Patience: teaching children

All of us appreciate it when other show us patience when we are struggling with our schedule or learning something new.  We know how frustrated we feel and all the reasons why we cannot accomplish what we wish and we are thankful when others put up with our circumstances even if it inconviences them for a small period of time.

Patience many times is another facet of empathy, putting ourselves in the shoes of another.  Teaching our children about patience can begin with taking turns playing a game, waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting to speak to an adult, or even if we must wait for an older person or disabled person to complete a task.

Helping our children to understand that “waiting without complaining” is what we do when we are showing patience, and that this is a great character trait.  Not showing patience can make the other person feel in the way, not important, or as if they are not being treated fairly.  While patience can be a challenge for us in our busy lives, it can also have great rewards, especially in having faith in ourselves and our ability to wait for something we really want or do.

Teaching children to tell the truth

We are never ready for the first time or really anytime that our children look at us and tell us a lie. It hurts and so it is important for us to think about how are we or should we react. Our child development specialist gave us these 7 points.

  1. Keep your cool. Use the moment as a teaching moment.
  2. Don’t set traps. You do not want to pile lies on top of lies.
  3. Avoid labels. Children will live up to the label.
  4. Give them a chance for a do-over. They need to learn that they can make a mistake and make things right.
  5. Praise truth telling.
  6. Find out why they are lying. ( see step 1)
  7. Set a good example. Children see and hear and know more about us than we think they do. We are either all about honesty or we are not. Children will notice.

So there you are. I have a few more things that I will be writing about this in the next few days and we will be discussing who and what we can believe to be true this week with our students. Included in this will be some discussion about commercials and all those marketers out there trying to sell our kids “stuff”.