Is there a systematic way to teach children patience and tolerance for ambiguity?

Question

Patience and tolerance for ambiguity are important traits for life. They are important in my trade, computer programming, but also in any aspect of life where dealing with new and difficult concepts is important.

It seems that many people have a character flaw: they'd rather have a simple wrong answer *now* than investigate more deeply and get a better answer. They can't stand not having an answer for a problem, and that makes them jump to the first conclusion that vaguely fits. Once they are emotionally invested in an opinion, they will defend it.

I believe that humans have the ability to learn character traits, and that a wise parent would want to teach their child important character traits. Teaching children by example is good, but I believe there are more direct methods.

What is an outline of a program to teach such traits to children? At what ages should it be applied? How would you measure progress?

I should add that I have heard animal trainers explain how to train patience to pets.

If animals can be trained, I am certain that people can be too.

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Manny - you have some interesting points but I am having a hard time making sense of your post. Can you clean it up some?

Catspaw - thanks for adding to your initial post, and I love what you wrote.

Have you considered how to apply your technique systematically and deal with reinforcing what your kids learn and measuring their progress?

Paul - thanks for your answer - definitely thoughtful. You're probably correct that patience and tolerance for ambiguity are separate issues.

I can't deny that examples are extremely effective for teaching, yet this leaves a lot to chance. I further suspect that some parents use this as an excuse to be reactive rather than proactive in teaching character.

Impulsiveness as a "temperment" - I would like to see some evidence for this theory - I can't recall any psychologist espousing it.

I think human personality is highly malleable and as a result, I belive a child's degree of impulsiveness is subject to change due to environmental conditions. With some thought, a program could be designed to encourage less impulsive behavior.

So I think your points are interesting, and some aspects of your points could be refined more. Thanks again for your response.

Answer 1

I think that seeing everything in black and white is a character trait of most children. We tend to want certainty in life, and until you are sure of yourself and where you fit in, certainty is all to you. Of course, lazy thinkers who never developed past the child-mind will refuse to hear anything that contradicts the beliefs they hold, so there's no point in even trying with them.

When I look at a situation and explain it to kids, we go to the most obvious answer first. Then I change a fact or two to send them to the opposite conclusion, then make the scenario bounce back and forth until they have to consider middle ground.

The classic example: Wrong to lie (yes)
Wrong to lie to the Nazi's when they ask if you if you are hiding Jews in the attic? (no)
Wrong to lie to the police about hiding a fugitive from justice? (yes)
What if you know he's innocent?
What if you know he's been framed?
What if he can prove his innocence if he evades capture one more day?
What if he's your father?

Muddy the water with each question, and soon they will understand that all is not as it initially appears to be, and that you have to dig deeper. Once you realize that you have to go deeper in order to truly understand a situation, you pretty much have to be tolerant, or expend the effort to fully investigate.

Answer 2

I suspect that patience and ambiguity tolerance might be very different kettles of fish. My son (12) is very tolerant of ambiguity and I think my wife and I have taught that to him through example. Kids love to ask questions, and it's almost always possible to respond by saying, "Well, let's think about it. Here's one answer. What might be another?" And so on. However, although my wife and I are very patient people, my son is NOT. He's impulsive and we haven't been able to do much about it. It seems too me that patience is more a matter of temperament, but ambiguity tolerance is more of a learnable skill or disposition. But to not answer the original question, I doubt that anything is better than example setting ... and I don't think one can start setting the example too early.

Answer 3

These two are distinctions as of computing skills.
Patience and tolerance are not teachable to most because we trust them not, so good old politicians would discard what they wanted and focus on peoples needs. Humour and perspective are a must, and children do comprehend quite well these two, only needed to get compensation and some generosity in turn for their attention and education, which are truly enough to them as their folks. If you get to the higher dilemma in education, called the adherance factor, this is of help to undercome virtuous and contemptious dominion, very common in programming, coming with orders and directions instead of a distinctive and general idea, which is very much a respective approach, commonly seen as the doorway to praise and some retribution. So we see compensation not penalty is due to attention and foreseen outcome, there are many pathways to erosion and contempt, but the sure way to people hearts is through their intelligence and compulsion for food. There are no other turnups. Bye.

Answer 4

Aside from learning patience from being a mother of two little ones, I've been practicing it every day when I think of where I am now (renting not owning) and where i want to be (finish degree, nice nest egg). Just knowing it'll take years for certain important goals to come to fruition is an exercise in restraint but I console myself in knowing that as long as I'm taking even baby steps daily to accomplish my goal it's not a useless endeavor and I'll reap the benefits just in time.

Answer 5

Tom,

Interesting topic. I feel my children got that trait by teaching them to think critically, to analyze a situation before acting then to look at results as they move along. It's a slow process to teach that and it's very interactive. More or less what you do is help them to walk through various problems as they arise. Measuring it is something I was never able to do.