Helping an impatient child calm down

What you need to know:

  • It is natural for children to be impatient.
  • As a parent, it is how you address impatience that can mean the difference between raising a patient, well-adjusted child or an impatient child who grows up to be an impatient adult.

Are you one of those parents often summoned to your child’s school due to his or her irrational behaviour? Taking from his experience with his son, Albert Onyapidi, a teacher at Victory Junior School believes such behaviour is a call for attention.
“My son was very impatient which made him fail to tolerate what the other children around him used to do. He became a loner, not until I got concerned and asked him why his friends isolated him,” says Onyapidi.
Talking to his son allowed the boy to open up so his father could encourage him to be more tolerant of his friends.
“A child needs to know that people are different, and need to tolerate others in order to maintain peace,” says Henry Nsubuga a counsellor at Makerere University. He advises parents to teach children how to love one another and out of love, a child will be able to tolerate and accommodate others.
“Sometimes children have to empathise with others who fall victims of non-tolerant people and this you do by asking them how they could feel if they were treated the way they do not want to be treated and with this, children will learnt to be compassionate,” he adds.
According to Nsubuga, low self-esteem may contribute to this kind of temperament, so parents should encourage children and make them feel good about themselves and with this, the child will be secure hence be able to tolerate those who could act as a threat to their confidence.

How do you deal with impatient children?

“An impatient child needs to taste of what others go through when treated the wrong way so that they can learn to be good to others. This means the parent can help them by not immediately giving them what they want at the time they need it and out of this experience they will learn to be patient and tolerant,”
Richard Jumudar, teacher

“Children need to be mentored right from childhood, so a child who is impatient needs constant reminder of how bad what he or she is doing so that he or she can restrain from doing it. The easiest way to change such a child is by people around him being role models and he will emulate the behaviour,”
Susan Ssendawula, a teacher

“Children are a gift from God and no child is born without mannerisms which means a child can be groomed into what the parent needs the child to be.Such a child just needs attention and this means you sit the child down and let the child know what is right and wrong then they will learn how to be patient with others,”
Gabriella Malaika, mother of one

“An impatient child needs to be taught gradually the need to be patient and this means the parent needs to act patiently not only towards the child, but also other people around. When the child notices such behaviour, he or she will be compelled to act the same way,”
Ronald Byamukama, businessman

Expert take

Margret Tumusiime, a counsellor says children learn more from the people around them so parents should first be role models to their children then parent them the way they want them to turn out as adults.
“If a parent is not tolerant, then the child too will adopt the same behaviour because of the way their parents treat them hence making both parties rational while making decisions,” says Tumusiime.
She advises parents to create time to get to know the child and talk to the child about tolerance and problem solving. “Let them know that these two determine how you will live with people in society and enable them either maintain peace or cause enmity.”