and self-control.
