Bob's Weekly Message

May 18th, 2012

I avoid using this space to give parenting advice, but sometimes a topic comes along that can be directly helpful to your child’s success at school. I think “locus of control” is one of those topics.

As the environment around your child changes, he/she will either attribute success and failure to things he/she has control over, or to forces outside his / her influence. Which orientation he/she chooses has a bearing on his/her long-term success and mental health.

This orientation is known as "locus of control". This idea dates back to the 1960s, with Julian Rotter's investigation into how people's behaviors and attitudes affected the outcomes of their lives.

Locus of control describes the degree to which individuals perceive that outcomes result from their own behaviors, or from forces that are external to themselves. This produces a continuum with external control at one end and internal control at the other:

People who develop an internal locus of control believe that they can contribute to their own success. Those with an external locus of control believe that external forces, like luck, determine their outcomes.

Here is a simple example from my own life. Say I am at an auction and an interesting clock comes up for sale. I hadn’t noticed it in the preview, so I really have no idea about its condition apart from what I can see from 10 metres away. Then the bidding starts, and I get caught up in auction fever, and I start bidding and win the clock for a hundred dollars. I can’t believe my good luck to get a Pequegnat clock for 100 dollars!

Then the auctioneer hands it through the crowd to me, and when I get my hands on it, I see that it’s been modernized and has a quartz movement. What a rip-off! If I operated with an external locus of control, I would be wondering, “Who will I blame for the fact that I just wasted 100 dollars?” I could blame the previous owner for modernizing it, or I could blame the auctioneer for not disclosing it. But if I operate with an inner locus of control, I wi ll realize that I can only blame one person --- myself, for bidding on something that I had not previewed.

I remember one day riding on a city bus in Ottawa when some high school students came on board, and sat near me. I could overhear their conversation enough to hear one boy say, “I only got a “C” because the teacher doesn’t like me.” That student was operating with an external locus of control. He hadn’t connected his grades to his attentiveness to his work, to the amount of time he spent on assignments and test preparation, or to the extent he had sought, or not sought, help from someone who understood the work. He talked as though he was a victim of his circumstances.

At the bottom of this article is an online quiz to help you determine whether a person has an internal or an external locus of control. But you can often tell by the person's self-talk: “It's his fault”, “That person spoiled it for me”, “That's not fair” instead of “I should have known better”, “Next time, I will listen more closely”, “I need a plan to prevent that from happening again”.

The danger of the external locus of control is that the child takes on the victim's stance. He/she thinks that he/she has no way to make a change in the situation. Frustration dominates and his/her self-talk becomes depressing, and threatens his/her mental health. God expects us to be humble, but He does not allow us to abdicate responsibility. Teach your child to operate with an internal locus of control. Teach your child to take responsibility for the outcome of

each situation. When you hear your child talking as though he/she is in a situation that he/she does not like, ask “What could you do, or what could you have done, to change that situation and make it more satisfying?” Don't let your child blame things or people outside his/her control. Don't let your child feel like he/she is being tossed back and forth by the waves of circumstance.

Use this interactive quiz to determine your current locus of control.

Bob Moore, B.A.(Hon), B.Ed., M.Ed., OCT.
Principal

Karen Kroes,
Admin. Assistant