Patience is a struggle no matter what age you are. When you are little having patience waiting for someone you love feels unbearable. Whether it is waiting to get picked up from school or waiting for someone to come home from military duty time seems to drag.

One way to help children with understanding time is doing a countdown. People like to count the days until Christmas or their birthdays. Having visuals helps understanding time and waiting more bearable.

• for short waits use a sandtimer app. The sand moving from the top to the bottom helps show that time is passing.
• For longer waits use predictable daily events, after dinner, too ” sleeps”, when you get home from school.
• When waiting for days, weeks or months use a large wall calendar. If the child is on a schedule where he is at mom’s house on certain days and dad’s house on certain days post that on the calendar.

Having the calendar easy to see and understand helps the child feel calmer and may reduce the number of times they ask when something is going to happen.