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“How the Child Thinks and the Way the Teacher Reacts” – Patience-Part 3

Ways to Teach Children Patience and Acceptance:
1. Do not expect children to understand vague responses when they ask you a question.
2. If a child asks you when he or she can do something and you say “in a little while” or “in a minute,” he or she may become confused and may keep asking.
3. Give the children a meaningful and concrete answer to help them understand when something is going to happen. When speaking to a child, it could be something like “you can do that when school is over on Friday” or “we will do that after recess time.”
4. Follow through with what you have told children.
5. If you have told a child that you would play with him or her, make sure you do it. How many times have you promised a child but you never followed through with it? If you do not follow through with your promises, children will have difficult time learning about patience. This can cause children to whine and be very demanding.
6. Give children something to do with their time, while they have to wait.
7. Praise children when he or she has shown patience. Create and try a “Praise Certificate.”

*Patience can be developed over time — it’s a habit, and like any other habits, it just takes some focus.

Remember, patience is not resignation or inability to resist problems. Patience is self-restraint, the will to victory, and the ability to wait and to accept the world as it is. Patience is skill to hope. It has nothing to do with idleness and passivity, and each new life phase broadens the limits of our patience. In reality, miraculous changes do not happen. Having achieved something, you realize that the real happiness is still to come, and you again have to make a goal and to press towards it – persistently and patiently.

Next week, patience has several skills.

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