““But young children, whose prefrontal cortexes have barely begun to ripen, can’t conceive of a future, which means they spend their lives in the permanent present, a forever feeling of right now. At times, this is a desirable state of consciousness; indeed, for meditators, it’s the ultimate aspiration. But living in the permanent present is not a practical parenting strategy. “Everybody would like to be in the present,” says Daniel Gilbert, a social psychologist at Harvard and author of the 2006 best-seller Stumbling on Happiness. “Certainly it’s true that there is an important role for being present in our lives. All the data say that. My own research says that.” The difference is that children, by definition, only live in the present, which means that you, as a parent, don’t get much of a chance. “Everyone is moving at the same speed toward the future,” he says. “But your children are moving at that same speed with their eyes closed. So you’re the ones who’ve got to steer.” He thinks about this for a moment. “You know, back in the early seventies, I hung out with a lot of people who wanted to live in the present. And it meant that no one paid the rent.” In effect, parents and small children have two completely different temporal outlooks. Parents can project into the future; their young children, anchored in the present, have a much harder time of it. This difference can be a formula for heartbreak for a small child.””
