Advent, the calendar, and what anticipation does to children.
Advent begins
Advent started December 1st. In my house in London, this means the arrival of a particular kind of morning energy that I have observed across three children and almost fifteen years: the energy of something-is-coming. Children who are difficult to get out of bed in November are up before the alarm in December. Children who need prompting at breakfast serve themselves in Advent. The calendar has changed the environment, and the environment has changed the child.
The biology of this is interesting. Anticipation activates the dopamine system — not in the moment of receiving a reward, but in the period of expecting it. This is counterintuitive: we tend to think of pleasure as located in the getting. But neuroscience shows that the anticipatory phase often produces higher dopamine activation than the reward itself. The wanting is often more intense than the having.
This is why advent calendars work so well as parenting tools. The daily small reward — a chocolate, a note, a small gift — is not particularly pleasurable in itself. What is pleasurable is the structure of anticipation: the known-but-not-yet, the calendar that counts down, the agreed-upon shape of the waiting. The pleasure is in the system, not in the chocolate.
Children understand this intuitively. My eight-year-old, who has been doing an advent calendar for three years, told me this week that he likes the day before Christmas more than Christmas itself. He couldn't explain why. I can: the anticipation system is running at full capacity, and the moment of resolution is always going to be slightly less than the peak of anticipation.
The resolution — the moment the thing arrives — is always going to be slightly less than the peak of anticipation. This is not disappointment. This is biology.
The resolution — the moment the thing arrives — is always going to be slightly less than the peak of anticipation. This is not disappointment. This is biology.
This is not disappointment. This is biology.
Materials, steps, what to notice — the hands-on part that makes the edition usable at home with your children this week.
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