When your toddler grinds your gears and pushes all the wrong buttons, you can’t help but feel frustrated, angry, impatient and maybe even helpless. Handling situations like these poorly may scar your little one for life.
We had a chat with Siew Ju Li, a mother of three and a Development Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at Help University, Kuala Lumpur to pick up a few tips on battling the obstacles to becoming a more patient parent.
Here are Siew Ju Li’s top five key tips to patient parenting:
1. Count to 10
When you feel yourself getting frustrated or angry, stop. Count slowly to 10 (you can do this in your head). Ju Li says counting reduces the chance of yelling – “It helps to mentally count to 10 when things get out of hand.”
2. Evaluate
Ask yourself why your child is behaving in such a way. Is he whining because he is hungry? Or is he tired? Did he innocently place hand prints on the wall? “Taking a step back and considering why your child is misbehaving may put things into perspective,” says Ju Li.
3. Get down to their level
“Being at their level helps them feel seen and heard. It’s easier to interact and get your message across this way,” Ju Li says. When your child is throwing a fuss or a tantrum, it helps to be physically at the same level when you are communicating or instructing them.
4. Pick battles one at a time
Children are work in progress. There are certain instructions that we will find ourselves repeating until they decide to listen. Ju Li suggests to focus and prioritise the areas in which you would like your child to improve on and take it one step at a time. “It reduces stress on both sides because you’ll only need to tackle one behavior or issue at a time , and the young child will not be confused,” states Ju Li.
5. Review and Identify
Parenting with patience is a process that all parents can willingly learn. “It’s always good to identify trigger points and work on it to prepare ourselves for similar situations in the future.”
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