Stifling an audible sigh, I reiterated the rule we had reviewed in the car--we would wait for 30 minutes before playing with my phone was an option. When he asked why, I reiterated the reason, which we had also reviewed in the car: “because life involves a lot of waiting. The older you get, the more waiting you have to do.” A parent nearby waiting with his child looked at me and said, ”that’s a good one,” as if I was kidding. I wasn’t.
After all, there’s not an app for traffic jams or doctors’ offices, for standing in long lines or being on hold. These are all things we simply must do--or rather, accept, as the point is there is nothing to do but wait. Add to all that mundane idling the anticipation of a big job interview, the results of an important medical test, or the outcome of a presidential election, and it’s clear why the simple act of waiting holds profound implications.
Which is what makes it all the more important, of course, to help our children learn to wait. While it’s not the stuff of marketing or advertisements, teaching children how to overcome their initial discomfort with having “nothing to do” is an essential life lesson. While it starts with teaching them to wait their turn to speak or to play with a particular toy, the importance of this skill grows as they grow. As Tr. Kristin tells preschool families, it’s essential to “build the muscle” of waiting by working at it. It’s our work as adults to help children develop this skill by allowing them to be bored, to feel impatient, to embrace the discomfort of being in the moment without being in control of it. It demands our patience as much as it builds theirs. While nearly everything seems available in a nanosecond today, patience isn’t. There’s no way around it--we simply have to wait.