Patience
"Patience is quiet hope and expectation based on trust, that in the end, everything will be all right. Patience means waiting. It is enduring a delay or troublesome situation without complaining. It means having self-control because you can't control the way someone else is acting or when things don't go as you'd like. Patience is being calm and tolerant when difficult things happen. Patience is seeing the end in the beginning."
-excerpts from the Virtues cards with permission from The Virtues Project™
Questions for reflection:
How do I practice patience in our fast-paced world?
What helps me to be calm and tolerant when difficult things happen?
How can I help the children in my life to be patient?
I recently facilitated a 2 day Virtues Project workshop for the wonderful, dedicated staff of Discovery Montessori School in McAllen, Texas. Here's what Director Robin Cain wrote about Montessori and The Virtues Project:
"It supports Montessori's philosophy and methodology beautifully. Recognizing that virtues are 'the gifts from within', the Virtues Project affirms Montessori's observations of the child's inner guide, and the need for the child to learn to connect to the inner guide to choose what is best. It gives the children (and adults) a beautiful and simple format to cultivate a complete language of the virtues. In addition to the virtues we often use in our Montessori philosophy, those of grace, courtesy, respect, caring, love and kindness, children and the adults in their lives are enriched by learning to fine tune some useful virtues like moderation, tact, assertiveness, enthusiasm, purposefulness, diligence and idealism. We use the language of the virtues to ACKNOWLEDGE the beautiful 'gems' that children are developing, and thereby help them recognize they can use these gems in a variety of situations. We use the language of the virtues to GUIDE children to a virtue that will help them handle a situation with peaceful integrity. We use the language of the virtues to CORRECT children with a virtue that will help them avoid a problem in the future."