The problem arises when the child cannot seem to wait until the end of the day. The child doesn’t have enough willpower and patience to continue to be compliant, so they can earn a reward at the end of the day. The child needs a more immediate reward for good behavior. When this problem arises, a token economy can be a good solution.

You have a lot of control over your body’s ability to pair a different physiological response with a specific context. All you have to do is calmly experience a different emotion, in the context. Then do so repeatedly, until your body understands that the context is not a danger to you.

When you are asking a child to grow, be careful not to require him to leap to the end, when little approximate steps will be more achievable. Just like you, your child will not enjoy failing over and over again, as they try to obtain a goal that is out of their reach. Just like you, your child will enjoy the feeling of success when they accomplish the approximations of their goal and they can experience themselves moving forward.

Emotional independence is the ability to regulate one’s own emotions without requiring another person’s actions or words. It is important because if we are dependent on another person, in order to regulate our emotions, we will be subject to them. If they give imperfect responses, we will dysregulate. If we are emotionally independent, we can be the person that we want to be, regardless of the performance of those around us.