5 Strategies to Teaching Kids Patience

What’s the Secret to Teaching Patience to Kids?

Are you striving to teach your kids patience?

Not only is patience a success principle, but patience is also a skill. And like all skills, patience can be learned.

There are many benefits of patience. From the ability to make more rational choices to the skill of focusing and obtaining long-term goals, patience can make a big difference in a person’s life.

The best way to learn patience is to practice patience, but sometimes, that is easier said than done.

little boy waiting patiently with text overlay - how to be patient and teach kids patience

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Teaching Kids to Be Patient

Patience is not simply the ability to wait. It’s how we behave while we’re waiting.

Joyce Meyer

Patience is important for everybody to learn. And you know what? It’s easier to be patient as an adult if you learn how to be patient as a child. Young children whose parents strive to teach patience when they’re young grow up to have more self-control and more long-term critical thinking skills. In fact, many child development experts argue that teaching a child patience is an important step in child development.

So how do you get started teaching your child to be patient?

5 Steps to Teaching Kids Patience

Step 1 – Teach Patience by Starting Small

Most young children aren’t born patient. Anybody who has ever seen a toddler have a meltdown because their sippy cup didn’t appear fast enough can attest to that!

The best way to start out teaching kids patience is with tiny baby steps.

Next time your 2 or 3-year-old asks for a drink or a snack, tell them, “Yes, I will help you!” But then move slowly. Let your child see that you are ‘working on it’ but don’t dash to help as fast as you can.

While you are ‘working on it,’ talk to your child about what you are doing. Let your child see that their request is being honored, even if it isn’t as quickly as they hoped it would be.

When you finally give your child what he asked for, praise him for ‘waiting so patiently!’ This is a simple and effective way to teach preschoolers and young children to practice patience, without having to spend any extra effort on your part.

Step 2 – Wait A Little Longer (Avoid Instant Gratification)

Once you’ve had some success with the ‘moving slowly’ method, move onto the ‘wait a little longer’ method.

This just means when your child asks you to get him something (like a snack or a drink for example) tell him you would LOVE to help him, but you need to finish one thing first.

Wait a little bit (depending on the child’s age and how good the child is at practicing patience, this could be 10-15 seconds or 2-5 minutes) then get up and honor your child’s request. Young children who have no concept of time might struggle with this at first, but they will get better at practicing patience, so long as you always follow through with their request after the allotted time has passed.

Again, when you have finished helping your child, tell him ‘thanks for waiting!’ and ‘he is so good at waiting patiently.’ Point out to your child what skill he is practicing and let him feel good about his hard work being patient for such a long wait. (This is also an important step to teaching kids growth mindset.)

Because let’s be real – being patient is HARD WORK! Even for adults, having a hard time being patient is a common thing. That’s why we’re focusing on this hard-earned skill now.

Step 3 – Acknowledge The Difficulty in Waiting Patiently

Sometimes I feel like I have mastered the skill of patience. I can wait and wait for hours or days (or years!) without grumbling or whining or getting upset.

Other times, patience is not my friend. I get cranky. I bark at people. I am no fun to be around.

What helps me the most when I’m feeling impatient and irritable? Somebody acknowledging that waiting is no fun (and no fair!) but that they admire me for trying my best to wait.

You know what? Kids are the same way! I know when your child starts throwing a fit about having to wait, it can be hard not to snap and bite your child’s head off. I’ve been there. I get it. I have seven kids, remember? I have been known to bite a few heads off.

But biting the head off of an impatient child doesn’t help anybody. In fact, all it does is make both of us even more upset!

So next time your child is upset because he had to wait longer than he wanted to, take a deep breath. Then get down on your child’s level and give him a hug. Hugs have been proven to reduce stress levels. (and let’s face it – learning patience is STRESSFUL!)

Talk to your child. Tell him that waiting is hard, no matter how long the waiting time, and you get that. Tell him you are proud of him for wanting to wait, even though it’s really hard.

