Five Games That Will Help Your Child Develop Good Self-Control Skills

Self-control, also known as delayed gratification, is one of the most important life skills that you can encourage your child to develop. It is the basis for so many other core life skills, and is one of the key elements needed if a child is to do well in education and to develop into happy and successful adults These include self-motivation, persistence, long-term planning, academic achievement and good financial management. Research using the Marshmallow Test (click here fore more information on this) has shown that children who have good self-control as children grow into adults who are happier, have better interpersonal relationships, go further in education, earn more, are less likely to become obese and have lower likelihoods of becoming dependent on alcohol and drugs.

However, many parents, teachers and carers struggle when it comes to helping children develop good self-control skills. This is because it is not immediately obvious how you can do this. Luckily, however, it is both relatively easy and fun to do, and all it takes is to regularly play games that require self-control. In fact, it has been found that playing such games for as little as thirty minutes twice a week for eight weeks is enough to boost a child’s self-control abilities, with potentially life-long impacts on their educational achievements and their future success and happiness.

Can it really be that simple? I hear you ask. It short, yes it is, but the games you play need to have some very specific characteristics. These are: 1. They need to require the children playing it to remember more than one rule; 2. They need to have rules that change as the game is played; and 3. These changes need to happen on a non-predictable basis. When a game has all three of these characteristics, it requires the child to be continually recalling the rules, remembering which rules to apply when, to be continually paying attention, and to think before they act. It is by requiring them to do all these things at once that this type of game helps develop working memory and allows children to practice using self-control.

Luckily, with a bit of thought, it is relatively easy to create games that fulfill these three criteria, but to save you having to do this for yourself, I’ve provided five of my personal favourites below. These are ones that only to I enjoy playing, but that I’ve also found are a big hit with children. While it is beneficial for your child to develop good self-control skills before they start school, it is never too late to start working on these skills, and these games will likely prove popular with primary children of all ages. Younger children will need to play less complicated versions and you will need to make them more complicated for older children, but this is relatively easy to do. So, what are these games? Well, in no particular order, here they are:

1. Red Light – Green Light – Switch: In this game, the children playing it need to run around whenever the light is green, but they must freeze as soon as the light turns red. However, and this is the bit that really helps them develop their self-control skills, when they hear the world “Switch”, they must then run around when the light is red and stop when it is green. When they hear the word “Switch” again, they must go back to the original instructions, and so on. Start this session by shouting “Green Light”, at which point your children can start running around. After about ten seconds, shout “Red Light”, at which point they must freeze. You can then alternates between shouting “Red Light” and “Green Light” at intervals between five and fifteen seconds, with your children responding accordingly to the instruction given. About once a minute, shouts ‘Switch” at which point your children must start doing the opposite of what they were previously doing when then hear the words “Red Light” and “Green Light”.
2. Forwards – Backwards – Switch: In this game, the children playing it start by walking forwards when your give the command “Forwards” and backwards when you give the command “Backwards”. When you say the command “Switch”, they then need to walk backwards when you say the command “Forwards” and forwards when you say the command “Backwards”. Your children then continue swapping between doing as the command instructs and doing the opposite whenever you say the command to “Switch”. You should give a command of forwards or backwards at random intervals of between about five and fifteen seconds, and the switch command at random intervals between about twenty and forty-five seconds.
3. Left – Right – Switch: This game not only helps with developing listening and self-control, but also right-left discrimination. Start with the children playing it standing in front of you with their arms by their sides. Whenever you call out the name of a body part, they much touch it. For example, if you call out “Left Arm”, they would need to touch their left arm, while if you call out “Right Toes”, they would need to touch their right toes. Repeat this several times, but then introduce the “Switch” command. Now when you call out “Left Arm”, they would need to touch their right arm instead. Repeat this for ten minutes while you use the switch command to regularly switch between the different versions of the game.
4. Simon Says Switch: This game starts by following the standard rules for Simon Says, where the children playing it need to only obey instructions which are preceded by the phrase “Simon Says”. However, after approximately one minute, you call out “Simon Says Switch”, at which point your children need to only obey the commands which are not preceded by the command “Simon Says”. After a few minutes, issue the command “Switch” again to the original mode of play. You can then carry on switching between these two modes of play at random intervals as the game continues. This is a game that you can make really complicated if you choose to do so (by including two switches in a row, and introducing the rule that they only switch if you say Simon Says Switch and not if you just say Switch), and this makes it more appealing to older children.
5. Follow The Leader: Have the children playing this game stand in front of you with their feet together and arms by their sides while you do the same. Tell them that this is the attention position that they need to return to between each action. Next, show them the four actions which are involved in this exercise. These are: 1. Twirl: This action involves spinning round in a single 360 degree turn on the spot with arms held out parallel to the ground and then returning to the attention position; 2. Jump: This action involves jumping once on the spot and then returning to the attention position; 3. Star: This action involves moving their legs and arms out to form a star and than back to standing straight up feet together and arms by their side; 4. Viking Clap: This action involves raising their arms out to the side and then while keeping them straight, raising them further to clap their hands together above their heads and then bringing their arms back down again. Once your children understand what these four actions are, they ready to play the game. Explain to them that you will give them a list of commands, and they must wait until you say “Go” before doing them in the order you said. Start with a single command (like Jump), and then say go. Repeat this for a different command to ensure they understand what they need to do. Next, tell them that you are now going to give them two commands and that they need to remember them, but not carry them out until you say “Go”. Now give them two commands (e.g. Jump, Twirl) before saying “Go”. Once you have said go, do not remind them of what they were meant to be doing until they have finished. Praise the ones who got it right, and encourage those who didn’t to see if they can do it next time. Repeat this, slowly increasing the number of commands until you have reached a point where you are giving them six commands in a row (this can include repeating the same command more than once in a single sequence) before saying “Go”. Note: If your children find a list of six commands too easy to follow, you can increase the number until you reach the point where they find it challenging to follow.

These are just five of the many possible games that you can play to help your child develop their self-control skills, and once you get the hang of playing them, you may find that you and your children will want to start making up their own. This is a great idea and it encourages children to further engage with these activities. So, what are you waiting for? Why not try some of these games out right now. Better yet, why not incorporate them into your daily activities? For example, a quick session of Follow The Leader is a great way to start the day as it involves physical activity, while Red Light – Green Light – Switch can easily be played in the park, or even while walking to and from school or nursery.

If you’d like to learn more about the science behind self-control skills, why they are important for kids to develop, and how you can help children develop these skills, you can read A Self-control Development Programme For Primary Classrooms by Dr. Colin M. Drysdale. If you live in the UK, you can buy this book from Amazon.co.uk by clicking here. If you live in the USA, you can by this book from Amazon.com by clicking here. All the above games come from this book.