The child does not know how to wait: we develop self-control

Mom, how much longer? Dad, when is it? A baby who has to wait is usu­al­ly rest­less him­self and takes every­one around him out of calm.

And it’s not that the child does not want to wait. Due to his age, his cog­ni­tive skills are still poor­ly devel­oped. That is, he sim­ply does not know how to cope with the expec­ta­tion. But we have two good news at once:

1. IT IS POSSIBLE TO LEARN TO WAIT. There are var­i­ous ways to devel­op self-con­trol, which is so impor­tant for the abil­i­ty to wait.
2. For exam­ple, class­es in the Umnit­sa® kit. Con­trol­ling the Mind There are tricks that work HOW TO SOOTH A CHILD who can’t wait any longer.

What to do with a child to bright­en up the expec­ta­tion?

• It is bet­ter to take a wait­ing child with any phys­i­cal activ­i­ty: it will help to quick­ly cope with inter­nal stress. Have her put all her stuffed ani­mals on a toy truck and bring them to the kitchen. Or let him help you quick­ly cope with house­hold chores: wipe the washed fruits with a tow­el, put nap­kins and cut­lery on the table, sweep the floor. Be sure to praise your child for help­ing!
• The child does not yet have a sense of time, so visu­al­ize it. Give me a watch and explain how long you have to wait. For exam­ple: din­ner will be ready and it will be pos­si­ble to go for a walk when the arrow reach­es the num­ber … Let the baby fol­low the arrow. You can even count it down to 60 sec­onds.
• You can keep your child enter­tained with a relax­ing board game. Give him col­or­ful baby food lids (but­tons; pas­ta mixed with grits, etc.) to sort them out. Or put togeth­er a puz­zle, Lego. Rate these activ­i­ties in min­utes: “It usu­al­ly takes you 15 min­utes to com­plete the puz­zle — that’s how long it takes me to fin­ish my lunch.”
• Take a break from wait­ing with a snack. Always have tasty treats on hand: fruit, crack­ers, marsh­mal­lows. Such snacks will occu­py the child for some time and will def­i­nite­ly cheer him up.
• Set an exam­ple of calm wait­ing. Do not express neg­a­tive emo­tions when some­one from the house­hold gath­ers for too long. Try not to be ner­vous in oth­er wait­ing sit­u­a­tions: in traf­fic jams, in queues, wait­ing for an order in a cafe… The kid will def­i­nite­ly bor­row your behav­ior mod­el.

You will find many oth­er tricks on how to cope with dif­fer­ent emo­tions in the “Clever Girl®. Man­ag­ing emo­tions”