Remind your child that everybody has to wait sometimes. Point out a time you had to wait for something and tell him how it was hard for you!

Feeling like his feelings are validated will help your child feel a whole lot better, and a lot more willing to try his hand at patience again next time.

A Note On This:

Make sure to never give your child what he wants just because he threw a tantrum. Help your child calm down before he gets what he wanted or you will be reinforcing the wrong behavior.

Step 4 – Practice Patience Through Play

Have you ever played a game where you had to take turns? Most games require taking turns, and taking turns is a GREAT way to practice patience!

Our family is really into games. We plan a family game night a least once a month. And we often invite friends over to play games with us.

Sometimes it is no fun to play games with kids.

Why? Because of the inevitable meltdown of course!

All my kids have gone through the meltdown-during-game-night phase. Whether they’re upset that they’re losing or upset that they have to wait their turn, game nights can be stressful for little kids.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play games. Playing games is a great way to practice patience and practice waiting for your turn.

While you’re playing, say things like:

“You can’t touch that piece now, but I promise you’ll get a turn if you just wait.”

“See how everybody else has to wait their turns too?”

Invest in a few quality games with your family. Games like Headbanz, Candyland, or Connect 4.

I’ve got a whole list of educational board games here if you want to get some more ideas.

Or play simple games like I Spy or Hide-and-Seek. It doesn’t really matter – the results will be the same. Your children will learn self-control and be well on their way to becoming emotionally mature and patient children, without even realizing they’re learning anything.

Learning Patience Through Free Games

Looking for more ideas? Check out this 7-page pdf of more games and activities that teach kids patience.

Step 5 – Model Patience Yourself!

Have you ever heard the saying Monkey See, Monkey Do in relation to children? This saying is absolutely true!

Children learn by watching. They learn by watching your example.

If you fly off the handle every time life gets hard, you can bet your child is going to pick up on that behavior real quick. But if your child sees you practicing and modeling patience yourself, if your child sees you waiting for something you want really badly but not throwing a fit, then he is more likely to emulate that behavior himself.

How do I know when I’ve let a bad habit slip into my own personal life? When my children start modeling that inappropriate behavior.

Children make the greatest mirrors. Fortunately and unfortunately.

Lucky for us, we can use this to our advantage. By watching our children’s behaviors, we can see what habits we have picked up ourselves and adjust them accordingly, if needed.

You can learn patience at any age. And sometimes we may need to re-learn something we thought we’d mastered. Let your child watch you learn and practice patience.

Talk about how hard it is for you to wait, just like it’s hard for him. Then you two can work on patience together. Some people grow up without mastering the skill of patience, but, that doesn’t mean you’ve missed your window of opportunity. You can learn patience at any age.

Free Games That Teach Kids Patience

I’ve created a list of games that teach patience. It has a couple of fun ideas to teach your kids patience without them even realizing!

This 7-page pdf includes 8 ideas for fun, free games and activities for kids that you can enjoy at home, as well as your own printable puzzle. This pdf was recently updated (01/2020) to include even more fun games and activities.

This is a subscriber bonus and is only available to my VIP subscribers. Join the list to get access. Just tell me where to send your list!

I want the patience games!!

The Marshmallow Experiment

I wanted to see just how patient my kids are. How good are they at waiting and making long-term decisions? So we did the marshmallow experiment!

One at a time, I put a marshmallow in front of each kid. I told them I was going to leave the room for 15 minutes and when I came back, if the marshmallow was still there, they would get to eat TWO marshmallows instead of just one.

Making this video was a lot of fun. I sure think my kids are hilarious! Maybe I’m just biased though.

Give the video a watch and you tell me! Are they funny? Or am I a biased mother?

For the record – the littlest boy is not even 2 yet. I’d say lasting a whole 45 seconds is pretty impressive for his age! (He’ll be 2 next month.)

This is a fun experiment you can do at home, with younger children and older children. How long can your kids wait? How well have they learned patience?

