Decoding Parenting Patience: How to Become a Patient Parent

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No one is perfect. Parents may understand and know this better than everyone else. We try all day to be patient and to be their teachers in life, however, we are usually exhausted by the end of the day. And some days, we do not have the parenting patience that we wished we had.

There are many instances where our children have pushed us to our limits. Although we endeavor to give the best to our kids, sometimes the feelings of anger and frustrations take over.

We may try to compare ourselves to other parents, which only makes things worse. We may see parents out with their kids, being overly calm when their child is acting out of line, and we wonder why we don’t have parenting patience like that. Or we see the parents on social media and wonder why we cannot amount to that.

The fact is, everyone needs practice when it comes to parenting patience. All parents lose their cool and one point or another. Yes, one parent may do it more often, but even the perfect “angelic” parents have their moments. We are all human and tend to snap here and there.

Do we have the same parenting patience issues our parents did?

Sometimes, we cannot help but wonder how our parents did it all. Especially without the internet. Our parents couldn’t google and read an article about parenting patience or anything of the sort.

Also, our kids may be wired a bit different than we were in the past. Today’s children seem more sensitive than previous generations. Highly sensitive children are more likely to jump and react quickly to everything. That could be a mix of our culture and genetic wiring. Hence, we cannot fully bring them up the way our own parents did. The same tips and tricks that our parents (or een grandparents) may swear by may not work for us. The need for parenting patience is ever growing, but the question is, how do we become more patient as parents?

Parenting Patience

The answer is to continuously adjust our own way of parenting if we wish to bring up our kids to be strong, cheerful, loving and respectable human beings. This means that we need to exercise a lot of patience when dealing with our children. 

This is not an easy feat and what is why we have decided to offer you some tips on how you can easily become a more patient parent in this article.

Understand why kids act as they do

Before you fly off the hinges, take a moment to reflect on what the kids have done. Walk yourself through the process of what just happened. Maybe take some deep breaths in the process (it’s going to be okay, mama!). After that, then go and try to make sense of it all. Try to walk through what brought your child to the moment they are now at.

The basic idea of this is simple, but we miss it so often. The idea is if you understand the trigger behind their actions. The trigger is what we are trying to identify more than any action your child takes. If you can identify the trigger, you will be able to mitigate these triggers before they occur. 

For instance, it is normal for kids to cause tantrums when they are hungry, tired, sleepy or bored. If they are all three, it can be scary! When you see these symptoms occurring, you can easily prevent this by taking care of the trigger. This will consequently allow you to retain your peace and patience.

Sometimes it may help to jot down some of their meltdowns and what happens right before it. With some kids, you can spot right away why they are having an off-time. However, for other kids it may not be as obvious, so writing it down helps.

Other times, it may help to simply ask your child, “Wow, I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” Interrupting a temper tantrum with that may catch them off guard, which will force them to stop and realize, yes! I’ve learned that only works with some questions. Most children do not like being asked if they are tired!

Take a time-out for yourself

We all need our own space sometimes so that we can refresh ourselves and get the energy and drive to keep going. As a mother, there are numerous tasks waiting to be taken care of in a single day and these could leave us feeling pretty tired to give our kids any attention. This means that we are always ready to go off and the smallest of actions from our kids can send us into an explosive mode. 

Find some time in the course of the day to cool off the steam. You can do some yoga or whatever makes you get back into the ‘good’ zone. This will give you the resilience you need to deal with the needs of your kids.

Get help

Whenever you feel as if you are being overwhelmed, seek help from other members of the family. We all know that parenting can be difficult at times and when you feel like you are at the end of your leash, ask someone to chip in and assist you. 

You can hire a nanny if you can afford and let them take care of the tedious tasks and leave you to have a fun time with your kids.

Talk to the kids

Surprisingly, kids understand what we tell them as long as we explain it to them and keep reminding them. Let them know about all the things that make you go angry and why they should avoid them. 

Let them know about the consequences of these actions. You will be surprised to learn that they will go out of their way to make you angry.

Pray

Pray for guidance and energy whenever you feel the impatience and anger seeping in. By looking up to a divine being, we let our fears, anger, and frustrations go and we go back to the happy place where patience rules.