Patience is easy to come by in life but when you are parent, it’s one of those things that you can struggle to keep a lid on. It’s not that you may be an impatient person at heart, it’s just that children are probably the most frustrating adventure that you will http://www.onlinetaichilessons.com/ever have. Children are naturally selfish little beings, and it’s easy for them to demand your time, your energy and your love. It can, however, be rather claustrophobic for a parent to have this much demand on them – even when you do choose it that way!

The screaming baby waiting for a feed, the toddler desperate for you to help them with their potty, the teenager needing the help with their coursework: each of these things can very quickly become too much to handle, and even the most patient person could snap. Before you become a parent at all, you likely knew exactly how to be a parent. Everyone does it; the judgement at the mother losing her temper with the baby having a tantrum is just a prime example. Until it happens to you, you won’t know how to cope, so you judge the person admonishing their child for having feelings. Then, you have your own child and they start to meltdown in the aisle of the supermarket because they wanted BLUE strawberries, and will not accept that strawberries are red. So, how can you gain a little patience in your parenting efforts so that you feel like you’re nailing this parenting thing?

Give Yourself A Break. Parenting is hard. It’s not a game and it doesn’t always feel like a blessing. That can feel horrendous, but your children are relying on you to be calm, collected and happy which just doesn’t happen every day. Carving a little time out of your day for Online Tai Chi Lessons can make a massive difference to your stress levels and the way that you handle impossible situations, so it’s something that you should look into if you are struggling to hold your temper. Every parent has a limit and children are very good at figuring that out and pushing against it. It doesn’t make you a bad parent for snapping back, so give yourself a break.

Learn To Count. You already know how to do this, but it’s extremely difficult to remember how to count to ten when everyone is screeching for different things and demanding your attention RIGHT NOW. Capturing your own patience in these moments is so important, as you can’t teach your children not to lose control and how to control their own reactions if you can’t do the same. Step back, take a deep breath and count to ten.

You Are Only Human. Did you know that humans weren’t designed to be selfless? When you have children, that is what they force you to become. Your own needs – even eating and hygiene – are shoved to the backburner in your life and you are pandering to their needs until they can do things for themselves. But you are only human and sometimes you have to recognize when a situation is starting to make you lose it. Stepping away from the guilt of getting mad is just as important as stepping away in general. You are only human – repeat it after me!

Practice Makes Perfect. Patience doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t have to be perfectly patient every time, but you need to rehearse patience, even if you aren’t in the right environment to make it happen. You are able to envision the things that make you snap and work out how you could respond instead. When you are in the moment, you can’t control that about yourself but if you think about it outside of those pressured minutes, you can devise a plan for the next time the children aren’t playing ball.

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You see, children don’t often go out of their way to drive us crazy, but when you have two or three voices demanding your attention and your love, it can be overwhelming. That’s okay, and it’s important to know that it is okay for you to struggle to be in that situation. Children need boundaries set by you, but they also need your consistency. Never feel guilt for needing a moment to yourself to collect your thoughts and your feelings; you are human, you are made to be pushed and stretched. A parent is never going to be perfect, no matter how hard they try. Don’t aim for perfection, aim for patience.