7 Proven Ways for Moms to Practice Patience
Patience is a virtue! And as Stay At Home Moms, we must practice patience for the many things that try to steal our joy.
It is very normal to feel impatient.
No one is 100% patient all the time… especially not moms.
There’d be times when people get on your nerves. There’d be times when you feel frustrated to the point of even lashing out.
Patience comes naturally or easier to some.
To others, it takes a whole lot of patience to finally learn how to be patient. ??
I know you’re asking “HOW?” Just think about it for a moment.
Learning something usually takes patience and dedication.
So why on earth do you think you wouldn’t need the patience to learn to be patient? I know. I’m wise. LOL.??
Moving on…
For parents most especially, patience doesn’t really come easy.
This is mainly because parents usually carry the world’s problems on their shoulders.
They have a responsibility to themselves, to family, to work, to friends.
On top of all these, they have the biggest responsibility – raising responsible children.
Sometimes Children seem annoying and frustrating.
And there’d be times you’d not want to be around your own kids.
Shhh! ?
Perfect Instagram moms don’t want to hear this. Their attitude can make you lose your patience.
However, we don’t want to go about yelling and cussing at our kids just because we lost our cool.
Yay! Awon ‘cool mom’ gang!
This is why this article is for you.
We are going to learn how to be more patient.
Whatever kind of mom you are – the working mom, the single mom, the stay-at-home mom, you need these gems.
Let’s see some examples:
For Working Moms
Just before you get back home from work, you get a call from your friends.
They tell you that they’ll be at your place in 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, since you got back you’ve been telling your 5yr old to pick up her toys and your 7 and 10-year-olds to stop jumping off the couch.
Also, your 3 yr old has refused to let go of you since you got back and that means you haven’t changed out of your work outfit.
Your friends will be there in 5 minutes. Let me tell you, mamma, you will be ready to snap and spank some butts!
For SAHMS
You went to the grocery after a long day of cleaning and cooking.
You tell your eldest to wash dishes and the youngest to start with her homework.
Then you come and you meet the dishes still in the sink, the homework not done and both of them are chasing each other around.
Or worse: Instagramming and chatting with friends. It’s hard to not snap.
What are the Ways for Moms to Practice Patience
Because of how important it is for Stay At Home Moms to practice patience to be able to maintain sanity, here are a few tips that can help.
1. Take a deep breath:
Whenever you feel yourself fraying around the edges, just breathe.
Many people underestimate the power of taking meaningful breaths.
Inhale deep and hold it in for some time and then release slowly. Breathing helps melt away the tension.
2. Count to 10:
You can make it a hundred.
And count backwards.
Count slowly and you can even be loud so that your children will hear you.
3. See things from a different perspective:
It is hard to see things from someone else’s perspective.
Put yourself in your children’s shoes.
They may just want to play with their siblings or may not just feel like washing dishes.
This is because they don’t know much about responsibilities.
Or that they’re still driven by their emotions and feelings.
So rather than snapping or yelling, you can make them see things from your own perspective.
You can say to your 5yr old “Ella, mummy’s friends are about to come. Can you help tidy up your toys so that our house can be as tidy as a castle?”
You can find other constructive ways to communicate.
4. Nourish yourself:
When the body is weak and doesn’t have much-needed nutrients, you tend to lose your cool faster.
Take time to drink water, eat healthily, and rest your body.
When you are in a situation and your nerves are getting riled up, drink water.
I remember watching an Indian movie and two men were arguing about whatever.
The wife or sister of one of them ran to him with a glass of chilled water and said, “Have some water.”
He took it. And he calmed down. (Of course, there’s the possibility that he could have thrown the water at the other guy’s face. HAHAHA).
Whenever you are getting frustrated, drink water. Or eat a little snack.
5. Behave like you’re in front of an audience:
If you see yourself about to lose your cool, assume that there is an audience.
We all know that when there are people watching us we tend to react differently.
Always assume that there is an audience in your house or anywhere you go.
6. Prepare for the future…visualize:
When you’re on your own, visualize situations that usually make your child misbehave and in turn, make you lose patience.
When you think of them, also think of solutions. This is so that when it happens again, you will be ready.
7. Identify your triggers:
Most times when we get angry at something, it’s because there is something inside us that responded to that.
This is why two people may react differently to the same situation.
Let’s assume that your children are in a screaming match and you’ve lost all patience in your tank.
And you snap at them and tell them to leave the house and sit on the front porch, guess what?
It’s you who got triggered by the noise, not them.
You could have decided to put on earbuds to drown out the noise or you could have left them alone.
I mean, in the grand scheme of life two children screaming doesn’t matter because duh.
They’ll still get tired and they may actually be having fun.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t tell your children to stop screaming and that they should behave acceptably.
All I’m saying is that if you get angry or snap, it’s because something triggered you. Identify these triggers and learn how to manage them when they arise.
Conclusion:
There’s nothing like the perfect mom or a limitless bank of patience.
As humans, we are all bound to lose ourselves to impatience and anger.
What matters is how you control yourself when that happens.
As parents, more often than not we engage in trial and error.
Try whatever tactics suit you and if it doesn’t, try another.
We learn parenting every day.
Whatever happens, know that controlling your patience around your children will help strengthen the relationship.
Furthermore, it helps our relationship with our spouses and others.
What relationship doesn’t need a little bit more patience anyway?
Please, share this article to help other Moms to begin to practice patience in their homes.
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Love & Light,
Viv ?