Don't Delay

I love what you said about using self regulation as a learned skill. By helping the child identify his or her values and goals, hopefully it will help her/him focus and delay gratification. I will be introducing these ideas to my clients and to my own children. Thanks for the great ideas.

Interesting point about the importance of
feelings of competence.

And great ideas about the importance of cognition
verses emotion. I like the way that the
developers of "cognitive therapy" deal with this
cognition/emotion divide, by arguing that
emotions lead to cognition *and* cognition leads
to emotion.

Could of science of procrastination be used to
develop a cognitive therapy to treat procrastination
the way cognitive therapy is presently used to
treat depression? Would this work?

Terry

Delaying gratification, even for a bigger plum down the road, isn't always right or necessary. As a college freshman, I got so good at delaying gratification I couldn't stop. There never seemed to be a "right" time to have fun. I couldn't relax until my work was done, and it was never done.
Being an active parent for 30 years reinforced this tendency, although I did realize that a perennially stressed-out mom was little good to her family. Now, though, at 62, the habit has been easy enough to reacquire. For the last several years, when I've had a project hanging over my head, I've learned to go without sleep until the job is done.
It seems that finishing my "chores" has become the gratification I can't delay.
My sister, a professional organizer, says, "Don't get 'caught up,' get organized." I've learned that I'm never going to be caught up so I'd better not take on quite so much and not take myself quite so seriously.
The point is: Balance!