Behaviour: How to have a little more patience and kindness in the New Year

Behaviour: How to have a little more patience and kindness in 

the New Year

Every day I want to get more done, every day I want more hours just to finish anything fully. Yet the time in a day never changes, it is a constant non changing amount of time. I am one of those rushed people always racing to get somewhere or get something done. I don’t want to be rushed anymore. I want to slow down a little. Earlier this year after witnessing an event that stopped me in my tracks; a realisation of how rushed people are. After my usual crazy last minute dash for groceries with my children, I was reversing the car out and I noticed a man in a wheelchair going into the grocery store. His wheelchair got caught on something and he tumbled over and fell to the ground. Half way out of my parking spot, I stopped. There were a lot ofpeople around “Quick someone help him” my head was saying. The kids yelling “Mum that poor man is on the ground”. In an instant my world slowed down. People were stepping over the man, people walked around the man, people avoided the man full stop. “Shit, I’m in a rush, someone STOP and help this guy please” my inner voice bellowed loudly in my head. Yet no one stopped. Re-parking the car, grabbing the kids we raced to the man. The kids picked up his wheelchair and we helped the man into it. He thanked us profusely, I apologised on behalf of those who had ignored him “So sorry no one helped you”.  The talk with my children after this incident was so very real as to the race we all partake in, it is part of life, we are all busy, all rushing, all racing to an unknown finishing line. Mr 7 “Mum why did no one help that man?”. A simple question with many answers.

Are we that rushed that we step over someone who has fallen? Are we that rushed that we feel we should tut and voice our disgust at a mother whose child is throwing a tantrum? Are we that rushed that we forget to say Thank you or I’m sorry. Does everything have to be now?

A little more patience with children

How to teach your child to read in 5 steps. How to teach your child to tie laces in one day. How to teach your child subtraction in two hours. We are also rushing children to learn and learning again is not a race. These books can be helpful but are not a necessity, children are very apt at learning at the pace that is right for them. Great that Milly can tie her laces at four, Tom who is six is still learning to tie his laces but he can set a dinner table. Children get engrossed in the moment, they learn through fun and play. It does not all come from text books. It comes from life. Instilling confidence, resilience and values is making the adult of tomorrow, not racing to learn how to do up laces. Love and patience are fundamentals with children.

Childhood is not a race, it has a set course of time which may not feel super fast as you live it but as I look at my teenage daughter who will be seventeen in January and in her last year at school, her years flash through my head at a supersonic speed, my baby girl  is a woman and I’m still not quite sure when that happened.

 

How to be more patient and kind

How to be more patient and kind

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Nathalie Brown

Child Behaviour Consultant at Easy Peasy Kids
Child Behaviourist and researcher. Creator of "Less tantrums. More smiles". I look at the bigger picture and think outside the box when working with children and their behaviour. Their world is different. As adults we sometimes forget this. Happiness Creator in my spare time. Eater of chocolate and cake.

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Comments

  1. Such a timely post. My new years resolutions are not about how skinny I can get, or what I personally can achieve but about my children, my need to be a better parent, as you say not lose my temper over those toys or those tantrums. I yearn for that ‘slow down’.

  2. My girl turns 17 in 4 days. I keep looking at this young woman, and can’t help but wonder How the hell did that happen?? I’m sure it was only moments ago that she was placed in my arms and my heart cracked open and I experienced love like I had never felt…

    these school holidays I have been spending lots of time with my babies. just BEING present. building lego, eating sushi, cuddles – lots and lots of cuddles.

    I want time to slow down, to rewind, to recapture lost opportunities…

    when I feel my mind racing, and consequently anxiety clutching at my throat, I have started very consciously pulling myself back into the MOMENT I’m in. Being present with who ever I am with. Calm descends.

    Love this post Nat. xxx

    • Beautiful Vicky I so get your feeling, it’s so many emotions seeing our little ones so grown up. Like you I’ve been very present these holidays, I’ve loved very moment and I know I will really try this year to be present a lot more. Have a wonderful New Year xxxx

  3. This post is certainly very timely for, thank you for sharing! Patience is probably my biggest struggle and I am hoping to really fix that in 2013.

