Waiting for Fun
About this time last year, I shared the following story:
One day when our children were young, I was standing in our tiny kitchen in Illinois talking on the phone, while our little Mary Evelyn waited eagerly for me to hang up. With her mommy tethered to a landline with a cord, our resourceful little girl got pen and scrap paper. Not knowing how to write words yet, she drew a rebus–a drawing of a girl, the letter E, and an arrow pointing up. She handed it to me.
Mary Evelyn wanted me to HER–E–Up! Today, about 35 years later, it is framed and hanging in our pantry.
Waiting is often hard for little ones. It is hard for us “big ones,” too.
We wait a great deal—probably more than we realize. Children need to learn to wait patiently. We adults do, too. Perhaps some of the hardest things young children must wait for are the fun things. Learning to wait can make their fun things even more enjoyable. Children find it especially hard to learn to wait their turn, whether they are waiting for a turn on the swing at the playground or waiting for their turn during a game. Teaching them how to wait for fun takes patience, but it is worth the patience. Waiting your turn is an essential skill for the good of the children themselves. It will help them to relate well to others, too.
I had a fun time looking for historic pictures of children and adults waiting for fun. Here are some of the ones I found.
Waiting for a Bite, after Winslow Homer.
Harper’s Weekly, August 22, 1874.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum,
The Ray Austrian Collection, gift of Beatrice L. Austrian,
Caryl A. Austrian and James A. Austrian.
Children waiting their turn on a slide, Shafter migrant camp,
Shafter, California. Photo by Arthur Rothstein,
March 1940. Courtesy Library of Congress.
Waiting for locker keys at the Betsy Head Play Center, Brooklyn, New York.Â
Photographed by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., July 14, 1939.Â
Courtesy Library of Congress.
People at the National Rice Festival, waiting for the start of the game Beano,
Crowley, Louisiana. Photo by Lee Russell, 1938. CourtesyÂ
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs:
Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.
Waiting to get in the movie theater on Saturday afternoon,
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott,Â
March 1940. Courtesy Library of Congress.
On Sunday people waited as long as an hourÂ
to get into the municipal swimming pool, Washington, D.C.Â
Photo by Marjory Collins, July 1942.Â
Courtesy Library of Congress.
Waiting to buy tickets at the Radio City Music Hall,Â
New York City, New York. Photo by Marjory Collins,Â
c. August 1942. Courtesy Library of Congress.
Waiting to ride the roller coaster, Glen Echo, Maryland.Â
Photo by Esther Bubley, April 1943.
Courtesy Library of Congress.
Waiting for the merry-go-round to start at the Fourth of July picnic,Â
Bridgeton, New Jersey. Photo by John Collier Jr.,
July 1942. Courtesy Library of Congress.
Waiting for the merry-go-round at Fiesta, Taos, New Mexico.Â
Photo by Lee Russell, July 1940.
Courtesy Library of Congress.
Girls wait to catch a large rubber ball at National Music Camp
where 300 or more young musicians studied symphonic music
for 8 weeks each summer, Interlochen, Michigan. Photo by Arthur S. Siegel,
c. August 1942. Courtesy Library of Congress.
God’s wisdom in Deuteronomy 11:19 can help us teach children to wait. Children learn best when they learn through a variety of daily circumstances “when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Because homeschooling provides so much time for parents and children to be together, it offers abundant opportunities for teaching children to wait. Homeschooling provides mamas and daddies opportunities to learn to wait, too, and it teaches us to lean on God.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:14