Patience Activities for Kids: How to Teach Kids Patience

You’re in the middle of making dinner for your family before heading to soccer practice. You have less than an hour to finish cooking, feed everyone, and get out the door. Your 4-year-old calls from the other room and asks you to come see their latest creation.

You call back, “Just give me a minute. I’m in the middle of cooking.”

About 30 seconds later, you hear, “Come see it, now!”

“One minute!” you say.

And then it starts: “Come now! Come now! Now!”

Sound familiar? Moments like this can test even the most patient parent. And while it’s easy to think, “Why can’t my child just wait?” patience is actually a skill children are still learning to develop.

Even when these moments feel overwhelming, they’re a normal part of growing up. The good news is that children can learn and strengthen patience and waiting with practice.

In this article, you’ll learn practical ways to model, practice, and teach patience, so children of all ages can gradually build the skills they need to handle waiting, frustration, and the inevitable “just one minute.” 

Can You Really Teach Kids Patience?

Yes! Just like we can teach children to name their emotions or take turns with others, we can also teach them skills that help build patience. For some children, waiting and delaying gratification may come more naturally than it does for others. But with practice and support, all children can learn to pause, wait, and handle those moments when they don’t get what they want right away.

Like most behaviors, patience and learning to wait are really about managing feelings. We can teach children self-awareness and emotional regulation skills that help them recognize, “I really want this … now!” and then pause, manage that feeling, and wait, even when it’s hard. This is why building and practicing foundational emotional intelligence (EQ) skills from an early age is so important; they give children the tools they need to develop patience over time.

Why Does Patience Matter for Kids?

Research suggests that patience can benefit children in three important ways. Patience can help children 1) manage their immediate reactions, 2) persist through challenging moments, and 3) navigate relationships with others.

1. Patience helps children pause.

When children are frustrated, disappointed, or told to wait, patience gives them a chance to pause before they react. Instead of immediately acting on the feeling of “I want it now” or “This isn’t fair,” they can learn to take a breath, manage the feeling, and choose what to do next.

2. Patience helps children persist.

Patience helps children stick with something when it is difficult, handle waiting, and keep going even when they don’t get the result they want right away. Over time, this helps children learn that frustration and difficulty don’t necessarily mean they should give up.

3. Patience helps children relate to others.

Children don’t always get what they want from other people. Patience helps them wait their turn, listen when someone else is talking, give a sibling or friend time to respond, and handle situations when others don’t move at their pace. Developing patience helps children build stronger, more respectful relationships.

The Adult’s Role: Model Patience First

Children don’t develop patience on their own. They learn by practicing it and by watching the people around them practice it, too (Doebel & Munakata, 2018). When children see adults wait, manage frustration, and handle boring or difficult situations calmly, they begin to learn what patience looks like and how they can do it themselves.

Here are three practical tips to model patience:

1. Pause and take a breath before responding.

When something frustrates you, take a moment to pause and breathe before you respond. By doing this consistently, you show your child they don’t have to react right away.

2. Narrate your own experiences while waiting.

Use everyday moments to talk out loud about what you’re doing to manage the wait. For example, “I have to wait my turn in line. It’s probably going to take a few minutes, and even though I’m feeling bored, it’s okay. I can handle waiting.” This gives you a chance to model patience for your child and show them that you can manage uncomfortable feelings.

3. Use reflective listening to acknowledge your child’s patience.

When you see your child waiting, even if it’s hard for them, notice their effort and name what you see. “I know it’s hard to wait. It can feel frustrating, but you’re doing a good job.” This helps build your child’s confidence that they can handle the uncomfortable feelings that come with waiting, even if it’s hard.

Patience Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers (Ages 2-4)

For our littlest learners, build patience through simple waiting games. Keep activities short, make them fun, and offer plenty of encouragement along the way.

• Red Light, Green Light: Children move when they hear you call “green light” and immediately stop when they hear “red light.” The challenge is to control their bodies and stop themselves from moving, even when they want to keep going.
• Freeze Dance: Play some music and have a short dance party. When you hit pause, children must freeze their bodies. This is a fun way to practice stopping and waiting, even when their bodies want to keep moving.
• Simon Says: “Simon” is the leader and gives the group different actions to do. Children should only do the action if the direction begins with “Simon says.” For example, if you say, “Simon says touch your toes,” children should touch their toes. If you simply say, “Touch your toes,” they should stay still. This game helps children practice listening carefully, slowing down, and resisting the urge to act before they hear the right cue.

Additionally, you can read picture books and talk about how characters feel when they have to wait. “Llama Llama Red Pajama” by Anna Dewdney is a great book to use for teaching patience.

Here are some questions to discuss with your child after reading:

• How does Llama feel waiting for his mama?
• Llama starts to fret. Fret means that he feels worried. Why is Llama worried?
• What does Llama do when his feelings get too big?

Finally, because young children are still developing their sense of time, tools like sand timers can make waiting easier to understand. Instead of saying, “Wait five minutes,” you can say, “When the sand runs out, it will be time.”

Key point: Waiting can cause us to feel big feelings. We might feel worried or frustrated. This happens to all of us, but we can take a deep breath and find ways to help us wait, even if it feels hard.

Patience Activities for Early Elementary Kids (Ages 5-9)

Elementary school children love playing games with others. Turn-taking games and games that require children to stop, listen, and think before they act give them a fun way to practice self-management.

