I realised yesterday that in this fast paced world of the internet, games consoles and I-player, children no longer have to wait for anything. Memories of hours waiting for games to load and waiting all week for the next installment of my Saturday morning cartoon seem so long ago now, and I realised that we now have to be a bit more inventive in making sure our children learn that some things are not immediate and they have to wait sometimes.
Some obvious choices are gardening and baking, they have both instant and delayed gratification from, but I also started thinking of games, suddenly it hit me, Hide and go seek! Not only do you have to take turns, another valuable lesson, but also you have to wait to both hide and to seek. So after breakfast a morning game was in order, I was great fun watching Arthur hide in obvious places, like in his 'cave', the space between two armchairs, and right in front of me with his eyes covered! Then for my turn I got him to go count to ten with daddy's help, else it would be '1, 2, here I come!' The funniest thing about playing this with a toddler though is explaining that you have to find them, not have them say "Here I am Mummy!!" before you get a chance to look for them!
Another thing that I have started today which I will start practicing with Arthur is a form of kiddified meditation, using a water and glitter sensory bottle, I shook it vigorously and told Arthur he had to sit still till all the glitter was completely settled, then we shook our bodies and moved as fast as we could to make it fun for him, then I shook it again and repeated! He seemed to really enjoy it, but I only did it three time as I didn't want him getting bored of it. Also my bottle doesn't contain oil, I am assuming it would take longer to settle if it did, I think this could also be an effective time out / quiet time tool.
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