We all get impatient, especially preschoolers with a short attention span. At times, teaching our eager little ones to practice patience and wait their turn can be challenging. How can we encourage patience in preschoolers when they’re distracted by all that’s around them? We’ve compiled some fun ways to teach your preschoolers about self-control and patience.

How to Teach Your Preschooler About Patience

Preschoolers can learn patience from anyone, whether it be parents, teachers, peers, siblings, or grandparents to name a few While there are many different ways to teach patience, it’s essential to remember that children learn through watching, incentivizing, and playing. Before we share some activities to teach patience, make sure you’ve set the right level of expectations.

Before You Begin: Set Expectations

When teaching young children patience, you can reasonably expect a preschooler to be able to learn up to two or three rules to follow about patience and interrupting. Generally, at the preschool age, a child can also play quietly for short periods. Expect preschoolers to be able to entertain themselves for at most 30 minutes quietly. Even this could vary depending on the child.

One challenge with teaching proper behavior to a preschooler is that it is hard to know how each child will respond. This is why it is helpful to carefully observe your child so that you can know what is normal for him or her. Some children are simply more patient than others. 

If you are concerned about your child’s patience level, it may help to get a second opinion from someone who knows your child well. For preschoolers, an excellent second opinion could be the child’s teacher.

Whether you have a naturally patient child or not, we recommend teaching your child to wait as early as possible. Here are five ways you can start teaching patience to your preschoolers:

1. Model Patience
2. Set Them Up for Success
3. Play Some Waiting Games
4. Encourage Positive Reinforcement
5. Consider Preschool

1) Model Patience 

The saying goes, “Little ears hear!” This means that children, no matter how small, hear what adults say and how they speak. Children love copying their parents, whether in their words or actions. Modeling patience is challenging, but it is an important part of teaching your child patience. Your child will learn by watching you. 

Next time you are tempted to speak or act impatiently, remember who may be listening or watching and how it could affect “little ears.” 

2) Help Them Understand Interruptions

In many instances, preschoolers do not understand the problem of interrupting their parents or their teachers. Try explaining to the child that this is rude because you (or another adult) were talking. Explain to them why it is rude to interrupt. Interrupting is disrespectful to others. Instead, teach them to ask “Excuse me” and then wait quietly. 

However, make sure that you do not have them wait too long. Reward your child by having them wait only a couple of minutes the first time they say “Excuse me.” The next time, they can wait a little longer. You can gradually build this up as their independence grows. 

3) Play Some Waiting Games

Games are an easy and fun way to teach preschoolers patience. There are hundreds of games that you can play with your preschoolers to teach them patience. Some may work better for others depending on what your child enjoys. A few ideas include:

• Play with a ball. When rolling the ball around, do not go get it immediately and return it to the preschooler. Instead, let them figure out how to get the ball. Or, perhaps get distracted for only a few minutes while playing. Something like letting the dog out would be an appropriate amount of time to start. Ask the child to wait to resume playing until you are done. 
• Put together a puzzle: Even adults struggle with patience on a puzzle. If a child is struggling to be patient with the puzzle, talk about how to turn and try the puzzle in multiple different ways.
• Incorporate story time: Reading books that emphasize patience can be an effective way to instill this value in preschoolers. Choose stories with characters who demonstrate patience in various situations or books specifically aimed at teaching patience. After reading, engage in discussions about how the characters handled waiting and how the children can apply similar strategies in their lives.
• Set a timer:  Timers do the work for you. They set a visible reminder for kids to see how long they need to wait. This relieves you as the parent of the many questions asking “How much longer?” and instead gives your child the ability to take ownership of his patience as he waits for the timer to run out.

4) Encourage Positive Reinforcement

Instead of solely focusing on correcting impatient behavior, make sure to praise and reward instances where preschoolers demonstrate patience, no matter how small. Positive reinforcement can be more effective than punishment in shaping behavior. So celebrate their efforts to wait patiently and acknowledge their progress over time.

Another method to help teach a preschooler patience is through a goal and reward system. This helps implement the idea that waiting is a good thing because it is rewarding in the end. In other words, this method is delayed gratification. For example, with a patience game like a puzzle, try incentivizing them to complete the puzzle. After completing the puzzle, the preschooler could play outside, have a snack, or have some other fun treat they would enjoy. 

5) Consider Preschool

There are many different benefits of preschool, especially when it comes to teaching patience. If you’re a busy parent, it might be helpful to consider enrolling your child in preschool where they can receive one-on-one attention from a teacher.

Our preschool in Willis has specialized teachers who have been trained to teach behavioral skills among others. These teachers get to know each student on a personal and individual level. This means that teachers have a unique position to not only help encourage good behavior in your child but also reassure you with their professional opinion about where your student is at.

Teaching Life Skills with Your Preschooler

Teaching patience takes work. However, it’s an essential part of life among countless other life skills that can make a difference in the life of your preschooler. In many instances, parents cannot do this alone. Preschools are an essential and impactful experience for developing children. At Lighthouse School, our preschool teachers are specially prepared to help children grow and develop.

Schedule your visit to our preschool today and watch your child succeed!