Let’s face it: children don’t like wait time. Make a young child wait for something and it won’t be long until you’ve reached a full-on meltdown. (Trust me, I have a 18-month-old, I know!)

Enter: Screen Time! Screen time has appeared on the scene and seems to be a magic cure for this age-old parenting dilemma. Pop a screen in front of a toddler and he’s instantly quiet and calm. He’ll sit happily while you drive across town, finish your meal, or get some housework done. Woo Hoo!

Unfortunately, there’s an unseen problem with this plan. It turns out that forcing a child to wait (through meltdowns, tears, etc.) actually ends up teaching the children how to wait. It’s not a skill that comes easily to them so it takes many battles during the toddler and preschool years, but eventually they learn how to wait and how to entertain themselves when they do have to wait.

When you give a child a screen instead of forcing them to wait and entertain himself, you’re taking away that opportunity he had to learn to wait. What we’re seeing is a whole generation of children who are 5, 6, or 7 years old and have never had to wait for something without being constantly entertained by a screen.

Learning to wait is developed in the toddler years. By the time children are 7 years old, it’s way too late to try to learn that. They’ve never had to wait so trying to do so now is WAY harder!

So what can we do as parents to help our children learn how to wait?

TURN OFF THE SCREENS!!

(If I don’t have you convinced yet, click here to read my article about how screen time could be damaging your child’s language skills and potential)

In order for us to help children learn how to wait, we must show them things that they can do to entertain themselves when it’s time to wait. These must be things that require the child to think and do something as opposed to just sit passively in front of something that will entertain them.

The added bonus of this is that they get to learn, develop, and grow as a person during this time, as well!

The following items are great ideas for helping children entertain themselves while they wait. You can pack a bag full of these items whenever you go somewhere that the child will have to wait:

In an effort to help my 18-month-old through wait time, I have created a set of waiting cards for him. These are cards that ask him questions or give him directions. They contain a variety of skills including a nice mix of things I know he can do easily and skills that are slightly harder for him.

I keep these cards in a small pack in my purse that I can pull out whenever I need them. They have been a LIFESAVER! Plus, my son loves them and he’s learned a few new words and skills from them already.

Here’s the video of our waiting cards so you can see how they work:

It’s quite easy to make your own waiting cards. You’ll just need to get some index cards and write questions on them. For older children, you can just write the questions but for younger children, you may want to include pictures to keep them interested. I used simple clip art or pictures I found on Google Image Search.

Try to include a good mix of skills that will be easy for the child (confidence boosters) and skills that will challenge him. This will be entirely dependent on the language skills of your child and what he can and can’t do.

Below, I am going to list the types of cards that may be good for children of different ages. However, feel free to use questions from older or younger age brackets if your child is working on different skills. Every child develops at different rates!

I also recommend including cards in your set for other family members as well so that the child can learn how to take turns.

1-2 Years:

2-3 Years:

3-4 Years:

4-5 Years:

Ages 5+:

At this age, you can start using questions that target similar things to what they are working on at school. Use school/unit vocabulary and concepts as the basis for your cards. You can also get store-made cards for kids aged 5+ that will allow you to ask even more questions. Products like Brain Quest are a good example of this!

Once you have your waiting cards ready, just bring them with you wherever you go. Whenever your child needs to wait, pull out the cards and start asking. As your child gets older, you’ll be able to pass more of the responsibility off to your child and have him start asking himself the questions.

You may need to create more cards as your child gets better at them or cycle through a few sets of cards so they don’t get boring.

Also, make sure you include everyone in the fun and let each person take turns doing cards. This will help your child learn how to take turns, even with Mom and Dad!

Ok, you know what to do, get going!

Make your own card deck, or start with my question cards if you’re feeling stuck. These are cards with pictures of various objects plus all types of questions to go along with each card. It will give you ideas of the types of questions you can ask!

Looking for more therapy ideas and resources to help you provide the BEST services to your clients?  Join us in The SLP Solution, our membership program for speech-language professionals!  Inside the membership, you'll find:

To join us in the full SLP Solution, or to snag a free membership, click on the button below!

The post Waiting Cards: Language-Boosting Alternatives for Screen Time appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.