How to Teach Children Self-Control: Learning to Wait

Looking for strategies to teach your students self-control skills like learning to wait?In this episode I give you strategies to teach waiting skills to your students. We talk about where to start with teaching waiting skills and how to build on waiting skills once a students has learned to wait for short periods of time. The first step to teaching waiting skills is teaching students an appropriate request for an item/object/or activity. This is because waiting often occurs after the student has requested something. We want to make sure we are providing reinforcement with access to the requested item/activity/object based on an appropriate request. From there, we move on to teaching tolerance for waiting. Some of our students might not have any waiting skills when we first start teaching these skills. I provide you with step-by- step instructions on how to increase waiting skills and the amount of time a student can wait. Next, we talk about how to build on waiting stamina in a systematic way that can be very effective for your students. We can build up waiting stamina through different strategies that are discussed within the episode.We also talk about to transfer waiting skills to situations that occur in your classroom. While students are waiting we can provide them with choices of other appropriate activities and use visual supports to increase appropriate waiting behavior. Teaching students self-control skills can be tricky, especially when they involve waiting. Waiting can be an abstract concept to a lot of our students. The strategies included in this episode make waiting more concrete and can help our students develop appropriate waiting skills. Throughout the episode I walk you through an evidence-based process for teaching waiting skills, therefore teaching self-control skills to your students. Join the Teaching Behavior Together CommunityJoin the email list for weekly emails, monthly freebies, and alerts for sales and new products. (Click Here)Visit my website for more strategies and interventions you can use daily in your classroom. (Click Here)Follow me on Instagram for daily behavior and social emotional learning tips (Click Here)Follow me over on Pinterest for all things behavior and social emotional learning (Click Here)