Nurturing Patience

Got Patience? Does Your Child?

By Deirdre Wilson

Kids are naturally impatient.

They don’t like to wait in line. They get frustrated if they can’t zip up a coat or score a basket on the first few tries. And if there’s something they really want, you can count on them wanting it right now.

It’s normal. Patience requires self control, and that’s a skill kids learn as they grow.

But lately, some parents and teachers worry that children are more impatient than ever.

They wonder why kids can’t seem to focus in on a word problem at school, an exhibit at the zoo or a parent’s explanation about the stars in the sky. Instead, children seem quickly distracted, always moving on to something else.

Families today are fully immersed in a lifestyle of instant gratification. We’re also busier, and more materialistic, scheduled and rushed. Have our kids become less patient because of it?

Worrisome Trend

Diane Levin, an education professor at Boston’s Wheelock College and a national expert on the effects of media on children, believes there’s an increasing sense of impatience among kids in the classroom.

While recently revising her 1998 book Remote Control Childhood: Combating the Hazards of Media Culture (National Association for the Education of Young People, 1998), Levin has interviewed teachers on the changes they’ve seen in young children. She keeps hearing the same thing – that when it comes to problem-solving or more complicated tasks, kids can’t stay on task.

“What I’m hearing … from teachers of kindergarten and first grade is that these kids have less self-regulatory skills, less self-regulation,” she says. “It seems like a big escalation.”
Levin calls it “problem solving deficit disorder,” and she’s been talking about it for several years. “These are the kids who were born when the huge push for media for babies began. You had Baby Einstein, a round-the-clock TV channel just for young kids, little mini computer-type books and toys with push buttons for babies.”