that it is vital for people to have today in order to endure tough living conditions or deteriorating economic or social circumstances. There is a growing demand for patience. But is patience an inbuilt personal characteristic, or can it also be acquired? In the past, people would commonly describe each other as either patient or rash. However, modern science has refuted the notion that patience is an innate personal characteristic. Patience can also be acquired, as professor of educational psychology Rabab Al-Sheshtawi told Al-Ahram Weekly. “Patience involves the idea that whenever a person faces a problem he will find a solution. He will have the idea that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. For example, when such a person has a problem he does not complain about it. He feels that tomorrow will be better despite not being able to see it at that moment. The more a person develops such convictions, the more patient he will be,” Al-Sheshtawi said. She added that patience can be learned through various activities. “People should try not reacting to events immediately, but instead should wait until 24 hours have passed. For example, if a person is faced with a problem at work he should not insist on a quick reaction. Instead, he should wait for 24 hours to go by before reacting. By the time he has cooled down, he will be able to see things much more clearly,” she said. In household matters it is also a good idea to develop the virtue of patience. “If children are naughty and make a lot of noise, it could be because of one of two things. Either they have taken some of a parent's negative energy, or they want someone to pay attention to them,” Al-Sheshtawi said, adding that negative energy can be contagious. If a mother is nervous, a child may also be nervous. A mother may be in a rush to do more than one thing at a time, and so she starts feeling tense without even noticing. However, this tension will be sent to her child in the form of negative energy. Children then translate negative energy into bad behaviour. Fortunately, patience can be acquired from a very young age, and Al-Sheshtawi gives instances of how parents can teach their children patience. “A mother should ignore her child, not scold him, if she thinks he simply wants attention. This will indicate to him that this kind of behaviour does not get results. If a mother is nervous, she should first try to be calm before dealing with her children,” she said. “If a child insists on something that he wants and starts getting at his mother, she should not respond immediately. Then she should say no. Many mothers give children what they want to escape their children's crying. But this teaches children not to be patient. A good mother should tell her child to drop the issue because they will talk about it later, or she should tell him to be patient,” Al-Sheshtawi said. Some people may also have a problem with forgiving others if they have wronged them, and they may carry grudges. This is not healthy since they also need to learn to be patient. “In the instance of someone wanting to avenge himself on someone who has mistreated him, he should be patient since no bad deed goes without punishment,” Al-Sheshtawi said. “If a person keeps himself busy with the idea of vengeance, on the other hand, he will lose more than he has already.” For example, if a young woman engaged to someone breaks up with her fiancé and quickly engages herself to someone else, she may be ruining her personal life, Al-Sheshtawi said. She will be the one who loses, since the other person may not be the right one for her either. The same thing goes for someone subjected to a financial crisis who is tempted to take vengeance on the people around him. This person will also lose out in the long run. “In general, if a person reacts to something out of spite or revenge, this person is losing, not gaining. It means that this person's actions are in fact reactions, and he is not in control of himself as a human being,” Al-Sheshtawi said. In the case of rules and how people should react if they do not like them, Al-Sheshtawi said that people should express their feelings, but that they should still abide by the rules in a spirit of patience. Expressing one's views is the correct thing to do, she said, but this should not go so far as to break the rules because one does not like them. 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Operation game How to be patient Psychologist Rabab Al-Sheshtawi gives her tips on how parents and children can learn to be more patient: • Learn to ignore small things. For example, if your children are jumping on your bed you should let them jump, as nothing will happen. It's not the end of the world. • Let your children take out their energy. If they scream, don't prevent them from doing so. You should leave them some space to express themselves. • Only stop your children from doing something if it is serious or harmful. For example, if your child did not get full marks in a subject at school and starts crying and blaming himself, you should tell him that it is ok and that he will do better in his next exam. • Learn to accept your mistakes and the mistakes of your children. It is normal for people to make mistakes. You should teach your children that it is ok to make a mistake once in a while since we are all human. • Failure is one of the steps to success. Persistence and patience show creativity. Every successful person must have tried more than once before becoming successful.
