Patient Hands

I just really don't like grabbing, whining, and begging, so I instituted what we call patient hands. When they start doing one of those aforementioned dreaded actions, I simply remind them to have patient hands and the girls are very good at showing me their patient hands which looks just like the top picture. I started this a long time ago when Hannah was a toddler. I thought teaching her to say Please would help stop the grabbing, etc. However, she would say Please and sign Please over and over frantically, and it drove me nuts while I was in the process of getting whatever it was she wanted. So I thought of this to control her hands and to begin teaching her the impossible lesson of patience.

I started just a week ago trying to teach Isaac this and he picked it up so fast! Here is his slight variation on our patient hands.

Recently I read somewhere about self control hands and I started trying this out with the girls. When they start to get out of control, whether it is their temper or just getting too excited and rambunctious for a certain occasion. It has worked well for us so far.