Challenging times for parents teaching patience

These are challenging times to raise a child and teach him patience. Recently a grandmother, who doesn’t have DVR on her TV, related an interesting story to me. She told me that her grandson was visiting and really wanted to watch a specific show. She was able to find the channel the show is normally on but the show was not showing at that time. She had to explain to her grandson that the show would come on later. He was puzzled. He was used to being able to see what he wanted when he wanted, thanks to TV on DVR and tablets. His mother said to him, visiting Grandma’s house is like a step back in time, you will just have to wait.

We certainly do live in a time of instant gratification. It is all around us and it is affecting how we live our lives. It is having an impact on our society and how it functions. Learning patience and self control is imperative for personal success as that of a society.

A study done many years ago that is nicknamed “the Marshmallow test” is associated with how delaying gratification can impact other areas of one’s life choices. The “marshmallow test” was carried out by putting a child in a room with, most famously, a marshmallow. They were told that if they didn’t eat it before the adult came back they could then have two marshmallows. Walter Mischel, the lead researcher for the “marshmallow test,” has written a book explaining his findings. He writes that delaying of gratification is complicated and not just about delaying having a marshmallow. He writes that the studies are about what influences a child to make a choice. He goes on to state that the marshmallow studies can also predict how adults deal with difficult emotions such as heartbreak or grief.

Can we teach self control and patience to our children? It was easier when all this immediate gratification was not so dominant in our society. When I was a little girl my mother would let me pick out a package of cookies when we were in Tampa. I could have one cookie at that time and then another when we reached Ruskin. It was such a little thing, but now I look back on it and remember with glee how excited I was about finally getting to Ruskin and having that second cookie. My mother was an amazing teacher of self control. It is those little ways that we can teach our children.

Babies have needs. They need to be held, fed, cuddled, all are essential for their survival. When those needs are met in the first year of life, the baby learns trust. Learning trust then helps them learn patience and self control. This helps them as they become toddlers and have “wants.”

Modern technology is important and has improved our lives. The challenge for parents is how to balance the immediate gratification that so many new tools give us, with teaching patience. Learning how to be patient then helps the child to learn self control. My home computer stopped working recently. I took it to computer repair place to be fixed. The technician there simply took the battery out of the back for a few minutes and then put it back in. He explained to me that even computers sometimes just need a time out.

Maybe one of the ways we can teach this new generation patience and self control is to have some “time out” from modern technology.

This story was originally published July 24, 2017 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Challenging times for parents teaching patience."