Ep 6. Raising Successful Kids Skill #1 - Waiting

Welcome mamas! Welcome back! If you caught last week's episode, you know that this one is special. We are kicking off our deep dive into the five skills that we need to observe and create opportunities to practice with our kids so that they have a holistic, well rounded toolkit of skills to go out into the world and be successful.

Today we're kicking off the series with patience, waiting, delayed gratification, the skill that goes by many names.  And before we dive into how to help our kids develop this skill, let's remind ourselves that it is a skill. If we run around saying to ourselves, “Oh, I'm just an impatient person. I've always been like that. Oh, I have ADD. I'm just like that”. If we say that about our kids, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So let's ground down and realize that every single one of these skills we're going to talk about is exactly that. And skills can be learned. And skills can be practiced. And if that's true, we can get really good at them. Even if it's hard for us right now.

I also wanted to point out that society doesn't really help us with this mission. We live in an instant gratification society. You want it now? You can have it now. You buy it now? You can download it now. You want it in two days? It'll be there in two days. 

We need to create a mindset that we are intentionally choosing to practice skills for ourselves, model them, and help our kids learn them too.

And that begins with why. Why does it matter that we know how to wait? It's about being in the present moment, which quite honestly, we're not great at. We're always replaying something that happened in the past, either mad at ourselves about it, wish we had done it differently, berating ourselves, or still reliving that really awesome thing, even though it's over, it's behind us, or we're three steps into the future.

We're looking at what comes next. And so we're not very often just here. Waiting is a skill that happens through being present and knowing and believing that that thing that we want or that experience that we desire will come eventually or not.  Let's take a concrete example, okay? You order a package from Amazon. You know, it's coming, right? You just don't know when, but you have that strong belief that it's coming. And so even if it's irritating and you wish it could be here right now, you wait because you know the end result. It gets a little trickier when we don't know the end result. So what is the definition of waiting, of patience, of being okay with delayed gratification?

It means in our brains, we think this: “I might get this thing, and I might not get this thing. I maybe will have this experience, and I maybe won't have this experience”. It's the possibility for two outcomes.  Now, for our little people, for our infants and our toddlers and our preschoolers who don't have the presence of mind to be able to do that yet, we have to bring this skill into a very concrete, practicable place.

We have to make the thing a for sure. But build in the wait time a teeny a bit and then a little more and then a little more. It's a muscle, right? We're practicing this. Here's a real life story from traveling that I did recently out in the world and how I'm going to break down for you. The skill and the strategies.

So recently I was in Denver. I was presenting at a parenting conference and I ended up taking a little time and doing some sightseeing because why not? It's awesome. Right? My husband was with me. We got to enjoy some time together and we were at the Denver zoo, which if you've never been, it's an experience worth the trip. We were waiting for some food. Lines were not that long, but decently long, and this mom and this toddler were also waiting to order food.  And the toddler was starting to get edgy. You could just see it, you could sense it, feel it. She was clearly tired, hungry, and by the way, it was like 95 degrees out, so there was an environmental factor, right?

So you've got hot, tired, hungry trifecta of toddler potential meltdown. Okay, so parenting in public is hard, period. But when you've got a kid who's about to go off the rails, it's even harder unless you know why you're choosing the strategies you're choosing. So, they were ahead of us in line. There was maybe two people between them and ordering the food.

And the little girl walked straight up to that evil display that these places have that have all the snacks that you can just grab and hold while you're in line and then pay for when you get to the front and grabbed a cotton candy and brought it back to her mom, who said, “No, we're not having cotton candy, cotton candy’s for after lunch”.

Awesome. What a strong statement, right? She gave her some information and laid out the line. She drew the line in the sand. Cotton candy’s for after lunch. The other thing she did that was awesome was inherently say yes. Yes, you will have the cotton candy. Yes, to your question to me. May I have it? But not yet. That's the hard part. Especially for a run-down toddler, the waiting is the hard part. Mom's interacting with other people in line. Toddler starts to open the container to the cotton candy. Mom sees it. Again, says, no, cotton candy’s for after lunch. We're not eating that yet. So far, so good. And guess what?

I'm three people behind her in line cheering for her.  Come on, mom, you've got this. This is hard. I know it, but you can do it.  And toddler starts to melt down. It gets loud. It gets distracting quickly. And she gives in and says to all of us, not to her toddler, says to all of us, “Well, okay, she can have it because I'm just avoiding a meltdown here”.

Dun, dun, dun.  So easy and so hard. Yes, meltdown was avoided. Mom knows why she chose to give it. Meltdown was avoided. But every time, and hear this, this is so important, every time we have an interaction like this with our kids, they learn something from it. They don't just learn from the happy ending ones.

They don't just learn from the positive interaction ones. They learn from the times we give in to.

