Don't Think About the Marshmallow

August 6, 2020

I confess, I love a nice marshmallow. I'll take it any way you want to hand it to me: fresh, roasted, covered in chocolate, stale, whatever.

In 1972, a Stanford psychologist named Walter Mischel published what has become known as the "marshmallow experiment," which studied how delayed gratification—the ability to wait for what you want—develops in preschoolers. In most versions of the experiment, the researchers would place a marshmallow on a table; the child could choose either to eat it immediately or decide to wait next to it... and if after 15 minutes the marshmallow was still uneaten, they would get two marshmallows instead of one. The experiment demonstrated that the kids who were successful at waiting found ways to distract themselves to avoid focusing on the temptation. Follow-up studies over many years showed that the kids who had had the best self-control when they were young tended to do better in life, especially in education and health.

I learned about the marshmallow experiment in high school, and I remember being immediately certain about two things: If the marshmallow experiment had been done on ME when I was 4, I would have flunked it instantly. However, the ability to delay gratification seemed to me to be a sensible skill that could help me succeed... so I decided, right then and there, that I could just learn to do it, research predictions be damned. My 4-year-old marshmallow-loving self may have lacked impulse control, but my stubborn teenage self refused to be doomed by a preschooler.

There have been many occasions over the last 19 years of publishing KidsOutAndAbout when I have reminded myself about the marshmallow experiment to refrain from dwelling on the fact that it hasn't (yet!) made me rich. Instead, I distract myself by focusing on all of the value that has come out of this endeavor so far: my amazing co-workers, the relationships we've developed with people who create great experiences for families, the thousands of local activities our readers have discovered over the years, and lots more.

As COVID progresses without a clear end in sight, I've found myself clinging to my own little version of the marshmallow experiment. We humans are impatient by nature, but we can overcome it. If we can wait, if we can distract ourselves wisely, and if our kids can watch us do it all gracefully, then we're far from doomed. We'll come out of this stronger and savvier. And if occasionally our distraction needs to take the form of the still-tasty Peeps left over from Easter that we've kept hidden on the top shelf... well, I won't tell if you won't.