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Practicing Patience
Tips for Teaching Your Child to Be Patient
By Kelly Burgess
In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, spoiled, impatient Veruca Salt sings, "I want it now!" just before falling into the "bad egg" pit. Her daddy is beside himself as Willy sends him off with the Oompa Loompas to rescue the child. Although one gets the feeling that Veruca and Daddy didn't get the moral of the story, the idea is that the children watching it should.
Unfortunately, like Veruca, most children "want it now." The fact that they often get it now makes teaching children patience possibly the most difficult task a parent faces in today's world.
The good news is that teaching patience to young children is not impossible, it just takes a little patience on the part of the parent. According to Jerry Wilde, co-author with his wife, Polly, of Teaching Children Patience Without Losing Yours (LGR Publishing, 1999), teaching a child to be patient has to start when they're very young. While an infant's cries need to be attended to immediately, as that baby becomes a more integral part of family life, that instant gratification needn't be quite so instantaneous.
"When a child begins to eat solid food many parents often feed the child first making the rest of the family wait so they can eat in peace, but that's the wrong approach," says Wilde. "It's better to feed the child with the family at the family's pace. That communicates to the baby that he is a part of the family and his needs are no more important than anyone else's."