And honestly, they learn more from those. Because they're brilliant little humans. And so every time we go this route, we go five steps back to move back to where we started at that original center point to regain the authority of our words, because if we don't have the authority of our words, we have nothing.

And you're going to hear me week after week after week, talk about how to use intentional language to set our kids up for the skill learning opportunities. And mom did great at the beginning with her intentional language. So where could we go with this conversation that didn't end the way it did in real life?

You could get down on that level of the kid, ignore the people around you. Okay, this step one is probably the hardest of this entire thing. Ignore the people around you. They don't matter. They don't live in your home. They're not part of your relationship with your child. You owe them nothing. You do not need to justify your choices to them. And you definitely don't need to justify your child's loudness.  Okay, ignore the people around you. Get down on your kid's level. You're face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose.  Say again what you said the first time in a different way. The first time, mom said, “We're not eating cotton candy right now. Cotton candy's for after lunch”.

And then she said that again. Great. Now we have defined it twice. So, impending mountain doubt. You're down on her level, and you say something like, “I gave you my answer. My answer will not change”. You have drawn that line deeper, but you've got to hold it. She starts to melt down.  “I have an idea.  What if I hold the cotton candy?”

Because I said yes. They need to hear this. “I said yes. Yes, you can have it after you eat your lunch”.  Maybe they don't want you to hold the cotton candy. They want to hold it themselves. “Okay. You can hold the cotton candy, but you may not open it because we are going to enjoy eating that after lunch”.

Now, two things are happening here. One, you are in a constant dialogue with your child. And two, time is passing. You're closer to the line to order that food. When you get up there, include your child in the ordering process.  Tell the person you're ordering the food from “My kiddo is so excited to eat this cotton candy. Me too. I can't wait to have a little bit, but first, we need to eat lunch”. So now you've restated the waiting process and the why of it to a different human being. Your child's listening. Your child's watching.  Order the food and then off you go to eat it. And when it's time to open that cotton candy, Mama, have a celebration. Get into that emotion with your kid.

“We did it! We waited! It was so hard. Waiting was so hard. I wanted to eat it right away, too. I was so hungry. We made the healthy choice. We ate our lunch. And I'm so excited. Let's eat it now. Let's eat it together!”  Include celebrating after practicing hard skills.  Now this has the happy ending, right? Maybe your child was just too far gone.

Maybe that tantrum was going to happen no matter what. There's a level of acceptance that you just have to have around it. Okay? “You can fall apart if you need to. I get that waiting is hard. We're still not eating until after lunch”.  And then, you just get through it. Because they learn from every experience.

Here's an example with an infant, because some of you have infants.  Let's say you have an infant who has a pacifier, but it's only for sleep time. It's only for nap and bedtime and it lives in their crib but for some reason it gets out into the general area of your home and you notice that your child has grabbed it and is now sucking on it.

Why are you about to take that pacifier from them?  The why matters, because in your home, you have decided it is a tool, not a toy. It's a tool for sleep, and it works really well. If you start to use it as a toy, it probably won't work as well as a tool for sleep. So knowing why you're about to do what you're about to do is so important.

So you're going to say to your six, seven, eight month old, yes, someone this little, “Oh, you found your pacifier. Pacifiers are for sleep time. It is not sleep time right now. I'll take that and put it back in your crib”.  What do you think is going to happen next?  An infant doesn't have the ability to accept your words for what they are yet.

They haven't developed that emotional ability yet to say, okay, and move on. They're going to have a reaction, so you need to be prepared for the reaction and stay strong with your words.  “Oh, I see how upset you are. I hear you. You really wish that you could have this all day long”.  Repeat again.  “Pacifiers are for sleep time. You're awake right now. It's play time”. And then transition them. “I will put this back. Let's find something to play”. Distract. And enjoy.  They will move past it quickly. You just need to know that their emotional reaction to you, their crying, or screaming, or maybe they even have learned how to use their little hands on your body to show how mad they are by hitting you.

You just need to know that that's not true distress. You're not causing them distress, you're not hurting them, you're not harming them, you're teaching them how to wait for something. And then mama, when it is sleep time, you do your celebration. You get all excited.  It's time to sleep. “Oh my gosh, you must be so excited because that means it's pacifier time”.

Watch them light up. Delayed gratification is truly gratifying

That end result of achievement and joy and yay, I got it, is so worth the wait for you and for them.  Okay, I hope that this is landing. If you need more support, if you have specific things that you need help with, be sure to jump into our virtual village, our private community for moms like you who are doing the hard work and you need the support.

I can go over these strategies again and I hope to see you in there. But make sure you hop on back here. Next week's episode will be about EQ. We're going to talk about owning our emotions and having that strong connection to how we feel and what to do with it.