5 Thoughtful Ways to Teach Your Child Patience
Maintaining patience in every situation is an essential skill for navigating life.
It will allow a person to stay calm no matter the struggles, showing everyone around them that they have stable mental well-being.
If you want them to enjoy these benefits, you should teach your child patience.
You should also teach them because one way of providing support for children is teaching them useful life skills like patience.
When teaching them, be sure to be realistic with your expectations.
Don't expect your child to possess the zen of a Buddha master.
They are new to life and eager to explore things.
They won't maintain the kind of patience you expect.
Similarly, ensure you are a role model to them.
As a parent, your child is bound to imitate your habits and desires till they grow to dictate theirs.
And when they eventually start dictating theirs, they will piggyback on your values.
Teaching your child to be patient can be made easy with waiting strategies.
You can show them things they can do so they won't get impatient or bored.
Showing you care enough to teach them these strategies will help you bond better.
Explore the various ways to teach your child patience:
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Be Realistic When Teaching Them
The same way you don't expect a million dollars to drop on your car roof while in a parking lot is the same way you shouldn't expect your child to be a master of patience.
They are new beings and have not had practice with the skill.
It's normal to expect some slowness when you teach your child patience.
Therefore, you shouldn't be harsh with them when you set goals, and they fail to meet them.
Let them feel loved by letting them know it's okay not to reach the goal.
Then, analyze the goal with realistic tools and reduce your expectations.
Also, ensure you are clear with your realistic expectations.
Providing your child with ambiguous expectations about how long you want them to be patient will only result in discontentment for the child and an unwillingness to continue learning how to be patient.
It's essential that you remember to set the expectations based on their ability, not yours.
Despite having your DNA, they can't replicate your mastery of any skill without some years of experience.
So, stay calm and let them learn at a realistic pace.
Be a Good Role Model
Being a great role model to your kid will ensure that they have significant mental well-being since yours is also great.
If you desire to teach your child patience and start by showing them your patience, you are sure to hook them into your lessons effectively.
When practicing the skill, be sure to be clear about your values, even when there are obstacles.
For example, you may be in rush hour, which requires you to do something immoral to beat time.
You should stick to your principles if you want your child to take your lessons seriously.
Similarly, tell your friends and family who visit to be on their best behavior.
This means that you should try to have everyone around your child be a good role model of patience for your kid.
When everyone around them exhibits the skill, your child will feel a sense of belonging and purpose.
They won't feel like anything is wrong with being patient, allowing them to develop the skill without fear of reproach.
Help Them Develop Waiting Strategies
There are excellent shortcuts in every single situation in the world.
You can show them waiting shortcuts if you want to teach your child patience and ensure they don't get bored.
These shortcuts are waiting strategies that help them forget the march of time.
One of the most effective strategies is immersing oneself in a fantasy world.
You can teach your child to imagine themself as the main character in a world similar to their cartoon.
Besides helping them wait, it will also help them fine-tune their creativity.
You may similarly advise them to count or do some virtual mathematics.
For example, you may tell them to count prime numbers from 1,000 to 10,000 or even numbers from 1 to 500.
Doing this will help them get more familiar with sums while waiting their turn.
In this technological age, you may introduce devices to aid waiting.
They can watch some educational cartoons while waiting for their turns or play some exciting games.
Waiting doesn't have to be boring; help your child.
Understand Their Struggles
When you teach your child patience without showing concern for how difficult they are finding it, it may lead to their lack of interest in it.
Rather than being detached from them while they are learning, try to understand their struggle with the skill.
You can understand them by actively observing them while you teach them.
Watch their hands, face, and other body parts.
Observe if they are clenching any body part or looking uncomfortable.
These clues can show you a lot about their struggles with your lessons.
This means that you shouldn't teach your child remotely.
Be sure to spend time with them while teaching them.
Don't leave it to chance that they will learn since you told them what to do over the phone
They may learn it, but you wouldn't be there to help them go through their struggles.
Understanding their struggles while they learn makes it easy for you to change your teaching method or call for a timeout so they may play.
Understanding their struggles will also help them trust you more because you have shown to care about their feelings.
Take Them to Preschool
Not all knowledge can be gotten at home, and this applies to many life skills such as patience.
Although you can show them how to be patient at home, they will also learn much about patience at school.
So, be sure to delegate some teaching to preschool if you want to teach your child patience.
Preschools are specially designed to care for children and have the tools for their development.
Therefore, expect that they would have the necessary equipment to help distract your kid while they are learning to wait.
Furthermore, preschool activities usually involve taking turns to do things.
When they take turns, every child will have to wait for others to finish, gradually building their patience level and exposing them to being considerate about others.
Preschool teachers are also equipped to prevent instant gratification.
They know how to ignore the tantrums of children who don't get what they want instantly and can turn the situation around to teach the child patience.
Conclusion
Helping your child to become patient is not only good for your mental health, but it's also crucial for their mental well-being because it will help them to remain calm in any situation.
Similarly, the skill also provides emotional support for children in their everyday life.
The various ways to teach your child patience include being realistic when training them, being a good role model, helping them develop waiting strategies, understanding their struggles, and taking them to preschool.
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Many of us are often faced with struggles and hardships and finding help can be difficult. However, at Overcomers Counseling, we are here to help you in your time of need. We are passionate about people and we believe that ANYONE can be an overcomer if they are willing to pursue it. Don't let another day go by without getting the help you desire.
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