    Happy New Year to you and your family!

  4. Patience is something I struggle with everyday with my own children. I have lots of patients for other peoples kids for some reason but not my own. I’m hoping to fix my patients with my own children this year and it will be hard. Happy new year.

  5. Complete and utter disbelief that anyone would or could actually step over a person who’d fallen from their wheelchair. I say this, because I’d never do it. But then I remember a big realisation I had a couple of years ago when stressed out at the petrol station, two kids bickering in the car and an appointment to be at in 5 minutes. An elderly lady walked to the bowser I’d been waiting for, to fill a jerry can (probably for the lawnmower). In utter disbelief I sat there fuming. She was sooo slow. All I could think about was where I had to be and that it was my turn. It was only the end of the night I realised I should have jumped out and helped. Felt like such a heel.

    Patience is indeed a virtue. And though I feel I use up so much of mine, I sure could use some more. Great pointers here. Happy New Year Nathalie xxx

    • Hello gorgeous I feel too that the last two years my patience was wearing out, it’s been a journey that left me exhausted and emotional. I think that by working with children and the caring of my mother my priorities changed and I had to learn patience. Much love to you beautiful I’ll see you soon xxx

  6. Andrea Zanetich says

    Nathalie,
    Happy New Year to you. Such great insights in here, that I'll try to put to great use these school holidays – especially as I try to teach my very reluctant son to tie his laces.. 😉 x Andrea.

  7. Ahh, this really spoke to me Nat. A week or so ago, I was going up a shopping mall escalator with my kids (in a rush). I saw an elderly woman stop in front of me and (thinking I was being polite), ushered her to go in front of me. She shook her head ‘No’ so I thanked her and went first.

    I then heard a noise, turned around and she was asking for help as she had a walking stick and needed someone to hold it for her so she could manage the escalator…someone else stepped in but for the rest of the morning I felt awful – not just that I had failed to help her but that I had been less than mindful and in too much of a hurry to ‘see her’.

    I honestly believe that most people want to help but as you pointed out, we need to remind ourselves to slow down a little and to be more intune with those around us.

    • Gorgeous Kirri it is hard to notice all that is going on around us but with a little practise and a dash of kindness the bigger picture starts to reveal itself xxx

  8. Jesus – my chest aches when I see these sorts of things happen. Some of us are so nicely in tune with how we can help more, I don’t even try to understand how some people tune that out. The voice is too strong in my own head.

    My girl went well at school this year in year 1 – her reading sky rocketed, she understood maths better than me but the award I got teary over was for her always helping out in the playground – for seeking out those that needed help and for walking people to sick bay. If all I do is raise empathic kids then Ive hit the parenting jackpot. Thanks for linking up x

  9. Karen Reid says

    The how to be more patient & kind is very appropriate now. I feel like I’m drowning at the moment I have little patience & everything is so hard. I need that stuck up on the wall so I can look at to help get perspective back

  10. Anonymous says

    This will sound very mean and nasty. But we live in a culture where everything is decided through competition. We are all constantly evaluated each other, whether we like it or not. Children compete each other in the classroom, the playground, the athletic fields, and lecture halls. If a child is throwing public temper tantrums, that child will have a much harder time competing against other kids. The world is a very, very impatient place. Most people have one shot to answer a question, an incorrect or too verbose or too hesitant or too long to reply answer will most likely result in being written off as incompetent or ineffective. To do lists must be finished, deadlines must be made. Children are learning this, and how to meet others’ expectations at ever younger ages; this is the real world.

    • It is a competitive real world yet I still believe that having the values of kindness and practising patience is a huge component of feeling ok about who we are as humans. I don’t think it’s mean and nasty you offered a realistic view, which unfortunately is what the world is like.

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  1. […] etc… If you choose to yell less, there has to be something else in place I belive that’s patience. If you do want to exercise for 30 minutes or more then it has to be planned and a time allocated. […]

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