For Parents Of Inpatient Toddlers: How Every Child Can Learn To Wait
There is only one foolproof way to teach your child patience.
“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed…” ~ Heraclitus
If you’re looking for a way to make your toddler patient, I have a solution for you.
It’s my patented secret, 8-years in the making, and I’m going to tell you right now.
Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to create good habits in children. My sanity depends on it and so does the future success of my charges.
So here is my 100% successful method for teaching a toddler to wait:
Make.
Them.
Wait.
“When someone screams at me to hurry up, I slow down.” ~Mario Lemieux
This is my mantra in my daycare.
Yes, it’s just that simple.
I had to do this with my own child. I have an only child and not only did I make her wait when she didn’t have to, but I also made sure she had lots of playdates with other toddlers in her formative pre-school years so she could learn that she is not, in fact, the center of the Universe.
Big families have this lesson built-in, small ones need to do it consciously. When there are lots of kids, every child has to wait. It is a fact of life that the parents can’t pander.
The biggest compliment I get from teachers is when they’re surprised to learn my daughter is an only.
If a child comes to me with a screaming habit, I make them wait for everything, and if they lose their mind, so be it.
I don’t break this rule for anyone, and I don’t bend for anything.
And guess what?
It works.
Given time and consistency.
It works.
If it seems too simple, that’s because common sense is simple.
If you feed a behavior, it will persist.
If you starve a behavior, it will die.
Infants are born to scream to get their needs met immediately, they feel like everything is life or death.
But as they get slightly older we are the ones whose responsibility it is to teach them that life is, in fact, safe. Waiting might feel like death when you’re two, but we know it’s not and it’s our job to convey that in a way they can digest. When we give them opportunities to transition from instinct to experience in this precious window, they learn they don’t have to be anxious.
If we don’t get wrapped up in their natural emotional processing too much, practice a little loving detachment, and don’t take it personally, (which I know is difficult), we give them the opportunity to fully incorporate the lesson.
But the key is to give them the time and consistent experience to build up the data in their mind and internalize the lesson. That takes time, integrity, and character on the part of the parents and caregivers.
You don’t teach them to be patient by giving in to them. You don’t teach them that screaming doesn’t work by making it work.
When you make a child wait, they learn that it’s okay to wait. So if you act with integrity and follow through on what they’re waiting for — every time, they’ll eventually get the message. Even if the first number of times it’s so uncomfortable for them they freak out. If you don’t make a big deal about it, eventually they won’t either.
I know this to be true because I’ve been studying it and testing this theory for over 10 years.
So teach them that it’s okay not to get what you want, right now. It’s okay to be second in line, or fourth or last. Teach them they won’t die if they don’t immediately get every wish and whim fulfilled.
This is how we teach patience, a learned skill. Something everyone needs, in order to have healthy friendships, relationships, and love. Never lose sight of the fact that you are setting them up to become the adult they will develop into and while people dislike a petulant child, they despise a petulant adult.
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The only way to teach your child patience is to make them wait. And if they freak out, it’s okay, that’s just what they do until they realize it’s all going to be okay.
Thanks for reading! I hope that was helpful.
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