Importance and Tools for Teaching Self Control to Children

SELF CONTROL What is self control? Self-control is the restraint of one's emotions, desires, or inclinations. Many people and parents believe children just learn self control on their own and will eventually grow out of their bad behaviors and everything else. The truth though is whatever the teachers are teaching them in a regular school is not helping them with self control at all. Well on the other hand, self control can be taught to young children to fix bad behaviors and low test scores. The big question though is can self control really be taught to children at an early age? Studies and programs have proven this to be completely possible and effective. Self control can be taught to children through a variety of programs by helping them to develop cognitive skills and using their "mental tools" and just by simple play. One of the biggest and fast spreading programs to teach self control to preschoolers and kindergartners is the “Tools of the Mind Program”. The concept of program all started with a psychologist named Lev Vygotsky. “He believed that just as physical tools extend our physical abilities, mental tools extend our mental abilities to enable us to solve problems and create solutions in the modern world” (Metropolitan State of Denver). The Tools of the Mind curriculum actually began in 1993 at Metropolitan State College of Denver. The developers of the program, Dr. Elena Bodrova and Dr. Deborah Leong began working together in early childhood classrooms to improve children’s ability to learn and to teach educators new techniques for working with children. They wanted to expand Vygotsky experiment because they knew it would have huge success rates and could actually teach children self control. So they created the “Tools of the Mind” program. The Tools of the Mind project aims to encourage the cognitive development of young children by helping them “master a set of mental tools” (Denver). It is a key program to teaching children self control of

Cited: Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. NurtureShock_: New Thinking About Children_. New York: Twelve, 2009. Print. Bodrova, Elena, and Deborah Leong. _Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education (2nd Edition)_. 2 ed. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2006. Print. Spiegel, Alix. "Creative Play Makes for Kids in Control : NPR." NPR :_ National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR_. Web. 28 Feb. 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=76838288. Leong , Deborah , and Elena Bodrova . "Playing to Learn: High-Level, Language Building Play | Scholastic.com." Teaching Resources, Children 's Book Recommendations, and Student Activities | Scholastic.com. Scholastic Parent and Child Magazine.