Let Go

Last Friday on our way to Indiana, Jake fell asleep in the car. He slept for a straight one and a half hours till we stopped for gas.

Seeing how tired Jake was, I said to Joe, “I don’t think this kid is getting enough sleep. He’s going to bed later and later. I need to find an opportunity to convince him to change that bad habit. It probably won’t be that easy.”

Jake was his happy and talkative self after the long nap. I told myself, “This could be the perfect opportunity.”

“Jake, I have a concern. Do you want to hear about it?” I asked.
“Sure. Mommy.”
“You’ve been going to bed later and later. When it’s bedtime, it seems there is always one last thing to finish. A first grader like you should get 10 hours of sleep but you are hardly getting 9. I believe sometimes you become cranky after dinner because you are just tired.”
“True.”
“So how about we move your bedtime to n-n-nine o’clock?”
“Okay.”
I didn’t expect it to go so smoothly and I wanted to make sure he understood what it’d take to make it happen. “So there won’t be another beyblade battle or another 10 minutes of computer when it’s 9 o’clock. Do you understand?”
“I do.”

I wasn’t naïve because I understood that desire and action were two different things. Sitting in the back seat, Jake was rested and idle, giving up an hour of playtime to sleep may sound easier that it actually would be. So I offered him an incentive.

“How about we’ll give you 5 points every time you make it to bed at 9?”
“Okay! How many points did you say I needed for the beyblade set I want?”
“Fifty.”
“Let me think. So if I go to bed at 9 for 10 days, you’ll buy me the set?”
“You already have some points. So it will only take a week. Can you do it?”
“Of course!”

I reminded Jake of the new bedtime after dinner on Saturday. We were reading together at 9 pm.

“Mom, you should stop because I need to go to bed.” Jake announced.
“It’s okay. There are only a few pages left. We can finish it up.”
“Do I still get all the points?”
“Yep! But we’ll try for 9 o’clock tomorrow, right?”
Jake went upstairs at 9:03.

Every day I remembered to ask him how an extra hour of sleep made him feel. He consistently answered “Great!”

Last night Jake declared proudly that it’d take another 4 days for him to get the toy. I emphasized that it would be good to stick with the new bedtime schedule since it had made him less tired. Jake agreed.

It’s not easy to give up bad habits and adopt good ones. But if you understand how the brain learns, your chance of success can be greatly increased.

Physiologist Ivan Pavlov noticed that his lab dogs only had to see him in his lab coat at noon to begin salivating. Pavlov wanted to know how the dogs learned this happy response. First, he set off a metronome. Then he spread meat powder in front of the dogs’ noses. He collected their saliva and digestive fluids, which he funneled through a tube to a revolving paper cylinder. In this way he was able to determine exactly when the dogs became hungry. After a while, the saliva began to flow as soon as the dogs heard the metronome’s ticking – even in the absence of meat. Step by step, Pavlov had changed the appetite’s natural reactions. He discovered the foundations of learning. When two neurons fire repeatedly at the same time, the connections between them – the synapse – is strengthened. “Cells that fire together wire together.” As neurologists say*.

That’s why the point system works. By associating a desirable behavior with a reward, the behavior is more likely to stick. With Jake, it usually takes less than 2 weeks to learn a new habit with points. For those of you who think I am bribing my little boy, think again. We buy way too many toys for our kids these days anyway for no reason. I am simply making him work for them. Plus rewards don’t have to be material things. Reasoning doesn’t lead to changed behavior because the irrational part of the brain is much more powerful than the rational part. How many of us adults know we should eat healthier, work out more and watch less TV, but don’t take any actions?

You can really teach old dogs new tricks. We are capable of altering our long-established habits via neural association and by activating the neural reward system. Promise to treat yourself with a massage after continuously working out for 5 days, or take a night off cooking if you manage to clean up the basement. When I do something good for my happiness, I turn my mind’s attention to the positive feelings I experience at the moment (relaxation, relief, joy) and away from the negative thoughts that attempt to stop me from doing more of it (time-consuming, self-doubt). Over time, I have learned to associate physical exercise with renewal of energy, reading with enlightenment, writing with therapeutic healing, stress with opportunities to change how I do things. I have also discovered that internal motivation is the best rewards of all.

Let’s be role models to our children by leading a healthy, happy and productive lifestyle enabled by good habits.

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* The Science of Happiness by Stefan Klein