Impatience
Let me tell you a little story about my garden. I’ve got an amazing greenhouse where I get to plant seeds, wait for little plants to start to grow, I transfer those little plants into a little bigger pots, let them grow more and eventually when the weather is finally consistently warm enough I get to move them outside. 🌱
We have a butte in our area that we use as a gauge. If there’s snow on this butte - it’s too early to plant outside. We have warm days in our early spring - but our nights can still be bitter - it’s not out of the ordinary to have a snow storm in June. 🤯
This is a yearly thing. I put on my patience hat while I wait, knowing that it’s not time to move them. I wait and wait and wait. And do you know what I do EVERY SINGLE YEAR? 😩Move them out too early.
Guess what I did over the weekend? I didn’t move everything out - I’m not totally stupid - I’m just super impatient. I moved out the plants that are hardier and can handle some temperature swings. A little kale, some hardy spinach, my strawberry plants. Well guess what? There is frost on all the roofs this morning and I forgot to cover my little baby plants. My little babies really should still be in the greenhouse still.
BUT I got too impatient. Now, sadly, after all my work bringing them up from seeds I’ll now be watching to see if any of them made it. If I could have waited about 5 more days we are supposed to see a little warmer weather.
This story is not to make you feel bad for me about my little garden. I tell you this story because I’m a grown-ass-woman and I have a TOUGH time when I’m asked to be patient. I can’t imagine 8-year-old Coach Jen being asked to be patient. I bet I was a real treat. 🤦♀️
✨This leads us right into our lesson for today. How the heck do you instill patience in our little nuggets? Great question and I won’t make you wait any longer…just in case you're impatient like me! (If you are - you probably skipped my whole garden story above - I get it - no harm done.)
Why is teaching your child patience so important - besides the fact that their impatience is driving you insane? 😩
Emotional Regulation: Patience helps kiddos manage big feelings which in turn helps them to stay calm in stressful situations.
Problem Solving: Having patience allows kids to take a minute to think through problems and persevere.
Relationships: Being patient helps our kids to have empathy and understand others.
Success in academics: Having patience will help our kids to have better focus and persistence when learning or challenging themselves.
Satisfaction: When kids can delay gratification they have the ability to wait for better outcomes.
If your little cherub is showing signs of impatience it might be time to throw in a few fun things to help them STRETCH themselves a little.
Ask them to wait - yup - ask them to wait. Start small. You could even set a timer if they are really struggling.
Play games that don’t have instant gratification - teach them Solitaire with an actual deck of cards - not on a screen. Heck - teach them to shuffle. That will slow their roll a little.
Write an actual letter to someone who will write a letter back. (IN THE MAIL) They don’t call it “snail mail” for nothin’.
Tell them about something fun coming up, put the date on the calendar, and mark the days off. Or even more fun, make a paper chain to count down days.
Talk about how sometimes the anticipation of something happening can be even better than the actual activity.
Talk about the emotions that come up while they are waiting. Are they excited, frustrated, angry, sad…whatever the emotions they are all ok to feel. Talk about coping strategies for some of these emotions.
You got this!!!🫶
Update on my plants. I think all my little seedlings made it - HOWEVER my strawberry plants don’t look very great - might have to make another trip to Home Depot to replace those.
I get my seeds from highdesertseed.com they are amazing!!! (No affiliate - just great seeds! 🌱)
