One of the most important skills we knew our kids needed to learn at an early age was how to sit still. Sure, we want our kids to be able to run, jump, and dance, but when the time comes to sit – we needed to count on them knowing how. This is especially critical for flying on airplanes, eating out at restaurants, and going to church.
We started small. Five minutes on the sofa (with no screens turned on). We would instruct the kids they needed to stay sitting on their bums, no getting up, until we said the time was up. Meanwhile, we would be nearby sitting as well. Of course, we would supply the kids with coloring books + crayons, as well as a book to read. We also taught our kids how to twiddle their thumbs. Eventually, we worked our way up to 30 minutes of sitting on the sofa. At that point, we were confident about the kids ability to sit still and it opened up the doors to doing so many more things because we had that much more confidence in our little family!
