Today, we’re diving into that all-too-familiar feeling of wanting patience—and wanting it, right now! But here’s the thing, patience is a muscle we have to build. Stick around, because in this episode, we’re talking about practical ways to strengthen that ‘patience muscle’ and why it’s so important for heart-focused parenting.

Practical Steps For Growing In Patience As A Parent

God give me patience!  And give it to me now!  I am sure we are all familiar with this sentiment.  We know the value of patience and yet we don’t have the time to develop it – or even to practice it!!  And yet Patience is a skill, and it needs to be put into use.  We need to make a decision to be patient.  The more we make that decision the easier it becomes.  I used to say to my kids as we talked about growing in character – that they had to develop muscles in certain areas – the more they took the little steps towards something, the more they practiced that decision, the more their muscles would strengthen.  Patience is one of these virtues – the more we make little choices to be patient, the stronger our patient muscle becomes.

Why is patience so important?

• Patience values relationships; responding with patience tells the people we are with that they are precious, regardless of what they are doing, or how they are doing, we love them and will support them. Patience helps us honour another person.
• Patience protects our own well-being; accepting a situation for what it is, and slowly working through it helps keep our stress levels down, and it helps us to respond to people and circumstances in ways that reflect the values we hold to.

Impatience is a trigger to anger.  When I look at the issue of anger I like to remind myself of all the synonyms because I don’t know that I get angry.  Angry is yelling, intense, losing physical control (that’s my mental image of how I define anger).  I don’t go there very often.  But I do get frustrated, annoyed, irritated, provoked, exasperated, upset, cross, peeved – it really doesn’t matter how big the emotion is – it is an expression of anger.  And Impatience, a lack of being patient, is akin.

The most helpful thing that I have found with anger / impatience is to understand that getting angry doesn’t fix anything  (it is just a reaction).  Alternatively, we can recognise that we are angry and we can use that as a trigger – a prompt – to understand what is going on – and we can then make a decision to change whatever we need to change. It is much like pain – when we have a pain, say from stubbing our toe, we know something negative has happened.  We can just sit in pain, or we can decide to either lift our feet, or wear shoes or do something so that we don’t stubb our toe again.   It isn’t just about changing our response, often there is something not right that is triggering that response in us.

What makes us impatient?  We often blame our husband, our child, our work environment.  These people, or situations, throw us into situations that are annoying and we respond with impatience.  But no-one can make you do anything.  I would say to my kids – your sister can’t make you react that way – it is your choice how you respond to her.  I would have to say to myself:  my child can’t make me react like that, it is my choice how I respond to them.

No-one can make me react like that, it is my choice how I respond.

Patience is recognising that we are in a difficult situation – so it isn’t about silver-lining thinking.  We don’t get patience by just positive thinking and being cheery.  Impatience is often a knee-jerk reaction, and this is why we need to build muscles to react, or respond, a different way.  As with all character responses we need to develop, we need to practice, until it becomes a habit.

Keys for developing patience:

• Recognise that you have a tendency to be impatient, to react negatively, when things don’t go as you wanted, wished, hoped.
• Recognise the damage that happens when you get impatient – who do you hurt, what situaitons do you slow down or goals do you hinder?
• Look for the things that you can change; can you do something differently that would make a difference?

Growing in Patience

I like this quote from Billy Graham:  “Patience is not simply the ability to wait—it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.” 

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. It doesn’t mean we don’t expect our children to grow and mature and get quicker or better at something – but we don’t expect that to happen right now because that is convenient to us.  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? Its not just waiting- it is how we wait.

Patience as a Parent

As a parent, I think one of the biggest issues that creates or promotes impatience is our busyness.  We need things done now, and we don’t have time for delays, dawdling or silly interruptions.  Basically, we don’t have time for our children’s childishness.  We want them to get it – now.  We want them to be doing it – now.  

What we are saying is we don’t have time to be the parent.  Parenting needs patience; we are dealing with little people who don’t have the skill-set we have.  Parenting is going to be one of the most challenging situations we find ourselves in.  We will constantly find ourselves needing patience.

When we are dealing with our children, of any age, there are some things we cannot change, and some things that we can.

• We can change how we respond to them – will it be with love, kindness, helpfulness or will it be with impatience
• We can change how much we train them, and help them to succeed; how available we are to them, to help them practice what it they need to understand and learn.
• But … We cannot change the fact that they are not adults and that they have to learn – and learning takes time – and lots of practice.

The most helpful thing for us to do when we realise that we are being impatience is to stop and think. Stop and think about what is really going on.  Stop and think about getting some self-control on our reactions.   I guess this is the true helpfulness of those quips that we probably say to our kids:  count to 10, breathe deeply, walk away.  

Just removing ourselves, or delaying our response isn’t really the answer.  Giving ourselves time to think, reassess, and remind ourselves of what is right and then to decide is really what is going to help us gain patience.  It is in our response that patience is shown; it is in our response that patience will grow – not just in not responding!

Not responding isn’t showing patience – it is in how we respond that shows patience.

Heart-focused Parenting Action Step:

So this week, when you find yourself in an annoying, frustrating, disappointing situation and you know you need patience – pause and think about how you are going to respond.  And in doing so you’ll be developing the muscles of patience.

Another thing you can do – and this is helpful if you are frustrated or being impatient a lot through the day…

Take 10-15 minutes at the end of each day to reflect on how you handled situations where patience was required. Use the following questions as a guide:

• When did I respond with impatience instead of patience? We need to acknowledge that.
• How did my response impact my relationship with my child? We need to see the consequences of our poor choices.
• What could I have done differently? We need to have a plan to do better next time – because there will be a next time.

Write down your thoughts in a journal and, based on your reflections, set one small, actionstep for the next day. Be aware of what your plan is going to be. This is one of those situations where we can say – parenting is more about the parent than the child.  These small moments of self-awareness and intentionality at the end of the day will strengthen your ability to live life as a parent with patience – and this will have a flow on effect when you then try and teach your child to have patience too.

Read more with Part 2

Hi there! I'm Belinda and I'm glad you are here!

I am a family life coach and help parents to raise their kids with faith, values and life skills in a way that is intentional, relational and heart-focused. Read more in my Introduction page

You can learn about heart-focused parenting through my podcast, blog and weekly email (Heart Boosters).

If you need help you can book a coach call or email me here.

.

.

Search by using keywords to find what you are looking for