Waiting

Once your child is requesting well throughout their day, you may need to think about teaching responding to wait. When we say wait, we are saying this item us not available to you right now, but will be in the near future. ☕📖 When we as adults wait, we are often given distractions - think back to the precovid days of reading a magazine and having a coffee while you wait for your hair appointment! 🥛🍪 It's the same for our children - the first step in learning to wait is accepting and distracting yourself with a less preferred item or activity. Here both Theodore and Lilla are really looking for their drinks, but they will take a cracker while I chatter on. ⛔⛔⛔ You can pair the word Wait with an extra visual prompt like a sign language sign, a wait token or coin. Just remember that this visual is not a magic cure-all, rather an extra level of support in addition to the natural cue (the word wait) and situation. I always say, what happens when the visual is lost or broken? Focusing on a coin or token without addressing the actual situation or planning for generalisation is not real analysis or teaching. When you're teaching this skill, start with small increments of Wait time, when everyone is reasonably calm. As always, we're looking for lots of learning opportunities, so you can do wait a few times a sitting - Theodore got 2 in here! 🕝🕑🕞 What we definitely don't want to see are timers! In real life, who knows how long you'll need to wait - that depends on things outside your control. What is in your control is engaging or distracting yourself to stay calm until that time comes 🕉🕉🕉