Self-control, also known as delayed gratification, is a core life skill, and the level of self-control in young children is one of the best predictors of whether they will grow into happy and successful adults. It is also key to academic achievement and the development of other core life skills, such as a growth mindset. This book provides a self-control development programme specifically created for use in primary classrooms. It includes:
1. A brief introduction to what self-control is and why it is important for children to learn his life skill.
2. Information about how this programme helps children develop good self-control skills by practicing self-control, thinking before they act and enhancing working memory through playing simple, but fun, physical games.
3. Advice about what to tell parents/carers about the importance of self-control and the contents of programme. This includes a four-page handout that you can photocopy and give to your students to take home for their parents/carers to read.
4. The eight-week self-control development programme itself. This consists of two introductory sessions (including worksheets you can photocopy) to introduce your children to self-control, and sixteen thirty-minute sessions, each of which involves playing three physical games designed to aid in the development of self-control.
5. Advice on how to encourage your students to invent their own self-control development games. Involving students in the design of games encourages them to take ownership of the programme and the activities it involves.
6. Information about how your students can track the development of their self-control skills. This includes charts which you can photocopy and give to your students to fill in.
7. Advice about how to integrate self-control development into the rest of your teaching.
8. Suggestions for additional reading about self-control and its importance for child development.
Thus, taken together, the contents of this book provide you with all the information you need to run a self-control development programme in your classroom.
This book is the first in the How To Raise A Happy Genius Core Life Skills Training series. Each individual book in this series will concentrate on a single core life skill that it is important for children to develop if they are to have the best hope of growing into happy and successful adults.
