- Jul 26
- 5 min read

Why is Waiting Difficult for Children?

Updated: Aug 2

Three little girls with medium-dark skin sit in a line on the grass, backs facing the camera

Understanding why waiting is a particularly challenging task for children makes a huge difference in parenting practices.

A child’s underdeveloped attentional network in the brain is responsible for their INABILITY to wait longer than a few minutes. When parents understand that negative behavior is directly related to development, there can be an increase of patience and nurturing as they provide support to the child during these situations, thus fostering growth of executive function skills and lifelong coping strategies.

Why is waiting a challenging task for children?

It is estimated that Americans will spend 37 billion hours each year waiting. As human beings our behavior is goal-oriented and waiting becomes the barrier that prevents us from immediately reaching our goals.

Waiting for a child is a particularly challenging task due their underdeveloped executive function network in the brain.

Executive function refers to the management system of the brain. It is the mental skills and processes that enable us to focus attention, adapt to new and unexpected situations, remember instructions, control impulses, regulate emotions, set and achieve goals, problem solve, plan and organize.

In addition to being governed by their limited attention span, young children’s ability to wait is also influenced by one of the core elements of executive function, called inhibitory control. This means one’s ability to inhibit their impulses and habitual or common behavioral responses to stimuli in order to display appropriate behaviors consistent with one’s goals.

It includes self-regulation, which is defined as a state of being able to manage emotions and impulses, as well as control one’s behavior.

They influence a child’s ability to wait, because children have not developed the cognitive skills required to regulate behavior expectations during the waiting period.

The waiting period may appear to be a time of inactivity, but for a child it is a time of active pursuit using energy as they exercise the ability to control impulses, actions and behaviors, regulate thoughts and respond to stimuli.

Stress for a child can be brought on by over- or under-stimulation, and or subjection to excessive expectations.

When a child encounters experiences that bombard their sensory impressions, they do not have the brain development needed to determine when they have had enough and this can lead to a child feeling out of balance and they react with attention problems, distracting behaviors, repetitive movements, and an inability to sit still. A child is compensating for uncomfortable feelings in their body and their surroundings.

Waiting Immobilizing a child’s body for a period of time is a tedious, tiring and difficult task in this stage of development.

The emotions generated by waiting are frustration, anxiety, regret, annoyance, and uncertainty.

Waiting causes children to feel stress. It also causes stress to parents and often this results in negative interactions between parent and child during this time.

Why is learning to wait so important for a child?

Learning to wait is a crucial life skill and dealing with the emotions of waiting is a method of self-control. It requires training and practice, and it is a psychological state.

Dr. Megan Kaden explains that many people in society never learn how to tolerate the discomfort and unknown of waiting and that one of the most essential skills for adult development is learning how to regulate one’s feelings while waiting.

For children AND adults being able to wait successfully requires emotional regulation abilities, as they monitor, evaluate and modify emotional reactions to accomplish a goal.

What are the physiological reactions to stress for a child?

Stress for a child can be brought on by over- or under-stimulation, and or subjection to excessive expectations. Attentional processes are exhibited by external behaviors, physiological and neural responses and psychological engagement (Gaertner et. al, 2008). When a child encounters experiences that bombard their sensory impressions, they do not have the brain development needed to determine when they have had enough and this can lead to a child feeling out of balance and they react with attention problems, distracting behaviors, repetitive movements, and an inability to sit still. A child is compensating for uncomfortable feelings in their body and their surroundings (Hunter, 2014).

Waiting Immobilizing a child’s body for a period of time is a tedious, tiring and difficult task in this stage of development (Moyer & von Haller Gilmer, 1954).

The emotions generated by waiting are frustration, anxiety, regret, annoyance, and uncertainty.

Waiting causes children to feel stress. It also causes stress to parents and often this results in negative interactions between parent and child during this time-thus interrupting important brain function.

CHILDREN CAN BE TRAINED TO WAIT MORE PATIENTLY WITHOUT SCREENS!

Some behaviors caused by stress:

temper tantrums
whining
attention problems
distracting behaviors
aggressive outbursts
inability to sit still

Can children learn to wait more patiently?

With regards to attention span and helping children be successful in situations that require the developing cognitive skills of executive function, research suggests that young children can be trained to wait more patiently and that their attentional capacities can be improved by supportive and nurturing parents.

Theorists have emphasized that the importance of caregivers’ emotional support experienced within learning moments or problem-solving contexts, is linked to a child’s persistence at tasks and the promotion of engagement with the child’s environment.

In contrast, other research suggests that unfavorable early environments, marked with harsh discipline and low levels of support, were associated with lower levels of attentional control and higher child physical abuse as adults.

This study was also first to demonstrate that parents reporting low levels of attentional control and ability to concentrate, had higher levels of negative emotion and interpersonal problems. This is because when young children experience lack of support in challenging situations, they do not learn to respond flexibly to competing demands of attention and to adapt negative thoughts and feelings to more productive solutions, therefore the quality of a child’s early environment affects the development of higher order attentional abilities and may have long term connections to social and emotional adjustment.

Parents are not always familiar with young children’s neurological capacities, and they often lack the training and tools to enhance executive function development. This can lead to negative interactions during stressful times, such as waiting, interactions that negatively influence the development of positive relationships between the child and their parents. Developmental research also suggests that negative emotions have the potential to disorganize attentional processes.

This is because attentional processes are developed as children practice cognitive skills with support and understanding. Parents need to understand the relationship between inhibitory control and the development of executive function, because cognitive strategies are further developed as they are practiced in challenging situations with patience and support from a caring adult.

Parents should understand that by guiding children patiently through experiences beyond their physical capabilities, they are helping children acquire tools needed to gain power and control over their bodies and mind. Studies show that disruptions to the development of inhibitory control networks from birth to age six may impair executive abilities in adolescence and adulthood resulting in risk factors for later drug use and/or other disorders.

For that reason, high response inhibition abilities for a child represent a protective factor (Elton et al., 2014) from limited self-control, addictions, failure to think ahead about consequences and lack of suitable restraint (Scholastic Parents Staff, 2021). Early inhibitory control is further linked to later psychosocial outcomes, such as adjustment and self-competence, and it appears to affect academic outcomes (Anzman-Frasca et al., 2015; Elton et al., 2014). Knowledge of these possible outcomes may encourage parents to implement and support valuable opportunities to strengthen cognitive function and create growth promoting environments.