Why Waiting Is So Difficult
Part 28 in the Understanding Your Child's Emotions series
A child wants a biscuit. Not after dinner. Now.
Another repeatedly asks "Are we there yet?" during a car journey.
A third struggles to wait their turn in a game, despite knowing the rules.
Many adults assume children simply need more patience. In reality, waiting is a surprisingly complicated skill involving self-control, future thinking, emotional regulation, trust - executive functioning.
The ability to wait is not something children are born knowing how to do. Like many emotional skills, it develops gradually.
The Challenge of Delayed Gratification
Waiting often involves delaying gratification. In simple terms, it means postponing a smaller reward now in exchange for a larger reward later. Adults do this constantly. We save money, study for qualifications, diet, exercise - suffer in the present for the future goal. In other words, we postpone things we want today because we believe there will be a better outcome tomorrow. For children, this can be much harder. The future is less certain. The reward feels further away.
The Marshmallow Test
One of the most famous studies in psychology involved a marshmallow. Psychologist Walter Mischel invited children into a room and offered them a choice (Mischel, Ebbesen & Zeiss, 1972). They could eat one marshmallow immediately, or wait and receive two marshmallows later. Some children waited. Others ate the marshmallow almost immediately.
The study became famous because researchers initially believed it revealed something important about self-control and later success. For many years it was presented as a simple story about willpower. The reality turned out to be much more interesting.
Waiting Is About More Than Willpower
Modern research suggests that success in delay-of-gratification tasks depends on more than self-control alone. Trust appears to play an important role.
Imagine two children, one usually experiences adults keeping promises, the other has experienced unpredictability and disappointment. Waiting for the second marshmallow makes much more sense for the first child than it does for the second.
Researchers have found that children's decisions about waiting are influenced not only by self-control but also by their expectations about whether promised rewards will actually arrive (Watts, Duncan & Quan, 2018). Suddenly waiting becomes more than a test of patience - it becomes a question of trust.
The Developing Brain
Children also find waiting difficult because the skills involved are still developing. Psychologist Adele Diamond describes executive functions as a collection of mental skills that help with impulse control, planning, attention, self-monitoring, and flexible thinking (Diamond, 2013).
These abilities continue developing throughout childhood and adolescence. This means the gap between "I want this” and "I can wait for this” may be much larger for a child than for an adult.
The Future Is Hard to Feel
Waiting requires children to think about the future. That sounds simple but isn't. Young children tend to be heavily influenced by what is happening right now, their present feels real, whereas their future feels abstract. A biscuit on the table is real, but the promise of a bigger reward in twenty minutes is only an idea.
Developmental psychologists have found that children's ability to think about future situations develops gradually over time (Atance & Meltzoff, 2005), and as this ability develops, waiting often becomes easier.
Waiting Creates Big Feelings
When adults think about waiting, they often think about behaviour. Children experience it emotionally as waiting can trigger frustration, excitement, disappointment, impatience, anxiety etc. Learning to wait therefore requires more than self-control. It also involves learning how to cope with emotional discomfort.
In many ways, waiting is emotional practice. Children discover that difficult feelings can be tolerated and that rewards do eventually arrive.
Helping Children Learn to Wait
Waiting is a skill. And like any skill, it improves with practice. Adults can help by using visual timers, giving predictable timeframes, explaining what will happen, breaking long waits into smaller chunks, acknowledging frustrations.
Children tend to cope better when waiting feels understandable. For example "Five more minutes" is often easier than "Later." Predictability makes waiting easier.
Distraction Can Help
One of the most interesting findings from the original marshmallow studies was that children who waited successfully often distracted themselves (Mischel et al., 1972). They sang songs, looked away, talked to themselves, played imaginary games.
Adults do similar things, they scroll on their phones in queues, listen to music during journeys, chat while waiting. Attention influences patience. The more we focus on what we are waiting for, the harder waiting often becomes.
What Does This Mean for Adults?
When children struggle to wait, it is easy to assume they are being impatient. Sometimes they are, but often they are still developing a range of important skills.
Waiting requires children to manage emotions, trust promises, imagine future outcomes, resist impulses, tolerate discomfort. That is a lot to ask of a developing brain. Understanding this can help adults set more realistic expectations.
Try This
The next time a child is struggling to wait:
acknowledge that waiting is difficult,
make the timeframe clear,
use a timer if appropriate,
offer something constructive to focus on,
praise successful waiting, even when it is brief.
Small successes build important skills.
Questions for Reflection
Which situations make waiting most difficult for children?
How predictable are waiting experiences?
Do children trust that promises will be kept?
How do adults model patience when they have to wait?
What emotions seem most closely linked to waiting?
Key Takeaway
Waiting is about far more than patience, it involves self-control, trust, executive functioning, future thinking and emotional resilience. Children are not born with these abilities fully developed, they learn them gradually through experience. Every time a child successfully waits, even for a short period, they are practising skills that will support them throughout life.
References
Atance, C. M., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2005). My Future Self: Young Children's Ability to Anticipate and Explain Future States. Cognitive Development, 20(3), 341-361.
Diamond, A. (2013). Executive Functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135-168.
Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Zeiss, A. R. (1972). Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204-218.
Watts, T. W., Duncan, G. J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes. Psychological Science, 29(7), 1159-1177.
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