How to Teach Your Kids the Art of Practicing Patience

Contrary to popular belief, there are no standard guidelines to help you parent your child perfectly. Parenting depends on many influencing factors and it’s pointless—and demotivating—to compare yourself with other parents.

What you do, where you live, what you believe in, your socio-economic status, and your own understanding of right or wrong can all affect your parenting style.

Even with all the differences and distinctions, the fundamental concepts and teachings remain the same, for the most part. Teaching your child to be kind, have the necessary communication skills, to love and respect others and to be patient are some of the few fundamentals of parenting.

In today’s blog, we’ll talk about teaching young children the concept of patience. Let’s take a look!

Understand that You’re Dealing with a Child

When you’re dealing with a toddler, it’s important to start small and work your way up. The trick is to start as early as possible, keeping in mind that it’ll take your child years to get things right.

Asking a child simply to stop crying when they’re hungry or hurt doesn’t achieve anything. In order to calm them down, you must understand the reason and then propose a solution, which will help both you and the child.

Take feeding time as an example; your child is demanding the bottle but it’s going to take you a few minutes to boil the water, mix it with the milk and then bring the temperature to normal.

It’s frustrating when your child is crying the whole time when clearly, you’re doing your best and preparing it right in front of them. How do you teach them patience in such situations? By explaining the process to them!

A 3-year-old can understand what’s going on, so if you walk them through the process as you’re doing it, it’ll keep them occupied. As long as you keep them busy and engaged and help them realize that making the bottle takes a few minutes, they’ll learn to be patient.

Try it 4–5 times and you’ll notice your little munchkin explain the process back to you as you walk over to the kitchen counter to prepare their feed and get them ready for a good night’s sleep.

Be True to Your Word

“Say what you mean and mean what you say,” is the ideal philosophy to use in teaching and learning patience. If you tell your child that you’re going to take a shower for 10 minutes and will be back right away when you’re actually sneaking out to run errands and know that it’ll take you hours, here’s what will happen;

• Your child will make the babysitter’s life a lot more difficult by either crying and screaming or constantly asking questions.
• Every time you leave the house and lie about it, your child will experience strong separation anxiety and won’t trust your word. So, the next time, even if you’re going to take a 5-minute shower, they’ll make a fuss and follow you around constantly rather than believing your words.

Even though separation anxiety is common among toddlers between one and three years of age, young children of seven years of age can also experience it. The absence of a trusting relationship between the parents and the child aggravates it. Funnily enough, dealing with a child experiencing separation anxiety also requires patience—and children learn by example.

So, focus on your communication skills and be truthful to see positive results and improve your child’s behavior.

At the Whole Child Development Center, our teachers and staff also work with the same philosophy when dealing with children throwing a tantrum or unable to wait their turn in group play.

We pride ourselves in offering a safe environment where children learn life-long skills through activities and stimulating learning environment.

If you’re based in Lenexa, Kansas and looking to enroll your child in a daycare or affordable preschool program, get in touch with us.

Learn more information about our programs here!