Why Is It Important to Teach Children Patience?

05 February, 2019
If you're wondering why it's so important to teach children patience, we'll put your doubts to rest in the following article.
Why Is It Important to Teach Children Patience?

It’s very important to teach children patience. Why? So that your children will know how to stay calm in stressful situations, which they’ll face throughout their lives.

Below we’ll explain why it’s so important for children to develop patience, and what the benefits are of doing so.

The dangers of impatience

A stressful society

Many people let impatience take over, especially since we live in such a stressful society.Stress and frustration control us so much that we can lose control of our thoughts and actions.

The key lies in managing your emotions and monitoring the situation at hand, which will allow you to take on your impatience.

Many people find it increasingly important to do and have everything almost instantly. As we suggested above, we often do everyday tasks so quickly or intensely, that it becomes almost dizzying. This is why we see people become unsustainably stressed.

Why Is It Important to Teach Children Patience?

Patience is how our brains help us develop and maintain tolerance. People who are patient benefit in various spheres of their lives, including socially and at work. That’s what we want for our children, right?

When you teach children patience, what do they learn?

  1. To evaluate things with more perspective, without acting too quickly
  2. To be more polite
  3. How to understand various situations that require tolerance during childhood. This will help them when they reach adolescence, a stage when patience will be invaluable to help them control their developing emotions.
  4. Emotional stability. This will allow them to maintain enough calm and peace to take on obstacles with more strength and a better attitude.

Don’t reward bad behavior with attention

There are certainly some children who have been raised poorly. They tend to yell and give orders to their parents like, “I want to leave” or “I want that.”

Why do they behave this way? Because they don’t have the patience they need, partially due to the fact that their parents didn’t take the time to teach them.

Because kids demand some things immediately, trying to get their parents to give it to them, it’s extremely important to teach them to be patient. Don’t give them things immediately, especially if they don’t ask politely. 

One of the things to keep in mind is that children watch and often copy how their parents act, so the first step is to be a good example of patience. You should always teach by example. When children grow up, they will certainly be grateful for their parents‘ efforts.

We hope you were able to gain some valuable information on how to teach children patience (and why it’s so important) in this article.

  • Isaacs, D. (2003). La educación de las virtudes humanas y su evaluación (No. 370.034 Is14e Ej. 1 022524). EUNSA.
  • Savater, F. (2001). El valor de educar. Educere, 5(13). https://www.redalyc.org/html/356/35601319/
  • Shapiro, L. E. (2002). La salud emocional de los niños (Vol. 16). Edaf.
  • Snel, E. (2013). Tranquilos y atentos como una rana: la meditación para los niños con sus padres. Editorial Kairós.
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