“The
Second Marshmallow”
“I
believe the sign of maturity is accepting deferred gratification.”
Peggy
Cahn
Dermot is an enthusiastic fellow. He has many interests and you could say he is
a bit of an “everyman”. He tends to go
to an activities fair at school or hear a friend describe their passion and
want to jump in and try that same activity or several from the activities fair
all at once. He is also still a kid and
the enthusiasm will sometimes then wear off.
I think as parents, Frank and I have learned to reserve judgement and
stand back and see if one thing or another will stick.
Jazz band seems to have stuck and a few
other things. This spring he really
wanted to try karate. He had taken
karate before when he was very little but we nixed that when he started using
Wren as his practice target. He has a
good buddy taking karate and there was some excited almost pleading going
on. We went for the free trial lesson
and he still wanted to do it so we signed him up and stood back to watch and
see if this would stick. I will admit to
being dubious.
I was so wrong. He is all in.
He loves it and I have to say I love it too. I love what it seems to be providing him
with. Over the summer he did their High
Intensity Training program and it came with life coaching, a nutrition plan,
extra training and he was required to read and be able to discuss in group “The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens.” He did it all and the group discussions were
with adults as well as one other teen.
As I said, he is all in.
What I like so much about the karate
program beside the obvious physical aspect is that they teach about discipline
and respect in each and every lesson.
Every lesson is set up so that they work out for a while and then they
break in the middle and the kids sit in a circle around the instructor and the
instructor tells them a story. The story
always has some moral to it. I happened
to be there the other day when the story was being told and it struck me that
is so relates to recovery.
There was a social-science experiment
done (and still used) where a social scientist sits a child down in a room with
a table in front of them and places one marshmallow on the table. The scientist tells the child they are free
to eat the marshmallow anytime they want but that if they wait fifteen minutes
they will get a second marshmallow which they can also keep and eat or share. The scientist then leaves the room and sees
if the child waits and the experiment is done on different children. The children were followed over a number of
years and it was shown that the kids who were able to or chose to wait for the
second marshmallow tended to have better life outcomes.
Delayed gratification is a concept hard
for addicts because when in active addiction and often in early recovery there
is strong self-centeredness. The phrase “we
want what we want when we want it” is heard a lot in 12-step meetings. The concept of having to wait for reward is
difficult. I think about this often when
people I see leave rehab and go home and apologize for their past behavior and
are baffled or hurt that their family members accept the apology but are still
seemingly angry with them. The damage
was not done overnight and will not be repaired overnight so in this, like in
many other things in life and recovery, we should probably wait for the second
marshmallow.
