It’s hard to be patient when your child is turning the color of the tomatoes you just passed because you won’t let them fling produce out of your shopping cart. It’s hard to be patient when your child is taking forever to get ready for preschool or finish their homework or eat their food or do their chores. It’s hard to be patient when your child is being silly, and you need them to be serious. It’s especially hard to be patient when you’re stressed, anxious or overworked, when you’re yearning for 30 minutes to sit down in silence.
When we start unraveling, we’re more likely to snap at our kids and say things we regret. We’re more likely to yell and criticize. We’re more likely to erupt and shatter, sometimes not even recognizing ourselves.
Our patience can wear thin with pressure and big expectations. “The high demands of busy schedules, the pressure to ‘do it all’ and achieve can lead us to become so caught up in daily tasks that the richness of raising children becomes reduced to managing family life, instead of simply being with our children,” said Deniz Ahmadinia, PsyD, a psychologist who specializes in mindful parenting, stress and trauma at the West Los Angeles VA.
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