“I am very impatient,” I told myself for many years. To this day I still say it, but only in certain situations. Standing waiting for my turn, for example, reduces my patience with each passing minute.
But if we talk about motherhood and parenting, patience is something that we must have , because it is not easy or simple this job of raising and it is necessary to have it to be able to face many situations.
Perhaps you, like me, think that you are not the most patient person in the world, however and like many other life skills, patience can be trained. I share six tips to get you to be more patient with your children .
The demands of life with children
The arrival of a son changes everything. Just as positive joys and emotions increase, so do responsibilities and stress . So even though we feel happy to have them, we may feel overwhelmed at times, resulting in loss of patience.
I have started by commenting on this, because many times as parents we have unrealistic expectations of life with children and of ourselves, which in our minds sound very beautiful, but in practice they are completely different .
We must be fully aware that this motherhood and fatherhood can be very difficult at times, and remember that although we can always work to improve, we must also be kind and avoid becoming our worst judge.
That said, we return to the objective of this article: how to be more patient with our children .
Lower our expectations
This is the first piece of advice and in my personal experience, one of the most important, because just as I have mentioned with the expectations about ourselves, those we place on our children also weigh and can affect our patience .
We have to be clear that utopia does not exist: things will not always turn out the way we want and our children will not be in a good mood all the time. There will be days when they will get up with the left foot, or for some reason they will not want to listen to us.
These days, it is when we must remember that they are only children and that they are just learning all those things that we already know about life. Childhood is a stage full of surprises, changes, trials, mistakes and constant adjustments , in which there will be ups and downs, progress and setbacks.
As I once said: where you see a disaster, your child sees a new ability or ability. So before you get angry or explode because things have not turned out as you expected, try to see things from their eyes … and I assure you that you will understand many things that will help you to be more patient.
Focus on the present
My second tip is to learn to be more mindful of the present moment . Many times the origin of our anguish and despair -which later evolve into impatience-, is in all those things that still do not even happen.
Sometimes our concern for all that is pending to do, as well as our rush and desperation to want to do everything, cause us to lose focus of what is happening in front of our eyes.
Let’s learn to enjoy the moment , and this in turn will help us change our perspective on life and motherhood a bit, which in turn can help us be more patient with our children.
Practice reflection
As we saw in the previous point, many times impatience is the result of a saturated mind . Having so many ideas spinning in our brain makes us feel disorganized and stressed, and this is clearly seen on a day-to-day basis.
One way to work on that mental load that mothers usually carry is to practice meditation and conscious breathing , which although it sounds simple, it is not always so. In fact, starting to meditate is usually difficult at first, because our mind is not yet trained.
But little by little we can achieve it, and once we have done it, we will be able to make deeper reflections. All this will help us to analyze and also begin to identify the moments in which we lose our patience .
When we are able to identify those moments, it will be easier to stop to reflect on them and have solutions that help us channel that negative emotion and turn it into a neutral or positive one , such as resorting to mantras, for example.
Have some practical tricks
One of the most difficult parts of training patience is to stop before it runs out if we are not used to it. Although it is true that reflection and analysis can help us, there will be situations in which they do not work as effectively (because we are tired, because we have had a heavy day, etc.).
So another option is to keep in mind some practical tips that can help us at that moment when we are about to explode, a kind of little tricks that help us regain calm , such as the following:
Take a deep breath
When you feel like you are about to lose your patience, stop and close your eyes. Inhale deeply and exhale very slowly . Sometimes it works just one time, but if you need to take more breaths, take them.
Count to 10
Yes, it is the classic that we all know and hear, but we repeat it because it is really effective. Counting slowly from one to ten will help us take those seconds to calm that emotion that is about to overwhelm us.
Dialogue without shouting
Sometimes when we lose our patience we tend to answer reluctantly and even resort to yelling, but in addition to being ineffective, they do a lot of harm to children. Try pausing, breathing, talking, and listening to each other. Dialogue will always be better than yelling.
Change the situation or use a distractor
This particular one is a resource that I use a lot in certain situations where I need to focus or concentrate , such as when I need to work and my daughter is having a noisy party with me or when my niece comes to visit and the volume of the party increases by double.
Instead of getting angry because I already told them two or three times not to make so much noise, I try to propose something else that might work for all of us . Sometimes it is to propose a quieter game (like a tea party), give them a puzzle that they have not put together in a long time, or give them some material to do crafts.
Get out of the room
Sometimes nothing we do works. Faced with this situation, the best we can do is get away to take a breath alone. Let’s leave the room or the house, and clear our minds before returning.
Take time for us
I have always said that self-care or time for ourselves is an essential part of motherhood, and should be just as important as taking care of our children. The reason is simple: to feel good and exercise better motherhood, we must also take care of ourselves.
A tired mom is a more angry, irritable, and therefore impatient mom . For this reason, and because we are human, it is essential that we dedicate time alone to ourselves, which we will dedicate to self-care and to disconnect to rest.
I know that as mothers you cannot always count on this time, because in many occasions it is difficult to find a hole in our busy days, but we can start with small things , such as drinking a relaxing cup of tea, reading a chapter of a book, listen to a song that lifts our spirits or take a little nap.
And as I always say: wanting or needing this time alone for ourselves does not make us bad mothers, nor should we feel guilty about it. Remember that these types of moments help us to be more relaxed and be more patient .
Enjoy this adventure, with the good and the bad
And finally, a piece of advice that we can apply to any situation in life: enjoy it, everything. Life with children is an unpredictable adventure, full of incredible emotions and experiences. Some are good and some are not so good, but they are all part of a whole.
It is true that when we have children there are some things that become more complicated and that can test our patience, but the truth is that having them in our life makes everything much better .
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In Babies and more | Mantras for moms: seven phrases for difficult days, don’t lose your temper! Tools to manage problems effectively and respectfully
