Author’s practical guidance
Waiting — lines, restaurants, waiting rooms
Source named in the book: Positive Discipline (Nelsen) · PCIT
Waiting is a skill, and small children have very little of it.
Say this now
“Three more people, then it's us. Count them with me.”
Turns invisible time into something countable.
“Your job is to find five red things. Go.”
Give them a job. "Sit still" is not one.
Do this
- Give the wait a shape: people ahead, songs, stops on the journey.
- Bring the bag — a small new thing they have not seen holds them longer than a familiar favorite.
- Let them move where you can: standing, walking to the window, carrying something.
- Order food the moment you sit down and expect to leave before coffee.
- Save the screen for genuinely long waits so that it still works when you need it.
Avoid this
- "We'll be finished in a minute" — said four times, twenty minutes apart.
- Handing over the phone at the first sign of restlessness — it becomes the only thing that works.
- Expecting a three-year-old to sit through a two-hour restaurant meal.
If it repeats
Waiting grows with practice, but only in doses a child can succeed at. Short waits they manage teach more than long waits they fail. Plan the appointment for the good hour of the day and everything else gets easier.
Why the book suggests this
Waiting is a skill, and small children have very little of it. Time without a shape is close to unbearable at three: there is no way to tell whether a line is nearly over, so every minute feels like it might be permanent.
The behavior you get in a waiting room is therefore not bad manners. It is a child with nothing to do, no sense of when it ends, and a body that was built to move.
From this collection
Same Words: Both Parents
45 prepared situations in this family area.