The Key To Having Patience

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.
Ralph Marston

A True Story About Patience And God’s Timing

Once upon a time, there was an expecting mother who slipped on the ice and landed on her unborn baby’s head.

Yes, some people jokingly claim to be dropped when they were a baby and that’s why they are so messed up. Well, this kid was ‘dropped’ on his head before he was born.

As you can imagine this did cause problems. This baby was born with a slightly deformed foot, along with a slight case of cerebral palsy. Cerebral Palsy is a condition that is incurable by medical technology, even to this day.

As the boy grew, he gained a love of sports. He liked to watch sports but LOVED to play them.

Basketball, in particular, was a driving passion of his. He wanted to become a professional basketball player.

Growing Up, He Had Always Been Told The Same Thing

This boy had been told while growing up that if you work hard enough, you can do anything.

His cerebral palsy was very minor. It was just enough that you could tell there was something not quite right with him. But minor enough that he could do just about everything that a ‘normal’ person could do, even if it looked silly.

So he worked and he worked and he worked. And he got better at basketball then nearly every one of his peers.

As he got older and his peers put in more practice time, they started to catch up to him, and their skill levels eventually surpassed his own.

This didn’t discourage him. Instead, it made the boy work even harder.

But Working Harder Wasn’t Enough

Unfortunately working harder did nothing for him.

No matter how hard he practiced or how much extra time he put in, his skill level plateaued and the boy could not get any better at basketball.

So he switched sports and started to play football.

But the story was the same.

The boy could outwork every single person on the planet. But there was a point where he would just plateau. His skills would not improve, no matter what he did or how hard he worked.

This boy finally had to admit he was broken and that he was never going to become a professional athlete of any kind.

That was a very hard day for him as his whole life was sports. He didn’t really have anything else, except for a little bit of interest in music.

Learning Something New

So he started to explore music. And he found that he was really good at music! This led him to explore other arts.

Eventually, this boy became a man. And he ended up incorporating the arts into his career.

God Had A Plan For Him

One day God came to this boy, now grown up with a family, and told him He had a project for him to do.

God told the man that if he had been good at sports, he would not have developed the skills necessary to complete this project. This project was one of the major reasons this child was sent to this world at the particular time that he was.

Blessed With A Problem

So God blessed him with cerebral palsy to ensure that music and art would be pursued instead of sports.

Eventually, God provided a way for this person to have the cerebral palsy taken away, but it was not until after the skills were learned and the project revealed.

To Have Patience

So what does this story have to do with patience?

Sometimes you need patience to wait for the Lord to reveal what He has in store for you.

Hard work and determination and tenacity are all very important to anyone’s success. But if the Lord needs you to be successful elsewhere, He will likely hold back His blessings that will create success in that area of your life in order to create the opportunities later that will make your success still happen.

If God gives you a blessing before you are ready then the blessing can destroy you.

If you don’t have the patience then you’re apt to give up before the blessing is delivered.

If God has promised you a blessing, then so long as you hold up your part of the deal you can be reassured that He will hold up His promise. But you may have to be patient on its exact arrival time.

Be Patient With Yourself

It is important to remember to be patient with yourself.

Everyone has to build themselves, one day at a time. Who you are and the success you have is found in your daily habits.

Daily for how long? Well, that is unknown. That is where patience comes in.

You can’t expect yourself to be built in a day or in a week or even a year. It could take years or even a decade or two to get yourself fully developed. So don’t stop and give up just because you haven’t reached your tipping point.

Once you’ve reached your tipping point, your dreams, goals, and success will finally be realized. And that’s the point where everybody will say you’re so lucky.

They will say you’re lucky, but you will know that is was you patiently building yourself over a long period of time. Be patient and allow the time needed for you to grow into who you need to be to become successful.

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Charlene Hess

Charlene Hess is the founder of Hess UnAcademy. She spent many years teaching before she had her own kids. She now has 8 kids of her own, whom she has been homeschooled for over a decade.

She has now moved on from Hess UnAcademy to focus on her family and her new site, Secret Life of Homesteaders.