Practical Steps For Growing In Patience As A Parent – Part 2

How do you typically respond when things get frustrating in your home?

We know patience is important but we often justify why we are impatient.

But we expect our kids to be patient, we expect our kids to grow and we expect them to not give excuses as to why they lost it.

The same rules apply to us.

We are responsible for our reactions.

We are able to learn to respond appropriately.

And when we don’t – we need to fix the people or things we hurt by our reaction.

Over the next few weeks, let’s focus on learning to live with patience.

You in? 

As we reflect on how God is patient and gracious towards us, we can adjust our reactions towards our children and be patient towards them.

But – being patient doesn’t mean letting go of standards or expectations – but rather be loving, kind, helpful as our children learn to do the right thing just like God is loving, kind and helpful as we learn to respond to Him.

I’m praying that you will know the loving, patient and gracious hand of God in your life – and that you will lean on the Holy Spirit to help you be that to your children.

When we need to show patience towards our child – it isn’t about just sitting and waiting for them. It is about what we do while we wait – our words, tone, body language.

• We can encourage them to hurry up – but with a patient tone
• We can correct them for dawdling, or losing stuff – but with a patient tone
• We can instruct them – for the 5th time – but with a patient tone

Patience is about accepting where another person is at, and not expecting that to change on your timeline. Patience is about using our words, tone and body language to communicate love and acceptance even if the circumstance needs to be different.

Patience is not passive – but an active choice in how we respond to what is happening around us.

Does this change how you view the virtue of patience? 

We need to give ourself grace to grow in patience. Grace is not an excuse for not being patient. We still need to apologise and put things right when we don’t have patience. But we need to accept that our patience-muscle is growing stronger. That is the goal – the goal is not to be completely and 100% patient every day from here on in…that’s perfection and wrong thinking.

But we do need to be growing in patience.

A part of accepting Christ’s forgiveness when we do the wrong thing, is to walk in His Grace. He gives us the power to change, and do the right thing.

Little by little He is changing us. We need to keep our eyes focused on Jesus, his love, mercy and grace more than we focus on our sin.

Do you find this hard?

We are responsible for our own selves – even as parents. We are responsible for our reactions, for our responses. Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what our child does – how we respond is on us.

We teach our children that when they are in a hard situation, when their emotions are triggered, or growing bigger and bigger – that they are still responsible for what they do next. Same for us.

Patience is one of those choices we need to make.

Patience is a choice to control our emotions and respect the other person.