DELAYING GRATIFICATION.

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live. 

This process of scheduling is learned by most children quite early in life, sometimes as early as age five. For instance, occasionally, a 5 year old when playing a game with a companion will suggest that the companion take first turn, so that the child may enjoy his or her turn later. At age 6, children may start eating their cake first and the frosting last. Through out grammar school this early capacity to delay gratification is daily exercised, particularly through the performance of homework. By the age of 12, some children are already able to sit down on occasion without any parental prompting and complete their homework before they watch television. By the age of 15, such behavior is expected of the adolescent and is considered normal.

It becomes clear to their educators at this age, however, that a substantial number of adolescents fall far short of this norm. while many have a well-developed capacity to delay gratification, some 15 or 16 years old seem to have hardly developed this capacity at all; indeed, some seem even to lack the capacity entirely.  These are the problem students. 

Despite average or better intelligence, their grades are poor simply because they do not work. They skip classes or skip school entirely on the whim of the moment. They are impulsive, and their impulsiveness spills over into their social life as well. They get into frequent fights, they become involved with drugs, they begin to get into trouble with the police. Play now, pay later is their motto. So the psychologist and psychotherapists are called in. but most of the time, it seems too late; these adolescents are resentful of any attempt to intervene in their lifestyle of impulsiveness and even when this resentment is overcome by warmth and friendliness and a non-judgemental attitude on the part of the therapist, their impulsiveness is often so severe that it precludes their participation in the process of psychotherapy in any meaningful way. They avoid all important and painful issues. So usually the attempt at intervention fails, and these children drop out of school, only to continue a pattern of failure that frequently lands them in disastrous marriages, in accidents, in psychiatric hospitals or in jail.

Why is this? Why do a majority develop a capacity to delay gratification while a substantial minority fail, often irretrievably to develop this capacity?  

The answer is not so absolutely, scientifically known. The role of genetic factors is unclear. The variables cannot be sufficiently controlled for scientific proof. But most of the signs rather clearly point to the quality of parenting as the determinant.