Everyday skills · 6 min read
Why Waiting Is So Hard — and How to Teach It
Waiting asks a child to hold an unmet want in mind while doing nothing about it. That takes working memory, a sense of time, and impulse control — three systems that are still under construction in young children, and that often develop on a different timeline for autistic children.
So waiting is not a character issue. It is a skill, and skills can be broken into steps.
Make time visible
"Five more minutes" means nothing to a child who cannot yet feel five minutes. Give time a shape they can see shrinking: a sand timer, a visual countdown, or a strip of tokens they remove one by one.
Start absurdly short. Ten seconds of successful waiting beats three minutes of failure, because the goal is to build the memory of succeeding.
Use first-then language
"First shoes, then park" is clearer than "we can go to the park once you finally put your shoes on." Two steps, in order, with the reward visible at the end.
Pair it with a first-then board so the sequence stays on the wall instead of in your voice.
Give the wait a job
An empty wait is far harder than a busy one. Hand over something to do with hands or eyes.
- A waiting strip to move a token along
- A small fidget kept only for waiting moments
- A search game — find five red things in this room
- A breathing card to follow twice
Rehearse the hard places in advance
Waiting rooms, checkout lines, restaurants, and car rides are predictable. Practice a two-minute wait at home first, then bring the same tool to the real place so it is already familiar.
Pack the waiting tools before you need them. Improvising in line never goes well.
Celebrate the wait, not the silence
Name exactly what worked: "You waited through the whole timer and you asked instead of grabbing." Specific praise teaches; "good job" does not.
A certificate or sticker at the end of a hard wait turns an invisible effort into something a child can see and be proud of.
Tools that help
Frequently asked questions
Why is waiting so hard for autistic children?
Waiting relies on time perception, working memory, and impulse control, and it is made harder by uncertainty. Autistic children often experience time differently and feel intense discomfort with unpredictability, so making the wait visible and finite helps far more than repeating a verbal instruction.
How long should a child be able to wait?
Start with what your child can already do — even ten seconds — and add small increments. Many preschoolers manage one to three minutes with a visual support; longer waits need an activity.
What is a waiting strip?
A waiting strip is a printed strip with spaces for tokens. The child moves or removes one token at a time as the wait passes, giving an abstract wait a concrete, visible ending.
Do reward charts help with waiting?
They help when the reward is immediate, small, and tied to a specific behavior you name out loud. They stop working when the goal is too far away to feel real.