Developing the Homeschool Mother’s Superpower of Patience
This month in our curriculum, A Year of Playing Skillfully, the character trait we are focusing on in ourselves and our children is patience.
Several years ago, Lesli and Kathy recorded a podcast about how to encourage patience in your children, as part of our Character Builders Series. This month we are reposting it for your listening pleasure! We think it is chock full of good advice and practical tips on building this necessary trait in you and your children.
In today’s blog post we are focusing on building patience in yourself, because our modeling positive behaviors is a power teacher!
Tips for building patience in yourself:
Relationships over Results
Always consider the fragility of the humans you are dealing with. Be gentle. You honestly never know what people are dealing with at home, or what broken system they are trying to work within. The way we respond to others, whether it be to a spouse, a server, or someone on the end of a customer service line, is always on display to our children.
Check Yourself First
Educate yourself in the developmental stages of your children, so that your expectations are reasonable. When are children are frustrating you, ask yourself the following questions:
Are we frustrated with them because we were unprepared, disorganized, or unrested?
Are we communicating clearly what our expectations are?
Are we expecting others to read our minds?
Are we run down and in need of self care?
Be Mindful of Non-verbal Cues
Our children are masters of observation! We need to be self-aware of the way we use our bodies and tone of voice to communicate our dissatisfaction. Some things you may need to put into check are eye-rolling, sarcasm, belittling, sighing, and foot-tapping. One technique that works well when you catch yourself being impatient is to lower your shoulders, and relax your tongue so that it is not touching the roof of your mouth.
Protect Your Own Quiet Prayer Time
There is nothing that makes us gentler with people than spending time with our gentle Lord. He is so patient with us, and we need to keep that conduit open in order to pour it out onto others. My children (Lesli) have occasionally looked at me wide-eyed and said “Did you miss your quiet time today?
Be aware of the spiritual implications of impatience.
We are not inclined toward patience. And we can let our impatience masquerade as righteous anger, and justify poor treatment of others. The biblical meaning of patience does not imply passive waiting. The Greek word hupŏmŏnē implies an active enduring and persevering though irritation and trials. To grow in our patience, we need to trust in the Lord that he is working things out for our good.
Check back tomorrow as we discuss ways to build patience in our children!