We all want children who will wait patiently, take turns and manage their emotions, or at least I do. Sometimes children learn these skills at school, or with interactions with siblings. Since I don’t plan on sending my daughter to school and she doesn’t currently have any siblings, I want to be intentional about teaching her these executive functioning skills.
What are Executive Functioning skills?
Executive functioning skills run the gamut from social-emotional skills to time management skills but are essential for learning how to function as an adult. Every four weeks I plan to focus on a skill appropriate for a preschooler. We will work on the skill through games and play. This should only be for 15 minutes once a week to reinforce these skills with my three-year-old.
Waiting Patiently
For our first block, we will be working on waiting patiently for 3 minutes without complaining or whining. Three minutes is an appropriate length of time for a three-year-old. Four-year-olds should be able to wait for roughly 5 minutes and five-year-olds for 8 minutes. The time increases exponentially with age, but currently I want to work on waiting where my daughter is at. She can wait for three minutes, but there is often complaining, demands and whining, so we will work on it.
Working on this skill for 15 minutes once a week is beneficial, but only if I address the issue outside of these times as well. Mostly I need to completely ignore the complaining and whining. As for the demands for “right now,” I will calmly remind her once that she needs to wait till I finish my task before I can do xyz and that she needs to ask me politely. Further demands will be met with silence as I complete my task, then wait patiently, without reminding her, for her to ask politely.
Week 1: Practicing Waiting
For this first week I will be using a timer. We will be taking turns building with blocks. I will explain that this is a game where we each take a turn and see how much we can build before the timer goes off. The person not building needs to wait without touching or whining, though they can ask questions. It will be her turn first and each turn will get longer. We will start with 2 minutes, then 2 ½ minutes and finally 3 minutes.
Week 2: Perfecting Waiting
For the second week, we will also be practicing the skill of washing hands. There is a wonderful kit called the GloGerm Mini Kit (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.) that can show a child how difficult it can be to wash hands free of germs. Basically, you rub a gel all over your hands, front and back, that you can see under a small fluorescent light. This replicates the germs all over your hands and it will generally take 3 to 4 minutes to wash all of it off.
We will use this kit again, but for now, we are going to take turns contaminating our hands and have to wait for the other person to fully wash everything off. The person not washing hands will be in charge of the light to check to see if everything is off. I will go first to model. If necessary, I will remind her that there is no whining or complaining, but her turn will be next.
We will also talk about how we can’t see germs which is why it is important to wash our hands all the way after using the bathroom or before eating.
Week 3: Movement & Waiting
For our third week, we will be running a relay race around the swing set in our backyard. There will be a baton for the runner, and the other person will have to wait on the starting spot for their turn running. We will each run 3 times and have to wait 3 times to finish our race. This not only works on the skill of waiting patiently, but it is also great physical exercise.
Week 4: Reinforcing Waiting
For our fourth week, we will once again be taking turns with some toys. This time the timer will be set for 3 minutes, and we will each have two turns. We have a set of wooden cars that their pieces come off and are interchangeable. We will each take a turn putting together all the cars, then after they are taken apart again, the other person will have a turn. The goal will be to see if we can put together all the cars in the 3 minutes given. I will purposefully try to take the full 3 minutes to assemble the cars to keep her waiting. I will also model and encourage her to cheer on the person building the cars.
Moving Forward
This is my plan for our first 4 weeks of Executive Functioning skill building. Learning through play and focusing on changing my responses to her whining, complaining and demanding. I’m hoping to see a significant reduction in these less than desired behaviors, but I don’t expect them to fully go away in just a month. Our second block will be working on helping each other.
Happy Waiting!
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