Help for Impatient Parents

Just go to Walley-World for one hour and you’ll soon learn that this world needs a bit more patience. Yes, this is WAY out of my normal blog subject, but I thought this was important enough, so here goes.

Have you been at the store and you’ve seen some parent yelling at their kid to hurry, to be quiet, to stop playing with toys, to stop being a --- a KID?

My wife the other day said something that really stuck in my mind, “Kids are living in their own time zone.” Kids are not in a rush, they have nowhere to be, they don’t have jobs, they are not going to be late, all they care about is being where they are, and playing with what’s around them.

It’s the parents who get upset that their kid is not in as big of a rush as they are. I’d say 9 times out of 10, it’s the parent who’s running late causing the strife they are dealing with. We get to running around, we leave the house late, we get to the store and we’ve got to be in and out, and it’s the kids fault for being a kid. So we get mad at them and yell and fuss at them for doing what a kid does.

Hurry up! Shut up! Stop playing with that! I know children can be very slow when they want to look and touch everything, and at times this can drive you nuts. But if you the parent plan enough time into your schedule for your child to be a kid, your trip to the supermarket, or to Walley-World won’t be so agonizing.

My son loves discovering his surroundings. He loves seeing new people, and he loves to sit and stare -it is who he is. Yes, we have to restrict how long he takes, but we try to let him have fun, and we try to let him be who he is. Remember kids are not living in the same time-zone as you are. Their world his huge and it can be very distracting for them. Can you imagine taking in a TV show-room for the first time as a two year old? It can be a lot for them to take in at once, sometimes they need to just absorb their surroundings and figure out if there’s something there they like. Sometimes our son will enter some place with a lot going on, and he’s like, “Woe- this is too much.” He’ll turn around and want to be picked up, but after a while he adjusts and them wants to see his world.

My only real advice if this seems to be an issue. Build in some extra time for your kid to be a kid. Take a breather at the store, find the toy department, and let your kid play around. We started very early on- we make our son put his toys back after he plays, so when he goes somewhere, and play time is over, we tell him to put the toys back- this way- he doesn’t spend a half hour at the store crying over the toy he can’t have.

Kids want to play, they want to be loved on, and they want to experience the world we live in. If we yell, scream, and fuss at them for being what they are- what do you think the outcome will be?

Obviously, my wife and I don’t have it all figured out but I know that if we treat our son the way I would have liked being treated, we’ll nail this whole parenting thing.