The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives

by William Stixrud

Our role is to teach them to think and act independently, so that they will have the judgment to succeed in school and, most important, in life. Rather than pushing them to do things they resist, we should seek to help them find things they love and develop their inner motivation. Our aim is to move away from a model that depends on parental pressure to one that nurtures a child’s own drive. That is what we mean by the self-driven child.

With sleep deprivation or too much stress, however, the prefrontal cortex becomes flooded with dopamine and norepinephrine and is essentially taken off-line. At such times, the brain is simply unable to learn or to think clearly, a point we’ll return to in Chapter Seven. When the prefrontal cortex is off-line, you are more likely to act impulsively and to make dumb decisions.

Remember the motivational saying “Anything worth doing well is worth doing badly first”?

So instead of nagging, arguing, and constant reminding, we recommend repeating the mantra, “I love you too much to fight with you about your homework.”

“You are the expert on you.” “You have a brain in your head.” “You want your life to work.”

In fact, a recent study showed that other than showing your child love and affection, managing your own stress is the best thing you can do to be an effective parent.

Over the past decade, Raichle has led a new wave of research that suggests that the unfocused downtime that activates the default mode network is absolutely critical for a healthy brain.3

Think of your typical American family driving somewhere in the car: the kids want to listen to something, watch something, or play a game. They’ve forgotten how to look out the window, chitchat, or daydream.

Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,

and teens send an average of thirty-four texts per night after going to bed),