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Teaching Students Self-Control

Description of the Strategy

Teaching students self-control is one of the ultimate goals of education. Self-control provides them with a sense of ownership for their behavior and is an important component for promoting general behavior change.

Self-control typically involves two responses: (a) the target behavior to be controlled or changed (e.g., eating, completing math problems, temper tantrums) and (b) the behavior displayed to control or change the target behavior (e.g., recording everything eaten, asking for assistance to complete math problems completed correctly, rewarding oneself for having a decreased number of temper tantrums per week). A problem putting this conceptualization into practice is that it is difficult and confusing to determine what behavior controls the behavior to be controlled. For example, if writing a Post-It note is done to control (i.e., increase) the behavior of studying for a test, then what will control (i.e., cue) the behavior of writing a Post-It note? If the answer is that the student is to control his or her own controlling behavior, then there appears to be no reason to write the Post-It note—the student would just remember to study. However, it is of little help to tell a student that he or she can control behavior by simply willing it.

Some experts prefer to use the term self-management because circular reasoning is avoided and both internal (i.e., self-control) and external (i.e., environmental) techniques are considered. Consequently, selfmanagement refers to the range of activities, both overt and covert, in which a student may engage that increases the probability of appropriate behaviors and decreases the probability of inappropriate behavior occurring. Internal activities may involve cognitive prompts, such as repeating instructions to oneself. External strategies may involve manipulating the environment to establish stimulus control.

Mechanism Underlying Self-Control

The exact mechanism underlying self-control is difficult to identify. Research in this area has often been cursory, limited, and speculative. Nevertheless, two primary theories account for the mechanisms underlying self-control: the operant model and the cognitive model.

The operant model of self-control is based on B. F. Skinner's work on the functional relation between behavior and consequences. The main consideration for teaching students self-control, from an operant perspective, is to take delayed consequences and turn them into more immediate consequences. Many of the problems students experience occur because their behaviors are controlled by short-term rather than long-term consequences. For example, hitting a peer may result in the negative long-term consequence of being suspended or expelled from school. However, the short-term consequence of getting the peer to stop teasing is more reinforcing than the long-term consequence is punishing. Similarly, for some students, end-of-the-semester grades have little effect over their study behavior because grades are too far removed from the present. Playing instead of studying is more immediate and reinforcing and, consequently, controls the behavior. Short-term consequences are typically more reinforcing than long-term consequences. Selfmonitoring, described later, is the most common way to take long-term consequences and turn them into shortterm consequences.

The cognitive model views self-control as beginning when a child perceives a discrepancy between what he or she wants and whatever situation currently exists in the environment. Discomfort brought on by this discrepancy prompts the student to select a new goal. As the new goal is established, motivation toward achieving it increases, and he or she begins to covertly consider potential strategies for accomplishing it.

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