How to Teach a Child to Wait: Self-Control Strategies from Mischel's Experiments

A series of three experiments with preschoolers from the Stanford University nursery school, using the same procedure: wait for the preferred treat or ring a bell and get the less preferred one at once.

1. Children could distract themselves with a toy while waiting.
2. Before waiting, children were told what to think about: "fun things" (such as songs and games) or the rewards themselves.
3. Rewards were out of sight, but children were asked to think about them.

What matters is not the object itself but how the child mentally represents it. This led to the hot/cool system model (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999): the "hot" system responds to tempting features ("sweet, tasty"), the "cool" one to neutral or abstract ones ("white, like a cloud"). Children who pictured treats in a "cool" way waited longer (Mischel & Baker, 1975). Waiting also depends on trust in the adult: if a child doubts the promise will be kept, waiting less is rational (Kidd et al., 2013).

These results underpin cognitive reappraisal and attention-training techniques for impulsivity, anger outbursts and self-regulation difficulties in preschoolers, and they translate easily into parent guidance.