Delayed gratification and how this is an absent father issue

So how does a father teach delayed gratification to his kids? It comes down to something he does all the time without realising. He teaches delayed gratification to his children in a number of ways, including:

1. Leading by example: Fathers who model the behavior they want to see in their children are more likely to see positive results. This means demonstrating self-control and patience, delaying their own gratification at times, and showing the benefits of waiting for a greater reward in the future.
2. Providing guidance and support: Fathers can offer guidance and support to their children when they face difficult choices between immediate rewards and longer-term benefits. They can help their children think through the consequences of their actions and encourage them to consider the future.
3. Creating opportunities for delayed gratification: Fathers can provide opportunities for their children to practice delaying gratification, such as setting long-term goals, encouraging them to save money for a desired item or activity, and supporting them in pursuing their passions and interests.
4. Offering positive reinforcement: When children demonstrate delayed gratification, fathers can offer praise and positive reinforcement, highlighting the benefits of patience and persistence. This can help reinforce the behavior and encourage their children to continue to make choices that prioritize long-term benefits over short-term gains.

Overall, a father who emphasizes the importance of delayed gratification and supports his children in developing this trait can help set them up for success in a variety of areas of life. 

The mother can also do this however, there still remains the scientific fact that men (in general) are less empathetic than women and have more system and process-based thinking geared towards problem-solving. 

There are of course exceptions to the above. And in any case, the ability to balance all parenting roles by one parent is a heavy task. The reality is we need healthy father and mother dynamics in families for ‘success’ in all areas of life.  

Delayed gratification Example 1: Dinner time

Let’s take the example of sitting down to eat at the table as a family. One of the kids asks “Do I have to eat the veggies (or whatever part they don’t like)?” or “Can I just eat the chicken?” or “I don’t like mushrooms.”

Children will generally ask or tell the mother because they know she is more empathetic towards their needs and situation, thus making her more easily manipulated than the father. Children learn to play into the mother’s empathy, guilt, or other emotion that they’ve figured out, to get what they want (instant gratification) and if this habit is not put into check this lowers a child’s conscientiousness.

The father is less sensitive to emotional manipulation and far more likely to push back on boundaries. This is due to the fact that men are generally less in touch with their emotions and specifically empathy. Most men feel empathy but not to the extent women do. 

This can be seen on MRI scans where a woman’s brain lights up to emotional responses in the brain. The man’s will also light up in the same place but not as much. 

There is also the fact that all men have an instinct in them to not be pushed around by people they deem underneath them. Men have a natural order to a hierarchy. This has been recorded time and time again in research that looks into men hierarchies vs women hierarchies. So when children try to push dad around to get what they want he has the urge to correct this quite quickly as he subconsciously knows that disorder will occur if things are allowed to run free. His response often sounds similar to “No, you have to eat all of your veggies then you can have your dessert.” With this response, kids start to eat the food they don’t want in order to eat the food they like. This starts to embed delayed gratification. 

Delayed gratification Example 2: Bedtimes

Studies show that mothers set earlier bedtimes than fathers however, children still go to bed later than they would have if the father set the bedtime. 

For example, the father will often say “Bedtime is 9:00 pm but once you have finished showering, eating, brushing your teeth doing your homework, etc you can have ruff-housing and a bedtime story.” The children rush through everything they need to do, so they can get to what they want to do (delayed gratification) with the understanding everything will be cut off at 9:00 pm. Not only that but they are usually in bed and even asleep by that time. 

With the mother, on the other hand, it’s the other way around. The children know they can push boundaries – even more so when the mother is tired and stressed-out (something that is common in single-mother households).

The mother will say “Bedtime is 9:00 pm.” The children will play and muck around and when bedtime comes, they say “It’s 9:00 but I haven’t done my homework yet or brushed my teeth.” So they ask the mother if they can stay up to finish these tasks. She says “Okay” and before you know it, the children are getting in bed at 10:30 pm and have manipulated their way into getting more time and staying awake longer. This starts to build habits of instant gratification.

This dynamic plays out in other areas too, for example cleaning their rooms and doing chores or homework. They say “Can we play just a bit before doing our homework?” or “I’ve had a bad day” or “Can I do it later because ‘[enter a generic child excuse here]’”. Mothers try to engage their children in these tasks so they can learn the necessary skills however, the children know they can manipulate her when necessary. 

It’s important to note there are obvious exceptions to the rule such as when the mother is more of the rule setter and the father is better at the emotional support. However, in this case, we are not arguing the exception, instead, we are looking at unbalanced homes as this is where we are more likely to see the effects of instant gratification. 

Unbalanced homes often look like single-mother homes and homes where men don’t know their role in the family or how to parent. This is not an article that places fault or blame on those involved but one that is simply bringing attention to the important role of well-rounded, emotionally mature fathers.