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Sesame Street's Cookie Monster Now Teaching Self-Control Strategies
The Wired Word for the Week of May 26, 2019
In the News
This month, National Public Radio aired a Life Kit: Parenting podcast episode, featuring Sesame Street's Cookie Monster as a spokes-Muppet for learning emotional self-regulation and self-control strategies. If you grew up with the blue fuzzy, who could demolish every chocolate chip cookie in sight in three seconds flat, you might think him an ironic choice for such a task.
Perhaps for that very reason, Cookie makes a particularly effective communicator. If he can learn self-control, maybe there is hope for the rest of us!
Sesame Street conducted an experiment to find out whether viewing a video of Cookie Monster practicing self-regulation skills would affect preschoolers, and if so, how. Compared to children who had not seen the video of Cookie Monster singing to himself about pretending that the plate of cookies in front of him was actually a smelly fish, those who did watch it were able to wait an average of four additional minutes before taking cookies they were offered later. Whether or not a person can delay gratification of desires has often been seen as a measure of future success or failure.
The classic movie, Cabin in the Sky, depicts Little Joe's struggle with temptation in a scene with the devil on one shoulder urging him to yield to his impulses, and an angel on the other shoulder, exhorting him to resist temptation. Some psychologists have used the metaphor of a war between a devil and an angel to suggest that humans are engaged in a conflict between our emotional impulses, which are seen as negative, and our rational selves, which are portrayed as positive. To indulge our whims or inhibit our urges: That is the question.
The Life Kit: Parenting episode doesn't advise parents to simply require their children to control their urges or just say no to temptation, as though willpower alone would produce the desired behavior. Instead, it presents self-regulation as a skill that can be developed through practice.
Planning ahead and practicing self-regulation strategies can help people prepare to resist temptations to overindulge, lash out in anger, have an illicit affair, overspend, etc. Recent studies suggest that people who strategize to avoid encounters with temptation in the first place are less likely to struggle with the kind of conflict Little Joe faced.
One recent report on the topic of self-control found in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, suggests that "in some cases the best self-control strategy involves us changing the situation to create incentives or obstacles that help us exercise self-control, such as using apps that restrict our phone usage or keeping junk food out of the house.
"In other cases," the report continues, "it's more effective to change how we think about the situation -- for example, by making an if-then plan to anticipate how we'll deal with treats in the office -- so that exercising self-control becomes more appealing or easier to accomplish."
Here are some of the self-regulating, pre-emptive strategies Cookie Monster demonstrates in the Life Kit program, with a few others thrown in for good measure:
1. Whenever possible, avoid situations that are likely to trigger temptations.
"Our prototypical model of self-control is angel on one side and devil on the other, and they battle it out," says Ohio State University psychologist Kentaro Fujita. "We tend to think of people with strong willpower as people who are able to fight this battle effectively. Actually, the people who are really good at self-control never have these battles in the first place."
"The really good dieter wouldn't buy a cupcake," Fujita explains. "They wouldn't have passed in front of a bakery; when they saw the cupcake, they would have figured out a way to say yuck instead of yum; they might have an automatic reaction of moving away instead of moving close."
2. When you sense your emotions are getting "hot," calm yourself down by breathing deeply; hugging yourself, a pillow or a stuffed animal; cuddling or playing with a pet; listening to peaceful music; shaking a glitter jar or a snow globe and staring at it until you feel your emotions settle.
3. Use your imagination to reframe a temptation. Pretend the thing you find tempting is something unappealing. Imagine horrible consequences if you were to yield to temptation.
4. Identify your favorite superhero, movie or literature character, or role model in real life, and ask what that person would do in the same situation. This doesn’t work if your role model is Hunter S. Thompson.
5. Be smart about distractions.
- Limit distractions at times (keep the cookie jar or video game out of sight). Set yourself or your child up for success, not for failure.
- At other times, use distractions to your advantage by diverting attention from the temptation and putting focus elsewhere: on a future reward for exercising discipline, on a goal you can reach by sticking to your plan, on a different enjoyable activity (music, martial arts, yoga, language learning, reading, talking about something else, etc.).
In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." While it is not possible to create a world devoid of all temptation, with thoughtful planning and strategizing, we might be able to avoid some situations that would trigger temptations.
As the saying goes, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
More on this story can be found at these links:
WATCH: It's Hard To Delay Gratification. Just Ask Cookie Monster. NPR
Lashing Out Is Losing Control; Calmness Is Strength and Power. HuffPost
Devil Versus Angel: When Do They Shift Into Action in the Face of Temptation? The Conversation
Effective Self-control Strategies Involve Much More Than Willpower. Science Daily
The Big Questions
1. Have you always had the ability to control your urges? If not, how did you learn self-control?
2. Some addicts are taught that they are powerless and can only change when they acknowledge a higher power's saving grace. Do you agree or disagree and why?
3. What measures have you taken, if any, to help you avoid things that might tempt you to unhealthy behavior or actions?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Proverbs 25:28
Like a city breached, without walls,
is one who lacks self-control. (No context needed.)
In the Tabletalk Magazine article Cultivating Self-Control, the author refers to the above verse, pointing out that self-control is a "godly necessity," without which lives can be ruined just as surely as a city without a defense may be vulnerable to attack and destruction.
Questions: What does this proverb describe or warn us about? When have you seen lack of self-control result in devastating consequences, in human or church history or contemporary life? Describe the effects of lack of self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23
By contrast [to the works of the flesh], the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. (For context, read 5:13-26.)
Paul addresses the nature of our freedom in Christ in the letter to the churches in Galatia. We were called to freedom, he writes, not to use that liberty for self-indulgence or gratifying the desires of the flesh, or to do the works of the flesh, but to serve one another in love.
While Greek philosophers lifted up stoic self-restraint through willpower and personal effort, Paul lists self-control as one of the fruits planted and nurtured by God's Spirit. That means the believer does not produce this character trait simply by trying hard. Instead, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, the believer's willingness and ability to exercise self-control grows stronger.
Questions: How easy has it been for the fruits of the Spirit, including self-control, to grow in your own life? What obstacles to that growth have you faced? What needs to happen in the believer's life for the fruits of the Spirit, including self-control, to grow and flourish unimpeded by the works of the flesh?
How does exercising self-control open the door for you to serve others more effectively in love?
2 Peter 1:5-7
For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. (For context, read 1:3-11.)
Peter writes that God's power "has given us everything needed for life and godliness," including "his precious and very great promises," through which we "may escape from the corruption that is in the world" and participate in the divine nature (v. 3-4).
The apostle exhorts us to make the most of these amazing gifts from God, by "making every effort" to build up that faith with goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness. mutual affection and love. As we do, we will be effective and fruitful "in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 8).
Questions: Practically speaking, how do you go about "making every effort to support your faith" with goodness? with knowledge? with self-control? with endurance? with godliness? with mutual affection? with love?
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