TEACHING CHILDREN...THE ART OF SAYING "NO".

Take a look at this video, a reproduction of Walter Mischel's Marshmallow experiement conducted in the 1960's. Psychologists at Stanford found that children who can delay gratification did better in school and in life.
A marshmallow was placed in front of 4-year-old children, and they were told that they may choose to eat the marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes to be given a second marshmallow. Take a look:

The genius of the experiment was that they followed the kids for 18 years. What they found was a child's ability to wait to eat the marshmallow was an amazingly strong predictor for success in school, their adjustment, their happiness, even their popularity.

The research shows that when parents help their kids develop self-discipline, that that is a key success factor for kids, the ability to say "no" to themselves.

So what can parents do to help their kids learn self-discipline?
We have to set limits and be consistent. If I say "no you can't have the candy bar," and then 10 seconds later I give them the candy bar, what they're learning is that "no" doesn't mean "no", it just means "escalate", if I plead and throw a fit, I'll get what I want.
It's simple, but not easy.
A short term relief of giving children what they want, we pay a long term price for that. It turns out that the agony of waiting for a marshmallow, computer game, or a car, might actually help your child. We all know that life does deal with challenge, frustration and discipline, and we want our kids to be able to handle that. Well, how will they be able to handle that if they don't get practice?
In the marshmallow experiment, and in life, good things come to those who wait.