• Hide and Seek: Choose one person to be the seeker while everyone else hides. The seeker counts, then searches for the hidden players until they find everyone. Children practice staying patient while they wait to be found and while they search for others.
• Still As a Rock: Similar to Hide and Seek, one person is the seeker, and everyone else pretends to be rocks. The “rocks” must stay completely still while the seeker looks for movement. If the seeker sees someone move, that person is out. In this game, children have to resist the urge to move, wiggle, or give up.
• Partner Drawing: Give each pair a piece of paper and choose a scene to draw together. Each person can draw only one shape at a time before passing the paper to their partner. Keep going until you’ve created a whole scene together. Turn-taking activities help children hold onto their own ideas while giving their partner space to contribute.
• I Spy: One person chooses something they can see and says, “I spy with my little eye …” followed by a clue about the object. Everyone else takes turns guessing until someone figures it out, then it’s their turn to choose. Children practice taking their time and waiting for their turn to respond.

Elementary school children also love reading books. Try “Five Minutes (That’s a Lot of Time) (No, It’s Not) (Yes, It Is)” by Liz Garton Scanlon and Audrey Vernick to talk about how five minutes can feel very different depending on the situation.

Here are some questions to discuss with your child after reading:

• When does five minutes seem too fast?
• When does five minutes feel like forever?
• When is it easy to wait? Why?
• When is it hard to wait? Why?

Key point: How long something feels can depend on what we’re doing and how we’re feeling. We can learn ways to make waiting easier, like playing a game or doing some breathing exercises.

Patience Activities for Older Elementary/Tween Kids (Ages 10+)

As children become teens, patience and impatience begin to show up in more tangible ways. Waiting isn’t just about getting through a few minutes of boredom; it’s also about managing the desire for instant gratification while working toward something they want later. Teens can practice this through experiences that build delayed gratification, goal setting, and follow-through.

• Savings goal: Help your child choose something they want to buy and create a plan to save for it. They might set aside part of their allowance, earnings, or money they receive as gifts, or take on extra chores to earn money. The goal is to give them the experience of working toward something they want rather than getting it immediately.
• Achievement goal: Talk with your child about one goal they have for the year, such as earning a certain grade, making a sports team, or learning a new skill. Help them break it into manageable steps, then check in weekly to reflect on their progress and adjust their plan as needed.
• Reflective practice: Check in with your child about their progress, asking about challenges, successes, and the emotions that came with them. If they hit a barrier, help them name those emotions and offer to problem-solve together if they want. When they reach their goal, ask what they learned and how they feel about what they accomplished.

What to Do When a Child Struggles With Patience

Developing and strengthening a new skill like patience takes time, and progress isn’t always a straight line forward. Your child may handle waiting well one day and struggle the next. That’s normal and part of learning.

In those moments of struggle, try these three steps:

• Notice and name the feeling: “It seems like you’re getting frustrated that we have to wait. Is that how you’re feeling?”
• Validate the difficulty of waiting: “I know that waiting is hard. It can be hard for me, too.”
• Give them something they can do: “While we wait, would you like to play I Spy or do you want to do a breathing exercise with me?”

Your child may choose one of the options, or they may not. Either way, you’ve helped them recognize their feelings and have shown them a way to handle a difficult moment.

Try to avoid shaming or repeatedly correcting impatience. Frustration and impatience are normal feelings. Instead, think of everyday waiting moments as practice reps that help your child build patience over time.

Key Takeaways: Strategies for Teaching Patience to Kids

Patience isn’t something children either have or don’t have. It’s a self-management skill that develops over time through practice. Everyday moments like waiting, feeling bored, or dealing with disappointment give children opportunities to practice managing frustration and respond in less impatient ways.

As adults, we play a critical role in that process. Children learn by watching us, so modeling patience in our own frustrating moments can be just as powerful as telling them to be patient. We can also talk out loud about what we’re feeling and what we’re doing to manage it, and point out when we see our children using these skills themselves.

Keep in mind that patience will look different at different ages and stages. Activities and expectations should match what a child is developmentally ready to handle, while everyday experiences provide opportunities to practice and grow.

And remember, patience and the ability to manage uncomfortable feelings are just one part of emotional intelligence. Recognizing and understanding our emotions, having empathy for others, building positive relationships, and making healthy choices are all skills that develop over time. Together, these skills give children the foundation they need to navigate challenging moments with greater confidence and control.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: 

Barragan-Jason, G., Atance, C., Kopp, L., & Hopfensitz, A. (2018). Two facets of patience in young children: Waiting with and without an explicit reward. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 171, 14–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.01.018 

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2011). Building the brain’s “air traffic control” system: How early experiences shape the development of executive function (Working Paper No. 11). Harvard University Center on the Developing Child 

Doebel, S., & Munakata, Y. (2018). Group Influences on Engaging Self-Control: Children Delay Gratification and Value It More When Their In-Group Delays and Their Out-Group Doesn’t. Psychological Science, 29(5), 738-748. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617747367 

Guarcello, E. (2024). Character skills and patience to promote resilience in children—Education in primary schools after pandemic. European Journal of Social Science Education and Research, 11(3), 106–123. https://doi.org/10.26417/701rje70y 

Murray, J., Scott, H., Connolly, C., & Wells, A. (2018). The Attention Training Technique improves children’s ability to delay gratification: A controlled comparison with progressive relaxation. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 104, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2018.02.003 

Schnitker, S. A. (2012). An examination of patience and well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(4), 263–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.697185