Parent Time

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence. – Hal Borland

Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. – William Shakespeare

This morning, over boiled eggs and bagels, I was helping my eight-year-old daughter review her spelling words — the ones we worked on last night. When she made the same mistake three times in a row, I found myself saying, “Annie, think! Sound out the word! A-S-T-R-O-N-A-U-T.” Her eyes welled up and she looked panicked and desperate. I didn’t intend to spoil her breakfast or her confidence, but I did.

Why? Overworked and overtired, I lost my patience — easy to lose and hard to find more of, yet so important when it comes to dealing with kids. You told us so yourselves in a 1999 study by York University psychologists Harvey Mandel and Harold Minden for Today’s Parent. Patience topped the list of skills you thought you needed as a parent. Likewise, impatience was the number-one attitude you didn’t want to pass on to your kids.

But is this quality of calm forbearance in the face of crying babies, toddler meltdowns, school-age sloppiness and preteen defiance innate, or can you actually learn to be more patient?

Next Page: Stress reduction

Originally published in Today's Parent, October 2002